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Specificity of the jump‐to‐conclusions bias in deluded patients
Author(s) -
Peters Emmanuelle R.,
Thornton Patricia.,
Siksou Lea.,
Linney Yvonne.,
MacCabe James H.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
british journal of clinical psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.479
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 2044-8260
pISSN - 0144-6657
DOI - 10.1348/014466507x255294
Subject(s) - psychology , task (project management) , schizophrenia (object oriented programming) , jump , cognitive bias , confirmation bias , psychiatry , cognitive psychology , clinical psychology , social psychology , cognition , physics , management , quantum mechanics , economics
Objective To investigate the specificity of the ‘jump‐to‐conclusions’ (JTC) bias in delusions. Methods Thirty‐seven psychotic patients were divided into two separate groupings: (1) deluded versus non‐deluded individuals and (2) individuals with and without a diagnosis of schizophrenia. Groups were compared on three reasoning tasks (‘Beads’ task, Wason's 2–4–6 task, and Wason's selection task). Results Deluded participants had a tendency to show a JTC bias on data‐gathering tasks, but no differences were found with the schizophrenia diagnosis grouping. There were no differences between any groups on tasks of general reasoning and probability judgments. Conclusion The results suggest that JTC is specific to delusions rather than diagnosis, and to data gathering rather than a general deficit in reasoning.