Thinking dispositions and cognitive reflection performance in schizotypy

Abstract

Schizotypy refers to the continuum of normal variability of psychosis-like characteristics and experiences, often classified as positive schizotypy (‘unusual experiences’; UE) and negative schizotypy (‘introvertive anhedonia’; IA). Here, we investigated the link between schizotypy and cognitive processing style and performance. A particular focus was on whether schizotypy is associated more with Type 1 (automatic/heuristic) than Type 2 (reflective/effortful) processes, as may be expected from findings of impaired top-down control in schizophrenia. A large sample (n = 1,512) completed online measures pertaining to schizotypy (Oxford-Liverpool Inventory for Feelings and Experiences; O-LIFE), thinking style (Rational Experiential Inventory-10, Actively Open-Minded Thinking Scale), and reasoning performance (Cognitive Reflection Test). Higher positive (UE) and negative (IA) schizotypy were associated with more pronounced Type 1 processing, i.e. greater self-reported Faith in Intuition (FI), lower Need for Cognition (NFC), lower Actively Open-Minded Thinking (AOT), and lower cognitive reflection test (CRT) scores. Canonical correlation analysis confirmed a significant association between UE and increased FI, lower AOT and lower CRT performance, accounting for 12.38% of the shared variance between schizotypy and thinking dispositions. IA was more highly associated with reduced NFC. These findings suggest that schizotypy may be associated with similar thinking dispositions to those reported in psychosis, with different patterns of associations for positive and negative schizotypy. This result informs research on reasoning processes in psychosis and has clinical implications, including potential treatment targets and refinements for cognitive therapies.

Thinking Disposition Education Improves Cognitive Reflection: Experimental Results from Two Intervention Studies

“…Moreover, NFC has moderated performance on cognitive reflection after repeated exposure (Šrol, 2018). Actively open-minded thinking has also demonstrated consistently significant and positive correlations with CRT across a range of long and short scale versions of the actively open-minded thinking instrument (Broyd et al, 2019;Janssen et al, 2019;Svedholm-Häkkinen & Lindeman, 2018). Intellectual humility has significantly predicted CRT over and above social desirability and years of education (Krumrei-Mancuso et al, 2020).…”

Sex Differences in Cognitive Reflection: A Meta-Analysis

“…The CR tests composed of verbal items were examined separately from the numerical-CR tests to verify whether this type of test controls for the sex effects the scores. The effect sizes that were provided from CR tests composed of a combination of verbal and numerical items were excluded from this detailed analysis (e.g., the study 2 from CRT-13 of Białek et al 2019;Böckenholt 2012;Broyd et al 2019).…”

Individual differences in sharing false political information on social media: deliberate and accidental sharing, motivations and positive schizotypy

“…Positive schizotypy is associated with a tendency to rely on intuitive (as opposed to deliberative) processing. These cognitive tendencies include increases in intuitive thinking, decreases in cognitive reflection [23] and the operation of information processing biases [24]. Therefore, individuals with higher levels of trait positive schizotypy may be particularly susceptible to sharing misinformation online.…”