| Recent approaches to clinical research have emphasized continuous individual symptoms in addition to the traditional focus upon categorical diagnostic syndromes. One of these individual symptoms, paranoia, has been researched in both clinical and non-clinical contexts. However, a single measure specifically designed to measure pure paranoia in both clinical and non-clinical participants was needed to research paranoia as a continuous variable. Additionally, the in-vivo social behavior of individuals with different levels of non-clinical and clinical paranoia is an under-studied research area. A mixed non-clinical and clinical sample was utilized for this project. The developed 20-item scale, the Paranoia Continuum Scale (PCS), was constructed for excellent content and construct validity, and showed excellent internal consistency and test-retest reliability. Two videotaped conversations, one of an ostensibly innocuous, non-personal nature, and another consisting of a discussion of interpersonal trust patterns, were rated for social skills (general social skills, nonverbal skills, paralinguistic skills, and paranoid statements). Additionally, thoughts listed by the participants following the conversations were rated for affective valence, direction of the thoughts, and paranoia. Results indicated that those very high in paranoia (clinical paranoia) were the only group to show observable social skills deficits across all domains regardless of conversation type, although paranoid statements were evoked only during the trust conversation. For thought listings, results showed significant differences between the high non-clinical and clinical paranoia groups and the other groups. Specifically, with increasing paranoia the tendency to list thoughts about oneself decreased and the tendency to think about the experimental assistant increased. There was a significant association between paranoia level and the proportion of paranoid thoughts. Further, the personal conversation about trust evoked significantly more paranoid thoughts across all groups. The pattern of differences was stronger following the non-personal conversation and highlights the need to study seemingly innocuous situations which may be perceived as ambiguous by those higher in paranoia. Results strongly support the under-emphasized area of individual differences in paranoia and also support social-environment theories of paranoia. |
