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The impact of attachment and interpersonal contingency on trust in people with psychosis and paranoia

Watchorn, Kate; (2020) The impact of attachment and interpersonal contingency on trust in people with psychosis and paranoia. Doctoral thesis (D.Clin.Psy), UCL (University College London). Green open access

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Abstract

Aims: Interpersonal contingency plays an important role in attachment formation. Those with high paranoia have a tendency to over-attribute hostile intentionality in behavioural contingency. This study aimed to use virtual reality to investigate potential associations between attachment, contingency and trust in a psychosis sample. Method: A sample of 22 early intervention psychosis participants with active paranoia completed a series of questionnaires assessing attachment style and psychosis symptoms. During a brief virtual reality scenario, participants engaged in a social interaction with an avatar. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two interpersonal contingency conditions, in which the avatar would be more or less responsive in body language. Both subjective (self-report) and objective (interpersonal distance) indicators of trust were recorded. Results: Fearful attachment was the most predominant attachment style. A significant correlation was found between fearful attachment and trusting behaviour, where more fearful participants would stand further away from the avatar. The difference in interpersonal distance between contingency groups approached significance, indicating that participants found the highly responsive avatar less trustworthy. Findings were less pronounced for subjective trust outcomes, although some trends appeared to be emerging through exploratory graphical analysis. Conclusions: The present findings are considered in the context of a lack of statistical power. Attachment insecurity appears to influence trust in social interactions with strangers. Findings are interpreted in light of the attachment behavioural system. Conceptual mechanisms are explored to understand the aversion to interpersonal contingency observed in the current highly paranoid sample. Future directions for research and clinical implications are discussed.

Type: Thesis (Doctoral)
Qualification: D.Clin.Psy
Title: The impact of attachment and interpersonal contingency on trust in people with psychosis and paranoia
Event: UCL (University College London)
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
Language: English
Additional information: Copyright © The Author 2020. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request.
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10110821
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