title: The role of aberrant salience and self-concept clarity in psychotic-like experiences.
abstract: Most theories of psychotic-like experiences posit the involvement of cognitive mechanisms. The current research examined the relations between psychotic-like experiences and two cognitive mechanisms, high aberrant salience and low self-concept clarity. In particular, we examined whether aberrant salience, or the incorrect assignment of importance to neutral stimuli, and low self-concept clarity interacted to predict psychotic-like experiences. The current research included three large samples (n = 667, 724, 744) of participants and oversampled for increased schizotypal personality traits. In all three studies, an interaction between aberrant salience and self-concept clarity was found such that participants with high aberrant salience and low self-concept clarity had the highest levels of psychotic-like experiences. In addition, aberrant salience and self-concept clarity interacted to predict a supplemental measure of delusions in Study 2. In Study 3, in contrast to low self-concept clarity, neuroticism did not interact with aberrant salience to predict psychotic-like experiences, suggesting that the relation between low self-concept clarity and psychosis may not be a result of neuroticism. Additionally, aberrant salience and self-concept clarity did not interact to predict two other SPD criteria, social anhedonia or trait paranoia, which suggests the interaction is specific to psychotic-like experiences. Overall, our results are consistent with several cognitive models of psychosis suggesting that aberrant salience and self-concept clarity might be important mechanisms in the occurrence of psychotic-like symptoms.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, USA.
authors.forename: David C
authors.initials: DC
authors.lastname: Cicero
authors.forename: Theresa M
authors.initials: TM
authors.lastname: Becker
authors.forename: Elizabeth A
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Martin
authors.forename: Anna R
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Docherty
authors.forename: John G
authors.initials: JG
authors.lastname: Kerns
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D059445:Anhedonia; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000523:psychology; D001288:Attention; D003702:Delusions / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006212:Hallucinations / Q000523:psychology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008960:Models, Psychological; D000075384:Neuroticism; D010552:Personality Assessment / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011618:Psychotic Disorders / Q000150:complications / Q000523:psychology*; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012569:Schizotypal Personality Disorder / Q000150:complications / Q000523:psychology*; D012649:Self Concept; D055815:Young Adult