Psychometric schizotypy predicts psychotic-like, paranoid, and negative symptoms in daily life.

Abstract

Positive and negative schizotypy exhibit differential patterns of impairment in social relations, affect, and functioning in daily life. However, studies have not examined the association of schizotypy with real-world expression of psychotic-like, paranoid, and negative symptoms. The present study employed experience-sampling methodology (ESM) to assess positive and negative schizotypy in daily life in a nonclinical sample of 206 Spanish young adults. Participants were prompted randomly 8 times daily for 1 week to complete assessments of their current symptoms and experiences. Positive schizotypy was associated with psychotic-like and paranoid symptoms in daily life. Negative schizotypy was associated with a subset of these symptoms and with negative symptoms in daily life. Momentary stress was associated with psychotic-like and paranoid symptoms, but only for those high in positive schizotypy. Social stress predicted momentary psychotic-like symptoms in both positive and negative schizotypy. Time-lagged analyses indicated that stress at the preceding signal predicted psychotic-like symptoms at the current assessment, but only for individuals high in positive schizotypy. The results are consistent with models linking stress sensitivity with the experience of psychotic symptoms. The findings provide cross-cultural support for the multidimensional model of schizotypy and schizophrenia. Furthermore, the findings demonstrate that ESM is an effective method for predicting the experience of psychotic-like symptoms, as well as their precursors, in daily life.

The role of stress‐regulation genes in moderating the association of stress and daily‐life psychotic experiences

“…The association of both distal and proximal environmental factors with PEs is consistent with a growing body of research showing that psychosocial stress—such as childhood trauma and momentary situational and social stress—is associated with schizotypy traits and subclinical and clinical expressions of the psychosis phenotype 7, 46, 47, 48. As expected, and consistent with previous studies (e.g., 9, 49), the association of both types of stressors with PEs was also greater in the early‐psychosis group compared to the non‐clinical group (even if the latter was oversampled for elevated scores on schizotypy to include a wide range of variability in terms of psychosis liability).…”

“…Notably, several studies report an overlap of etiological factors, as well as phenomenological and developmental processes, across high schizotypy, clinical risk, and clinical populations (e.g., 4, 5). Among these psychosocial factors, both distal (early‐life adversity) and proximal (daily‐life momentary) stress have been associated with psychotic features across the extended psychosis phenotype 5, 6, 7, 8. At the same time, and consistent with the hypothesized etiopathogenic relevance of these factors, psychosis populations have higher levels of trauma exposure and stress sensitivity 9.…”

Social defeat predicts paranoid appraisals in people at high risk for psychosis

“…Previous studies have reported that in people with schizophrenia, disorganised symptoms were associated with lower levels of mentalisation of other peoples beliefs and intentions, while patients with paranoid symptoms were more likely to attribute malevolent intentions to others (Frith, 2004;Montag et al, 2011) . Similar results were found in healthy participants with delusion proness (Fyfe et al, 2008) and schizotypy (Barrantes-Vidal et al, 2013a;Barrantes-Vidal et al, 2013b). It is possible that our result tap into the same process, however further research is needed to confirm this.…”

Using the experience-sampling method to examine the psychological mechanisms by which participatory art improves wellbeing

“…internal dialogue (1 item); rationality (1 item) and volitional control (1 item). An additional item was added, as used in previous ESQs, 37 to measure self-esteem, since this is a reported outcome of participatory arts: 7 "I felt good about myself".…”