Failing to ponder? Delusion-prone individuals rush to conclusions.
Jumping to conclusions (JTC) has been proposed as an aetiological factor involved in the formation of delusions from the earliest stages. A number of researchers have thus shifted their focus to include the study of subclinical populations. Expanding on these studies, 17 delusion-prone and 22 control students completed four versions of the beads-in-a-jar paradigm (including multiple jar variants) to test recent claims regarding JTC's specificity to less ambiguous paradigms with a limited number of jars. Additional measures were administered to tease out a potential mechanism underlying JTC. The delusion-prone group showed a higher JTC bias which proved relatively robust across variants. Task performance was related to degree of self-reported rushing. It is concluded that delusion-prone individuals exhibit JTC, even when confronted with more ambiguous scenarios, potentially as a consequence of feeling rushed.
White
Lars O
LO
Division of Psychology, School of Psychological Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK.
Mansell
Warren
W
D000328:Adult; D001290:Attitude; D003657:Decision Making; D003702:Delusions / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013850:Thinking