Psychosis-proneness and socially relevant reasoning

Abstract

Reasoning biases have been suggested as having a role in the formation and maintenance of delusions, in particular when the content is personal or social. The present study investigated whether biases when making logical inferences about neutral and personally relevant statements may be seen in individuals hypothetically prone to psychosis. Sixty-one participants completed a multi-dimensional measure of psychosis-proneness (Oxford-Liverpool Inventory of Feelings and Experiences) and a conditional inference task. It was found that highly anhedonic participants made more invalid inferences both when reasoning about the consequences of others' emotions and implications for their own self-state. Impulsive Non-conformity was also associated with poor reasoning when ‘deducing consequences from others emotions’. The findings suggest that individuals with impulsive and/or anhedonic traits may tend to ignore alternative information when reasoning about personally relevant emotional statements leading to poorer reasoning.