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Background: With efforts increasing worldwide to understand and treat paranoia, there is a pressing need for cross-culturally valid assessments of paranoid beliefs. The recently developed Revised Green et al., Paranoid Thoughts Scale (R-GPTS) constitutes an easy to administer self-report assessment of mild ideas of reference and more severe persecutory thoughts. Moreover, it comes with clinical cut-offs for increased usability in research and clinical practice. With multiple translations of the R-GPTS already available and in use, a formal test of its measurement invariance is now needed. Methods: Using data from a multinational cross-sectional online survey in the UK, USA, Australia, Germany, and Hong Kong (N = 2510), we performed confirmatory factory analyses on the R-GPTS and tested for measurement invariance across sites. Results: We found sufficient fit for the two-factor structure (ideas of reference, persecutory thoughts) of the R-GPTS across cultures. Measurement invariance was found for the persecutory thoughts subscale, indicating that it does measure the same construct across the tested samples in the same way. For ideas of reference, we found no scalar invariance, which was traced back to (mostly higher) item intercepts in the Hong Kong sample. Conclusion: We found sufficient invariance for the persecutory thoughts scale, which is of substantial practical importance, as it is used for the screening of clinical paranoia. A direct comparison of the ideas of reference sum-scores between cultures, however, may lead to an over-estimation of these milder forms of paranoia in some (non-western) cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This systematic review and meta-analysis investigates the momentary emotional experience of people with schizophrenia and those at risk for psychosis compared with that of healthy individuals. Key Points: Question: Does the momentary emotional experience of people with schizophrenia and of people at risk for psychosis differ from that of healthy people? Findings: This systematic review and meta-analysis included data from 111 emotion-induction studies and 6913 participants. People with schizophrenia and those at risk for psychosis experienced pleasant stimuli as less positive (small effect) and more negative (moderate effect) and neutral stimuli as more negative (moderate effect) than healthy controls; results were less conclusive for unpleasant stimuli. Meaning: In this study, there was a reliable pattern of aberrant emotional experience in schizophrenia, most notably for pleasant stimuli, that already manifested before disorder onset. Importance: Psychotic symptoms are associated with subjective reports of aberrant emotion, such as excessive fear or anhedonia, but whether these aberrations reflect aberrant emotional experience of normative stimuli is uncertain both for individuals with schizophrenia and those at risk for psychosis. Objective: To provide a meta-analysis of study samples of emotional experience in individuals with schizophrenia and those at risk for psychosis as assessed in laboratory-based emotion-induction studies. Data Sources: MEDLINE and PsycINFO databases were searched for articles published from January 1986 and Google Scholar citations of a relevant earlier meta-analysis until August 2022. Reference lists were manually searched for additional studies. Study Selection: Included studies measured positive or negative emotional experience in response to standardized emotionally evocative stimuli and compared participants diagnosed with schizophrenia or participants at risk for psychosis with healthy controls. Data Extraction and Synthesis: The meta-analysis was registered with PROSPERO and followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses reporting guidelines. Data were extracted by 2 independent coders, and random-effects analyses were conducted. Main Outcomes and Measures: Outcomes were 3 scales of emotional experience (unipolar positive emotion, unipolar negative emotion, bipolar valence), analyzed separately for pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant stimuli. A meta-analysis was conducted for differences between the 2 clinical groups combined and controls. Subgroup differences (schizophrenia vs at risk) and the influence of several other variables were tested in moderator analyses. Results: This systematic review and meta-analysis included data from 111 studies and 6913 participants (schizophrenia: 2848 [41.2%]; at risk: 877 [12.7%]; healthy controls: 3188 [46.1%]). Compared with controls, people with schizophrenia and those at risk for psychosis experienced pleasant stimuli as less positive (unipolar positive: standardized mean difference [SMD] Hedges g = −0.19; P =.001; bipolar valence: SMD Hedges g = −0.28; P <.001) and more negative (Hedges g = 0.52; P <.001), neutral stimuli as more negative (Hedges g = 0.55; P <.001), and unpleasant stimuli as both more positive (unipolar positive: SMD Hedges g = 0.23; P =.005; bipolar valence: Hedges g = 0.12; P =.01) and more negative (Hedges g = 0.22; P <.001). Moderator analyses indicated a less aberrant emotional experience for odors than for visual stimuli (unipolar negative, pleasant z score = −2.97; P =.003; unipolar negative, neutral z score = −2.70; P =.007), an association between higher negative symptoms and diminished positive emotion for pleasant stimuli in schizophrenia (z score = −2.98; P =.003), and that subgroup differences were limited to neutral stimuli. Conclusions and Relevance: Results suggest a pattern of aberrant emotional experience of normative stimuli in schizophrenia and that this already was observable before disorder onset. In particular, the aberrant experience of pleasant stimuli needs to be considered as an intervention target. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The term 'pandemic paranoia' has been coined to refer to heightened levels of mistrust and suspicion towards other people specifically due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In this study, we examine the international prevalence of pandemic paranoia in the general population and its associated sociodemographic profile. Methods: A representative international sample of general population adults (N = 2510) from five sites (USA N = 535, Germany N = 516, UK N = 512, Australia N = 502 and Hong Kong N = 445) were recruited using stratified quota sampling (for age, sex, educational attainment) and completed the Pandemic Paranoia Scale (PPS). Results: The overall prevalence rate of pandemic paranoia was 19%, and was highest in Australia and lowest in Germany. On the subscales of the PPS, prevalence was 11% for persecutory threat, 29% for paranoid conspiracy and 37% for interpersonal mistrust. Site and general paranoia significantly predicted pandemic paranoia. Sociodemographic variables (lower age, higher population size and income, being male, employed and no migrant status) explained additional variance and significantly improved prediction of pandemic paranoia. Conclusions: Pandemic paranoia was relatively common in a representative sample of the general population across five international sites. Sociodemographic variables explained a small but significant amount of the variance in pandemic paranoia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Difficulties in the ability to adapt beliefs in the face of new information are associated with psychosis and its central symptom – paranoia. As cognitive processes and psychotic symptoms are both known to be sensitive to stress, the present study investigated the exact associations between stress, adapting of beliefs [reversal learning (RL), bias against disconfirmatory evidence (BADE), and jumping to conclusions (JTC)] and paranoia. We hypothesized that paranoia would increase under stress and that difficulties in adapting of beliefs would mediate or moderate the link between stress and paranoia. Furthermore, we hypothesized that the investigated effects would be strongest in the group of individuals diagnosed with a psychotic disorder. Methods: We exposed 155 participants (38 diagnosed with a psychotic disorder, 40 individuals with attenuated psychotic symptoms, 39 clinical controls diagnosed with an obsessive-compulsive disorder, and 38 healthy controls) to a control condition and a stress condition, in which we assessed their levels of paranoia and their ability to adapt beliefs. We applied multilevel models to analyze the data. Results: Paranoia was higher in the stress condition than in the control condition, b = 1.142, s.e. = 0.338, t (150) = 3.381, p < 0.001. RL, BADE, and JTC did not differ between conditions and did not mediate or moderate the association between stress and paranoia (all ps > 0.05). Conclusions: The results support the assumption that stress triggers paranoia. However, the link between stress and paranoia does not seem to be affected by the ability to adapt beliefs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Amotivation is a common symptom in various mental disorders, including psychotic or depressive disorders. Effort‐based decision‐making (EBDM)‐tasks quantifying amotivation at a behavioral level have been on the rise. Task performance has been shown to differentiate patient groups from healthy controls. However, findings on indicators of construct validity, such as the correlations between different tasks and between tasks and self‐reported/observer‐rated amotivation in clinical and healthy samples have been inconclusive. Methods: In a representative community sample (N = 90), we tested the construct validity of the Deck Choice Task, the Expenditure for Rewards Task and the Balloon Task. We calculated correlations between the EBDM‐tasks and between the EBDM‐tasks and self‐reported amotivation, apathy, anticipatory pleasure, and BIS/BAS. Results: Correlations between tasks were low to moderate (0.198 ≤ r ≤ 0.358), with the Balloon Task showing the largest correlations with the other tasks, but no significant correlations between any EBDM‐task and the self‐report measures. Conclusion: Although different EBDM‐tasks are conceptualized to measure the same construct, a large part of what each task measures could not be accounted for by the other tasks. Moreover, the tasks did not appear to substantially capture what was measured in established self‐report instruments for amotivation in our sample, which could be interpreted as questioning the construct validity of EBDM‐tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UCLA Loneliness Scale (ULS-20) and its short version (ULS-8) are widely used to measure loneliness. However, the question remains whether or not previous studies using the scale to measure loneliness are measuring the construct equally across countries. The present study examined the measurement invariance (MI) of both scales in Germany, Indonesia, and the United States (N = 2350). The one-, two-, and three-factor structure of the ULS-20 did not meet the model fit cut-off criteria in the total sample. The ULS-8 met the model fit cut-off criteria and has configural, but not metric invariance because two items unrelated to social isolation were not MI. The final six items (ULS-6) exclusively related to social isolation had complete MI. Participants from the United States scored highest in the ULS-6, followed by participants from Germany and then Indonesia. We conclude that the ULS-6 is an appropriate measure for cross-cultural studies on loneliness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]