Suspicious minds: the psychology of persecutory delusions.

@article{Freeman2007SuspiciousMT,
  title={Suspicious minds: the psychology of persecutory delusions.},
  author={Daniel Freeman},
  journal={Clinical psychology review},
  year={2007},
  volume={27 4},
  pages={
          425-57
        }
}
  • D. Freeman
  • Published 1 May 2007
  • Psychology
  • Clinical psychology review
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692 Citations
Highly Influential Citations
90
Background Citations
388
Methods Citations
26
Results Citations
64

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692 Citations

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References

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A questionnaire survey of nonclinical paranoia designed to assess the theoretical model of paranoia found that paranoia was best explained by separation anxiety, depression, fragile inner self, hallucinatory experiences, discomfort with ambiguity, stress, self-focus, perceptual anomalies, and anxiety.
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Specific aspects of delusional content were found to be associated with emotional distress, consistent with cognitive models of delusions which emphasize the importance of considering emotional distress in the context of belief appraisal, although interpretation of the results is limited by the cross-sectional study design.
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TLDR
It is suggested that mood, anxiety and perceptions of the self are related to paranoid ideation in a nonclinical sample by examining the linear relationship between persecutory ideation and multiple clinical and social cognitive variables.
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