Distinguishing Social Anxiety from Paranoia (Version 1)
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Distinguishing Social Anxiety from Paranoia: Testing the Aetiological Role of Interpretative Biases
IRAS ID
92347
Contact name
Yuanyuan Huo
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
King’s College London
Research summary
Social anxiety and psychosis are highly comorbid, especially in the prodromal phase. Both are associated with a negative interpretation style. Overlaps from cognitive theories of social anxiety and paranoia suggest this negative interpretation bias indeed applies to social scenarios. Both socially anxious and paranoid people show a biased interpretation of ambiguous social scenarios, however, the socially anxious person is afraid of negative evaluation, the paranoid person is afraid of persecution. We predict that differences in these cognitive biases and their outputs help determine which symptoms predominate, perhaps even which pathology emerges. This project uses rigorous cognitive experimental methods to isolate the processes of interpretation, and examine their degree of specificity for social anxiety relevant versus psychosis relevant information. It is the first step toward creating more effective cognitively based therapeutic interventions.
REC name
London - Westminster Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
14/LO/0772
Date of REC Opinion
19 Jun 2014
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion