Moral Emotions and Social Economic Games in Paranoia.

George Savulich,Hannah Jeanes,Alice Zacharia,Nicole Rossides,Sahaj Kaur,Barbara J Sahakian,Trevor W Robbins

doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2018.00615

Abstract

Impaired social cognitive processes are putative psychological mechanisms implicated in the formation and maintenance of paranoid beliefs. Paranoia denotes unfounded fears about the hostile intentions of others and is prevalent in a significant proportion of the general population. We investigated social cognition in healthy participants selectively recruited to have a broad occurrence of paranoid thinking (n = 89). Participants completed a novel computerized task of moral emotions and two social economic exchange games (Prisoner's Dilemma, Ultimatum Game) from the EMOTICOM neuropsychological test battery. Regression analyses revealed that delusional ideation predicted shameful feelings when the victim of deliberate harm by another person. Cooperative behavior on the Prisoner's Dilemma was greatest when the participant and opponent contributed equally to joint earnings. Participants demonstrated significantly more punishment behavior when contributions were unequal and stole more from the opponent using a suspicious strategy of gameplay. In addition, paranoid thinking was positively associated with more stealing from the cooperative opponent. On the Ultimatum Game, participants accepted significantly more unequal offers when the opponent contributed more and sensitivity to fairness was greatest when the participant contributed more. These data demonstrate that delusional ideation predicts a maladaptive emotional response to interpersonal harm and that paranoid thinking may lead to reduced cooperation toward mutual reward. The effects of paranoia on moral emotions and pro-social behavior at more severe levels of persecutory thinking warrant further investigation.

Highlights

Impaired social cognition is a key feature of schizophrenia, with deficits typically found in emotion identification, experience sharing and emotional responding [1]
We used a single-trait approach to investigate the effects of paranoia on moral emotional processing and social decisionmaking, two social cognitive processes involving the perceptions of others intentions, in healthy participants with natural variation in paranoid thinking
Trait measures relevant to paranoia and psychosis were positively associated with moral emotions when the victim of a harmful action, supporting that paranoia is specific to the experience of harm by others

Summary

Introduction

Impaired social cognition is a key feature of schizophrenia, with deficits typically found in emotion identification, experience sharing and emotional responding [1]. These impairments are one pathway to a first episode of psychosis [2] and strongly predict functional and social outcomes in psychotic disorders [(3, 4)]. Individuals with non-clinical paranoia have shown evidence of cognitive biases similar to those with persecutory delusions. Healthy individuals with elevated trait paranoia have shown to interpret emotionally ambiguous information in a paranoid manner [12], an effect that matched symptoms in patients with psychosis [13]. Studies of non-clinical paranoid experiences are important to inform our understanding of those presenting clinically

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Conclusion