Browsing by Author "Pinto-Gouveia, Jose"

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    How Do Non-Clinical Paranoid and Socially Anxious Individuals React to Failure? The Role of Hostility and State Anxiety
    (OMCIS, 2012) Lopes, Barbara; Pinto-Gouveia, Jose
    Background: Theoretical models of persecutory delusions have emphasized the impact of negative emotion namely anxiety at the early stages of symptom formation. Also, studies on persecutory delusions have discovered that trait anger is associated to the presence of paranoid delusions. Method: We did a quasi experimental study that induced social stress. Firstly we constituted three groups based on standardized cut off scores for measures of paranoia, social anxiety and depression: a paranoia group vs. a socially anxious group vs. a control group. We then measured the psychological characteristics of the three groups by self-report at time 1 (before the experiment). Participants were randomly assigned to the conditions of success vs. failure of personal performance in a computer game task. After the experience (time 2) participant’s positive vs. negative emotional reactions to performance and their levels of multidimensional paranoid ideation, anger and anxiety were measured by self-report. Results: A MANCOVA revealed a statistically significant interaction between group x condition for the emotional reactions to performance but not for the paranoid ideation at time 2. Results further revealed that hostility acted as a vulnerability factor, presenting a main statistically significant effect on paranoid reactions (time 2) and interacted with the independent variables of group belonging and experimental condition for an increase on the frequency of paranoid ideation, whereas anxiety interacted with group and condition for an increase of the distress of paranoid ideation. Conclusions: The importance of temperamental hostility and anxiety suggest clinical interventions that would help individuals to deal with their anger and anxiety preventing the development and maintenance of paranoid ideation.
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    How do non-clinical Paranoid vs. Socially anxious individuals react to failure vs. sucess? An experimental investigation
    (Scientific and Academic Publisher, 2013-03) Lopes, Barbara; Pinto-Gouveia, Jose
    We did a quasi experimental study with 223 college students divided into three groups according to the presence of non - clinical paranoid ideation vs. social anxiety: the paranoia group (PG) vs. the social anxiety group (SAG) vs. the control group (CG). We measured participants’ trait anger; paranoid ideation; external shame; state anxiety; state anger and depressive symptomatology using self -reports at time 1. Afterwards, we randomly assigned participants to a success vs. a failure condition using a computer game task. We then assessed their emotional and paranoid reactions (time 2). Independent sample t tests showed that the PG was more temperamentally aggressive than the SAG. Wilcoxon Sign tests showed that during failure, the paranoia group significantly increased their paranoid ideation; negative emotional reactions to performance; state anger and state social paranoia from times 1 to 2 . In contrast, the SAG increased their state anxiety and external shame from times 1 to 2. The PG didn’t significantly decrease their paranoid ideation but they showed a significant increase in positive emotional reactions while significantly decreasing in state anger during success. The SAG increased significantly in their positive emotional reactions during success but they also significantly increased in paranoid ideation. The negative impact of failure for the PG and of success for the SAG alerts us to key individual differences and the importance of managing anger, anxiety and paranoid feelings during evaluation.
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    The Relationship between Childhood Experiences of Submissiveness, External shame and Paranoia in a Portuguese Student Sample
    (Edinwilsen Press, 2013-12) Lopes, Barbara; Pinto-Gouveia, Jose
    Paranoia has been conceptualised as a form of defence against perceived threat that is associated to internal shame, issues of rank and history of trauma in clinical populations. We aimed to explore whether a student sample would show external and internal shame with paranoid ideation and if this is related to childhood experiences of threat. A total of 165 college students were given a battery of scales measuring non-clinical paranoid ideation and experiences of paranoia, submission, external and internal shame, forms of self-blame vs. blame others and childhood memories of a threatening family environment. Results supported our hypotheses. Portuguese students acknowledge experiences of paranoia and those that acknowledged paranoid experiences presented statistically significantly more shame and childhood experiences of threat and submissiveness towards significant others than the ones that do not acknowledge having paranoia. A linear regression with a LASSO model also showed that external shame was the only significant predictor of paranoia which supports new literature about the importance of shame memories in shaping paranoia. Clinical implications are inferred suggesting the importance of teaching students to manage feelings of shame as a way of preventing the onset of paranoid ideation.
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    The Role of Predisposition to Hallucinations on Non-Clinical Paranoid vs. Socially Anxious Individuals after Hearing Negative Affective-Laden Sounds: An Experimental Investigation
    (OMCIS, 2012) Lopes, Barbara; Pinto-Gouveia, Jose
    Background: Research suggested that negative affective-laden sounds act as environmental stressors that elicit negative affect (Bradley and Lang, 2000a). Aims: We tried to test for the role of an interaction between predisposition to hallucinatory experiences and exposure to negative affective laden sounds for the presence of paranoid ideation. Method: We used an experimental design that followed the vulnerability × stress model. We defined three groups from a sample of students: paranoia group vs. social anxiety group vs. control group. Their psychological characteristics were measured through self-reports of paranoia, anxiety, predisposition to hallucinations and depressive symptoms at Time 1 (before the experiment). Participants had to listen to either negative affective laden sounds (e.g. screaming) or positive affective laden sounds (e.g. sound of ocean waves). Their paranoid ideation and positive vs. negative emotional reactions to sounds were measured through self-reports at Time 2 (after the experiment). Results: Data showed that the paranoia group presented more serious psychological vulnerabilities than the social anxiety group. A MANCOVA also showed that the independent variables ("group" and "experimental sound conditions") had statistically significant main effects on general paranoia ideation at Time 2. Furthermore, there was a significant three-way interaction between group x predisposition to hallucinatory experiences × experimental condition of sounds for the presence of general paranoid ideation at Time 2. Limitations included the small sample size and the effects of parasite variables, e.g. noise. Conclusions: Individuals' predisposition for hallucinatory experiences increases the probability of possessing paranoid ideation. This tendency is a characteristic of paranoid non-clinical individuals.