Investigating the relationship between social anxiety & paranoia.
Research type
Research Study
Full title
What is it about a situation that makes a person paranoid?: An investigation into the relationship between social anxiety and paranoia in a first episode psychosis sample.
IRAS ID
128201
Contact name
James MacPherson
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
The University of Bath
Research summary
There is increasing interest in the literature of the similarities between social anxiety (SA), paranoia symptoms’ and paranoid psychosis. Cognitive-behavioural therapists, in their routine clinical work, commonly use cognitive models of social anxiety to understand and treat people presenting with paranoia. Research suggests that symptoms in both groups are exacerbated by emotional disturbance, e.g. stress and anxiety and that they share similar cognitive profiles and cognitive components. Additional research has also demonstrated that both groups share similar deficits, similar thinking styles and developmental predictive factors and some have even argued that social anxiety is a precursor to development of paranoid psychosis. Yet many believe that motives underpinning and thought content of social anxiety and paranoia differ, thus we are still unsure how and in what way these conditions overlap and specifically how they interact with one another.
Research suggests that paranoia increases when an individual finds themselves in an anxiety provoking or stressful situation. Comparatively, Social anxiety research suggests that, while the same is true, it is particularly the ‘social evaluative’ nature of situations that increases social anxiety symptomology. Given the evidenced links between social anxiety and paranoia, this research argues that the same could be true of paranoia, particularly that it is the process of social evaluation within the situations that increases paranoia as opposed to general stress/anxiety.
This study will use participants with paranoid symptoms and/or paranoid psychosis in a first episode for psychosis sample. It will use a sample aged sixteen and above.
The study will use a two-phase mood induction where participants are asked to complete a generally stressful task and a socially evaluative task. Changes in symptoms will be recorded using psychometric measures and visual analogue scales.
REC name
London - Bromley Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
13/LO/1062
Date of REC Opinion
2 Jul 2013
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion