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  • Cited by 304
  • Cited by
    Crossref Citations
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    This article has been cited by the following publications. This list is generated based on data provided by CrossRef.
    Rose, Mariamne Ellett, Lyn Huddy, Vyv and Brown, Gary P. 2019. The simulation heuristic, paranoia, and social anxiety in a non-clinical sample. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, Vol. 62, Issue. , p. 15.
    Ascone, Leonie Schlier, Björn Sundag, Johanna and Lincoln, Tania M. 2019. Pathways from insecure attachment dimensions to paranoia: The mediating role of hyperactivating emotion regulation versus blaming others. Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice,
    Bortolon, Catherine Lopes, Bárbara Capdevielle, Delphine Macioce, Valéry and Raffard, Stéphane 2019. The roles of cognitive avoidance, rumination and negative affect in the association between abusive supervision in the workplace and non-clinical paranoia in a sample of workers working in France. Psychiatry Research, Vol. 271, Issue. , p. 581.
    Cowles, Megan and Hogg, Lorna 2019. An Experimental Investigation into the Effect of State-Anxiety on State-Paranoia in People Experiencing Psychosis. Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy, Vol. 47, Issue. 1, p. 52.
    Saalfeld, Vanessa Ramadan, Zeina Bell, Vaughan and Raihani, Nichola J. 2018. Experimentally induced social threat increases paranoid thinking. Royal Society Open Science, Vol. 5, Issue. 8, p. 180569.
    Bird, Jessica C Evans, Robin Waite, Felicity Loe, Bao S and Freeman, Daniel 2018. Adolescent Paranoia: Prevalence, Structure, and Causal Mechanisms. Schizophrenia Bulletin,
    Lopes, Barbara C. Kamau, Caroline and Jaspal, Rusi 2018. Coping With Perceived Abusive Supervision: The Role of Paranoia. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, p. 154805181879582.
    Meisel, Susanne F. Garety, Philippa A. Stahl, Daniel and Valmaggia, Lucia R. 2018. Interpersonal processes in paranoia: a systematic review. Psychological Medicine, Vol. 48, Issue. 14, p. 2299.
    Imhoff, Roland and Lamberty, Pia 2018. How paranoid are conspiracy believers? Toward a more fine-grained understanding of the connect and disconnect between paranoia and belief in conspiracy theories. European Journal of Social Psychology, Vol. 48, Issue. 7, p. 909.
    Amirpour, Leila Dadfar, Mahboubeh Heydari Charvadeh, Majid and Birashk, Behrooz 2018. Reliability, Validity, and Factorial Structure of the Farsi Version of the Paranoia Checklist With Iranian Students. SAGE Open, Vol. 8, Issue. 4, p. 215824401881712.
    Lincoln, Tania M Sundag, Johanna Schlier, Björn and Karow, Anne 2018. The Relevance of Emotion Regulation in Explaining Why Social Exclusion Triggers Paranoia in Individuals at Clinical High Risk of Psychosis. Schizophrenia Bulletin, Vol. 44, Issue. 4, p. 757.
    Carr, Sarah Christina Hardy, Amy and Fornells-Ambrojo, Miriam 2018. Relationship between attachment style and symptom severity across the psychosis spectrum: A meta-analysis. Clinical Psychology Review, Vol. 59, Issue. , p. 145.
    Sellers, Rachel Emsley, Richard Wells, Adrian and Morrison, Anthony P. 2018. The role of cognitive and metacognitive factors in non-clinical paranoia and negative affect. Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice, Vol. 91, Issue. 2, p. 169.
    Whale, Katherine Green, Kathleen and Browne, Kevin 2018. Attachment style, psychotic phenomena and the relationship with aggression: an investigation in a general population sample. Journal of Aggression, Conflict and Peace Research,
    Bell, Vaughan and O’Driscoll, Ciarán 2018. The network structure of paranoia in the general population. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, Vol. 53, Issue. 7, p. 737.
    Sundag, Johanna Ascone, Leonie and Lincoln, Tania M. 2018. The predictive value of early maladaptive schemas in paranoid responses to social stress. Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy, Vol. 25, Issue. 1, p. 65.
    Seo, Jihyeon and Choi, Ji Young 2018. Social defeat as a mediator of the relationship between childhood trauma and paranoid ideation. Psychiatry Research, Vol. 260, Issue. , p. 48.
    Finn, Emily S. Corlett, Philip R. Chen, Gang Bandettini, Peter A. and Constable, R. Todd 2018. Trait paranoia shapes inter-subject synchrony in brain activity during an ambiguous social narrative. Nature Communications, Vol. 9, Issue. 1,
    Zangrilli, Alessia 2018. La bambina e le sue mappe. Commento al caso clinico di Anna. PSICOBIETTIVO, p. 119.
    Rüegg, Nina Moritz, Steffen Berger, Thomas Lüdtke, Thies and Westermann, Stefan 2018. An internet-based intervention for people with psychosis (EviBaS): study protocol for a randomized controlled trial. BMC Psychiatry, Vol. 18, Issue. 1,
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Psychological investigation of the structure of paranoia in a non-clinical population

  • Daniel Freeman (a1), Philippa A. Garety (a1), Paul E. Bebbington (a2), Benjamin Smith (a2), Rebecca Rollinson (a3), David Fowler (a3), Elizabeth Kuipers (a4), Katarzyna Ray (a5) and Graham Dunn (a6)...
Abstract
Background

Previous studies of paranoia have assessed only limited numbers of paranoid thoughts, and have not considered the experience from a multidimensional perspective or examined the relationship between different suspicious thoughts.

Aims

To assess a wide range of paranoid thoughts multidimensionally and examine their distribution, to identify the associated coping strategies and to examine social–cognitive processes and paranoia.

Method

Six questionnaire assessments were completed by 1202 individuals using the internet.

Results

Paranoid thoughts occurred regularly in approximately a third of the group. Increasing endorsement of paranoid thoughts was characterised by the recruitment of rarer and odder ideas. Higher levels of paranoia were associated with emotional and avoidant coping, less use of rational and detached coping, negative attitudes to emotional expression, submissive behaviours and lower social rank.

Conclusions

Suspiciousness is common and there may be a hierarchical arrangement of such thoughts that builds on common emotional concerns.

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Copyright
COPYRIGHT: © 2005 The Royal College of Psychiatrists 
Corresponding author
Dr Daniel Freeman, Department of Psychology, PO Box 77, Institute of Psychiatry, Denmark Hill, London SE5 8AF, UK. E-mail: D.Freeman@iop.kcl.ac.uk
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Declaration of interest

None.

Footnotes
References
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  • Cited by 304
  • Cited by
    Crossref Citations
    Crossref logo
    This article has been cited by the following publications. This list is generated based on data provided by CrossRef.
    Rose, Mariamne Ellett, Lyn Huddy, Vyv and Brown, Gary P. 2019. The simulation heuristic, paranoia, and social anxiety in a non-clinical sample. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, Vol. 62, Issue. , p. 15.
    Ascone, Leonie Schlier, Björn Sundag, Johanna and Lincoln, Tania M. 2019. Pathways from insecure attachment dimensions to paranoia: The mediating role of hyperactivating emotion regulation versus blaming others. Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice,
    Bortolon, Catherine Lopes, Bárbara Capdevielle, Delphine Macioce, Valéry and Raffard, Stéphane 2019. The roles of cognitive avoidance, rumination and negative affect in the association between abusive supervision in the workplace and non-clinical paranoia in a sample of workers working in France. Psychiatry Research, Vol. 271, Issue. , p. 581.
    Cowles, Megan and Hogg, Lorna 2019. An Experimental Investigation into the Effect of State-Anxiety on State-Paranoia in People Experiencing Psychosis. Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy, Vol. 47, Issue. 1, p. 52.
    Saalfeld, Vanessa Ramadan, Zeina Bell, Vaughan and Raihani, Nichola J. 2018. Experimentally induced social threat increases paranoid thinking. Royal Society Open Science, Vol. 5, Issue. 8, p. 180569.
    Bird, Jessica C Evans, Robin Waite, Felicity Loe, Bao S and Freeman, Daniel 2018. Adolescent Paranoia: Prevalence, Structure, and Causal Mechanisms. Schizophrenia Bulletin,
    Lopes, Barbara C. Kamau, Caroline and Jaspal, Rusi 2018. Coping With Perceived Abusive Supervision: The Role of Paranoia. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, p. 154805181879582.
    Meisel, Susanne F. Garety, Philippa A. Stahl, Daniel and Valmaggia, Lucia R. 2018. Interpersonal processes in paranoia: a systematic review. Psychological Medicine, Vol. 48, Issue. 14, p. 2299.
    Imhoff, Roland and Lamberty, Pia 2018. How paranoid are conspiracy believers? Toward a more fine-grained understanding of the connect and disconnect between paranoia and belief in conspiracy theories. European Journal of Social Psychology, Vol. 48, Issue. 7, p. 909.
    Amirpour, Leila Dadfar, Mahboubeh Heydari Charvadeh, Majid and Birashk, Behrooz 2018. Reliability, Validity, and Factorial Structure of the Farsi Version of the Paranoia Checklist With Iranian Students. SAGE Open, Vol. 8, Issue. 4, p. 215824401881712.
    Lincoln, Tania M Sundag, Johanna Schlier, Björn and Karow, Anne 2018. The Relevance of Emotion Regulation in Explaining Why Social Exclusion Triggers Paranoia in Individuals at Clinical High Risk of Psychosis. Schizophrenia Bulletin, Vol. 44, Issue. 4, p. 757.
    Carr, Sarah Christina Hardy, Amy and Fornells-Ambrojo, Miriam 2018. Relationship between attachment style and symptom severity across the psychosis spectrum: A meta-analysis. Clinical Psychology Review, Vol. 59, Issue. , p. 145.
    Sellers, Rachel Emsley, Richard Wells, Adrian and Morrison, Anthony P. 2018. The role of cognitive and metacognitive factors in non-clinical paranoia and negative affect. Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice, Vol. 91, Issue. 2, p. 169.
    Whale, Katherine Green, Kathleen and Browne, Kevin 2018. Attachment style, psychotic phenomena and the relationship with aggression: an investigation in a general population sample. Journal of Aggression, Conflict and Peace Research,
    Bell, Vaughan and O’Driscoll, Ciarán 2018. The network structure of paranoia in the general population. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, Vol. 53, Issue. 7, p. 737.
    Sundag, Johanna Ascone, Leonie and Lincoln, Tania M. 2018. The predictive value of early maladaptive schemas in paranoid responses to social stress. Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy, Vol. 25, Issue. 1, p. 65.
    Seo, Jihyeon and Choi, Ji Young 2018. Social defeat as a mediator of the relationship between childhood trauma and paranoid ideation. Psychiatry Research, Vol. 260, Issue. , p. 48.
    Finn, Emily S. Corlett, Philip R. Chen, Gang Bandettini, Peter A. and Constable, R. Todd 2018. Trait paranoia shapes inter-subject synchrony in brain activity during an ambiguous social narrative. Nature Communications, Vol. 9, Issue. 1,
    Zangrilli, Alessia 2018. La bambina e le sue mappe. Commento al caso clinico di Anna. PSICOBIETTIVO, p. 119.
    Rüegg, Nina Moritz, Steffen Berger, Thomas Lüdtke, Thies and Westermann, Stefan 2018. An internet-based intervention for people with psychosis (EviBaS): study protocol for a randomized controlled trial. BMC Psychiatry, Vol. 18, Issue. 1,
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Psychological investigation of the structure of paranoia in a non-clinical population

  • Daniel Freeman (a1), Philippa A. Garety (a1), Paul E. Bebbington (a2), Benjamin Smith (a2), Rebecca Rollinson (a3), David Fowler (a3), Elizabeth Kuipers (a4), Katarzyna Ray (a5) and Graham Dunn (a6)...
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