Delusional Ideation and Data Quality
According to continuum models of psychosis, cognitive biases contribute to delusional ideation in the general population. In a large (N = 1002) pre-registered general population study, we examine key specific predictions of such models; in particular, the hypotheses that delusional ideation in the general population is predicted by the Jumping to Conclusions bias (JTC), Over-adjustment, the Bias Against Disconfirm-ing Evidence (BADE), and the Liberal Acceptance bias (LA). Crucially, we include explicit indices of data quality, and incorporate a new, animated Beads Task which overcomes known problems with this instrument. Our results initially appear to replicate several classic findings concerning the relationships between delusional ideation and the aforementioned cognitive biases: Delusional ideation predicted JTC, overadjustment, and BADE. Importantly, however, we demonstrate that many of these classic findings are either severely diminished — or disappear entirely — when inattentive participants are removed from the analyses. These findings highlight crucial issues that need to be addressed to rigorously test continuum models of psychosis.