'Jumping to conclusions' and attributional style in persecutory delusions

Merrin, Jayne, Kinderman, Peter and Bentall, Richard P (2007) 'Jumping to conclusions' and attributional style in persecutory delusions COGNITIVE THERAPY AND RESEARCH, 31 (6). pp. 741-758. ISSN 0147-5916, 1573-2819

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Abstract

Persecutory delusions have been associated with a tendency to 'jump to conclusions' and an abnormal attributional style. We hypothesised that jumping to conclusions - requesting relatively little information prior to decision-making - could account for the observed biases in attributional style. Individuals with persecutory delusions (n = 24) were compared with matched depressed psychiatric (n = 24) and nonpsychiatric (n = 24) comparison groups using a modified inductive reasoning task (John & Dodgson, 1994) on which participants requested information before making attributions for common social events. Both clinical groups 'jumped to conclusions' and made attributions on the basis of little evidence. This tendency was greatest in individuals with persecutory delusions. Differences were also found in the proportions of questions seeking internal, external and situational information. However, there were no significant differences between the groups in the final attributions made. These findings inform a model of persecutory delusions whereby a limited cognitive search strategy may influence attributional style. © 2007 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	## TULIP Type: Articles/Papers (Journal) ##
Uncontrolled Keywords:	paranoia, persecutory delusions, jumping to conclusions, causal attributions
Subjects:	?? RC0321 ?? ?? BF ??
Divisions:	Faculty of Health & Life Sciences > Inst. Population Health
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	25 Mar 2009 14:46
Last Modified:	16 Jun 2026 15:22
DOI:	10.1007/s10608-006-9097-7
Publisher's Statement :	This article was first published in Jayne Merrin, Peter Kinderman and Richard P. Bentall, 2007, 'Jumping to conclusions' and attributional style in persecutory delusions, Cognitive Therapy and Research vol 31,(6), pp 741-758.The original publication is available at www.springerlink.com. © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2007
Related Websites:	Author Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/1110
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