Conjecturing Harmful Intent and Preemptive Strike in Paranoia

Abstract

Paranoia depicts a belief of others having harmful intent. Research using economic games has exhibited the correlation between paranoia and the propensity to characterize ambiguous intentions as harmful. Using a non-clinical sample recruited online from the United States (N=290), we examined whether paranoid thoughts influence aggressive behavior against the subjective perception of harmful intent. We conducted a preemptive strike game wherein aggressive behavior was assumed to be guided by the fear of an opponent. The outcomes indicate that (1) individuals with high paranoia assume harmful intent of an opponent more than those with low paranoia (2) conjecturing an opponent’s harmful intent predicted an increase in the probability of a preemptive strike, and (3) paranoia did not have a statistically significant effect on encouraging a preemptive strike. Additionally, the exploratory analysis revealed that paranoia was related to participant’s aggressiveness and with suppositions of other’s self-interests and competitiveness. This study presents empirical evidence that paranoia is related to the perception of social threats in an uncertain situation. We discuss the possibility that paranoid ideation can promote or inhibit a preemptive strike.

Paranoid thinking and perceived competitive intention

“…Although the motivations behind attacking behavior in PSG have been demonstrated to be mainly driven by defensive aggression (Simunovic et a., 2013), logically, both defensive and offensive motivations can be mixed. A previous study also found a correlation between paranoid thinking and self-reported aggressive motivation in PSG (Horita, 2021). Another study suggested an association between paranoia and enjoyment of negative social interactions (Raihani et al, 2021).…”

“…Indeed, the PSG experiment observed people who engaged in preemptive attacks because they were driven by fear (Simunovic et al, 2013). A previous study (Horita, 2021) showed that in the PSG, participants with higher paranoid thinking assumed that others were driven by harmful intent compared to those with lower paranoid thinking. However, the effect of paranoia on enhancing preemptive attacks was weak and statistically insignificant.…”

“…People with higher paranoid levels have a cognitive tendency to overattribute others' intentions as malicious during ambiguous hypothetical situations (Combs et al, 2007b;Jack & Egan, 2016;So et al, 2020). Previous studies using incentivized economic games have indicated that a characteristic of paranoia is the attribution or supposition of harmful intentions in social interactions (Raihani & Bell, 2017;Saalfeld et al, 2018;Greenburgh, Bell & Raihani, 2019;Barnby et al, 2020b;Raihani et al, 2021;Horita, 2021). For instance, the Dictator Game (DG) (Forsythe et al, 1994) has been conducted to test the influence of paranoia on the attribution of harmful intentions.…”

“…However, it is not apparent whether the Dictator's unfair allocations are caused by an individualistic or a competitive orientation in the usual DG. Instead of the DG, a previous study (Horita, 2021) conducted a Preemptive Strike Game (PSG: Simunovic, Mifune & Yamagishi, 2013) to examine how paranoid thinking affected the supposition of others' competitive intentions and responses against the subjective perception of harm in an uncertain situation where the other's behavior was unknown. In the PSG, two players initially receive money as an endowment (e.g., $ 0.5) and decide whether to attack their partner or not.…”

Evaluations of dominant leadership in workplaces are associated with paranoia

“…However, paranoia is considered a continuum, and mild paranoia can be observed in the general population (Bebbington et al, 2013;Freeman et al, 2005Freeman et al, , 2011. Some empirical studies have investigated the cognitive and behavioral mechanisms of paranoia using non-clinical samples and have shown an association between paranoid thoughts and the tendency to attribute harmful intentions to others (Barnby et al, 2020;Comb et al, 2007;Greenburgh et al, 2019;Horita, 2021Horita, , 2023Raihani & Bell, 2017;Saalfeld et al, 2018).…”