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The Short-Term Impact of a Paranoid Explanation on Self-esteem: An Experimental Study

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Abstract

Low self-esteem and negative emotions often precede paranoid delusions. Theories have suggested that delusions might have a short term ‘stabilizing’ effect. The present pilot study tests whether a conspiracy explanation for social exclusion exerts a short-term positive effect on self-esteem and emotions compared to a self-blaming explanation but is not beneficial for the maintenance of self-esteem in the longer run. A sample from the general population (N = 60) was randomly assigned to a conspiracy, self-blaming or neutral explanation condition after being socially excluded in a virtual ball game. Self-esteem and emotions were assessed at four time-points (prior to exclusion, after exclusion, directly after and 15 min after receiving the explanation for the exclusion). There was a significant interaction of time and condition (F = 12.36, p ≤ 0.001) in support of the hypothesis that the conspiracy condition increases self-esteem more than the self-blame condition. There was a marginally significant effect for the conspiracy condition to decrease anxiety directly after receiving the explanation (F = 4.04, p = 0.05) more strongly than the self-blame condition and a trend for sadness (F = 3.17, p = 0.08). Finally, there was a trend for a stronger longer-term recovery of self-esteem in the neutral compared to the conspiracy condition (F = 3.41, p = 0.07). The results support the hypothesis that paranoid explanations lead to short-term stabilization of self-esteem.

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Acknowledgments

The study was part of Jonas Stahnke’s master thesis (unpublished), which includes early analyses form the data-set. The data have not been published elsewhere. The study did not receive external funding.

Conflict of Interest

Tania M. Lincoln, Jonas Stahnke and Steffen Moritz declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Informed Consent

All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000 (5). Informed consent was obtained from all patients for being included in the study.

Animal Rights

No animal studies were carried out by the authors for this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Universität Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

    Tania M. Lincoln & Jonas Stahnke

  2. Universitätsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany

    Steffen Moritz

  3. Institute of Psychology, Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, University of Hamburg, Von-Melle-Park 5, 20146, Hamburg, Germany

    Tania M. Lincoln

Authors
  1. Tania M. Lincoln
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  2. Jonas Stahnke
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  3. Steffen Moritz
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Correspondence to Tania M. Lincoln.

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Lincoln, T.M., Stahnke, J. & Moritz, S. The Short-Term Impact of a Paranoid Explanation on Self-esteem: An Experimental Study. Cogn Ther Res 38, 397–406 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-014-9600-5

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