Differences in social status and politics encourage paranoid
thinking
University College London
Differences in social status and political belief increase
paranoid interpretations of other people's actions, finds a new UCL
experimental study.
Paranoia
is the tendency to assume other people are trying to harm you when their actual
motivations are unclear, and this tendency is increased when interacting with
someone of a higher social status or opposing political beliefs, according to
the study published in Royal
Society Open Science.
"Being
alert to social danger is key to our survival, but our results suggest social
difference alone encourages us to think that the other person wants to harm
us," said the study's senior author, Professor Nichola Raihani (UCL
Psychology & Language Sciences).
"Intense
paranoia is also a symptom of mental ill health, and is more common among
people who perceive themselves to have low social rank. We believe our findings
could shed light on why paranoia is more common in those who are struggling on
the social ladder and excluded by society," she added.
For the study, 2,030 people participated in an online experiment where they were paired with another person and given a sum of money.
Ahead of the experiment, all participants had reported their typical levels of paranoid thinking by filling out a questionnaire, as well as their own perceived social status and their political affiliation along the liberal-conservative spectrum. They were then paired with someone from a higher, lower or similar social status, or with someone who had similar or opposing political beliefs.
In
each pair, one person got to decide whether to split the money 50-50 or to keep
it all for themselves.
The other person was then asked to rate how much they thought the decision was motivated by the decider's self-interest, and how much the decision was likely motivated by the decider wanting to deny them any of the prize -- a measure of perceived harmful intent. The roles were then swapped with a new sum of money.
The other person was then asked to rate how much they thought the decision was motivated by the decider's self-interest, and how much the decision was likely motivated by the decider wanting to deny them any of the prize -- a measure of perceived harmful intent. The roles were then swapped with a new sum of money.
People
who were paired with someone with a higher social status or with different
political beliefs more frequently assumed their partner's decision had been
motivated by wanting to cause them harm. In contrast, social difference did not
affect how often people assumed their partner was motivated by self-interest.
Researchers
also found that the over-perception of other people's harmful intentions
occurred at the same rate, regardless of whether participants already had
heightened levels of paranoid thinking.
"Our findings suggest that people who struggle with high levels of paranoia are equally well-tuned to social difference despite sometimes seeming that they misperceive the social world. This research may help us understand how exclusion and disadvantage fuel some of the most severe mental health problems," said co-author Dr Vaughan Bell (UCL Psychiatry).
The
researchers were funded by the Royal Society and Wellcome.