Elsevier

Psychiatry Research

Volume 266, August 2018, Pages 341-344
Psychiatry Research

State paranoia and urban cycling

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2018.03.035Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Explored applicability of stress-vulnerability model to nonclinical paranoia.

  • Urban cycling, a high threat environment, was associated with state paranoia.

  • No association between trait paranoia and state paranoia whilst cycling.

  • State paranoia was higher when cycling than when using the underground.

  • Findings are consistent with a stress-vulnerability perspective.

Abstract

Consistent with a continuum approach to mental health, a growing body of research has established that paranoia occurs in the general population. The stress-vulnerability model would predict an association between environments high in threat and the presence of state paranoia, even in those with low dispositional trait paranoia. The present research examines whether urban cycling, a naturalistic environment high in interpersonal threat, is associated with state paranoia – operationalised as an explicit perception that other road users intend the agent harm. 323 members of the general population who regularly cycled in London completed measures of state and trait paranoia, anxiety, depression and stress. The majority of the general population sample (70%) reported experiencing state paranoia during urban cycling, and there was no association between state paranoia and trait paranoia. Reported state paranoia was higher during urban cycling than when using the London underground (a lower threat environment) and reported state paranoia on the underground was associated with trait paranoia. The findings are consistent with the stress-vulnerability model of everyday paranoia.

Introduction

Recent research has suggested that “ordinary individuals, in their everyday behaviour, manifest characteristics, such as self-centred thought, suspiciousness, assumptions of ill will or hostility, and even notions of conspiratorial intent, that are reminiscent of paranoia” (Fenigstein and Vanable, 1992, p. 130). A growing number of survey studies show that paranoia is indeed common in the general population (e.g., Ellett et al., 2003, Fenigstein and Vanable, 1992, Lincoln and Keller, 2008, Freeman et al., 2011). This finding is consistent with the idea that experiences such as clinical paranoia lie on continua functions with ordinary behaviour (Strauss, 1969). Ellett et al. (2003) first proposed an evolutionary account of ‘everyday’ (i.e. nonclinical) paranoia, proposing that a facility to suspect others of intending one harm was selected and distributed in humans due to its adaptive value in ancestral environments. An evolutionary perspective may also help elucidate why nonclinical (as well as clinical) paranoia can be persistent once actuated: There is clear adaptive value in remaining vigilant once a threat has been detected. In evolutionary terms, perceiving threatening stimuli or minimising the likelihood of missing a real threat could be adaptive (Preti and Cella, 2010) - a false positive (fearing harmless people) is potentially less costly than a false negative (failing to fear others who are truly hostile and therefore pose a genuine threat) (Cosmides, 1989, Cosmides and Tooby, 2005, Ermer et al., 2006).

Experimental research has begun to elucidate key current environmental factors that trigger paranoia – for example, showing that state paranoia is a response to a broken agreement from another person but not from a computer (Ellett et al., 2013). In nonclinical samples, state paranoia has been observed under conditions of induced high self-awareness plus task failure (Ellett and Chadwick, 2007), in virtual environments that lack an objective threat (Freeman et al., 2003), in response to social threat environments such as exclusion and loneliness (e.g. Kesting et al., 2013, Lamster et al., 2017), and in game theory environments (e.g. the Prisoner's Dilemma Game, Ellett et al., 2013), that capture some of the key environmental qualities known to trigger paranoia, including threat and ambiguity. The stress-vulnerability model (Zubin and Spring, 1977), would predict that the relationship between state and trait paranoia would vary depending on the prevailing level of interpersonal threat in an environment. Vulnerability in this context is operationalised by degree of trait paranoia, such that when environmental threat is low, one would expect there to be a strong positive relationship between state and trait paranoia - there needs to be some trait disposition present (i.e. vulnerability) in order to interpret a low threat environment in a paranoid way. Evidence for this comes from studies using a virtual reality paradigm, in which the environment is necessarily neutral and lacks objective threat, and a positive correlation (r = 0.55) has been found between state and trait paranoia (Freeman et al., 2003). However, as true environmental threat increases a stress-vulnerability model would predict that the association between trait and state paranoia would weaken, and that state paranoia would occur even in those with low trait disposition. Indeed, this has been demonstrated in the laboratory: for example, a combination of induced high self-awareness plus task failure reliably induces state paranoia in those with low as well as high trait paranoia (Ellett and Chadwick, 2007).

It might, however, be argued that laboratory manipulations of state paranoia lack a degree of ecological validity. In order to overcome this, researchers have started to assess state paranoia in real-world naturally occurring environments that contain threat of interpersonal harm – physical, psychological, or both. Two studies have found that exposure to an urban environment (a busy shopping street in London) increased state paranoia in individuals with persecutory delusions (Ellett et al., 2008, Freeman et al., 2015). However, research is yet to examine whether exposure to an urban environment has a similar toxic effect in nonclinical populations.

One naturally-occurring urban environment high in interpersonal threat is urban cycling. Tragically, the threat is all too real. In 2013, for example, six cyclists died within a fortnight on the roads of London; and more than 200 over a decade. The threat is also interpersonal, in that the fatalities and serious injuries typically occur following impact with drivers of motor vehicles. An experience of state paranoia whilst cycling in London would entail more than simply recognition of risk of physical or psychological harm, with associated emotional and behavioural responses. To be classified as paranoia, there needs also to be a perception that other road users intend to cause harm to the agent (Freeman and Garety, 2000).

In the current study, we examine empirically for the first time if members of the general population report experiencing state paranoia during exposure to an urban environment, specifically whilst cycling in London. A multi-dimensional view of paranoia will be applied (Chadwick and Lowe, 1994, Strauss, 1969), and the study will also assess the degree to which reports of state paranoia when cycling correlate with trait paranoia, as assessed by the widely used Fenigstein and Vanable (1992) Paranoia Scale. Operationalising vulnerability in terms of trait paranoia, the hypotheses were first, that cyclists would report experiencing state paranoia whilst cycling, and second, given the high degree of environmental threat, state paranoia would not be correlated with trait paranoia. In order to explore further the potential applicability of the stress-vulnerability model, we also examined reported state paranoia when using a lower-threat mode of transport, the London underground (Tube). The Tube was chosen as a comparison because in virtual reality research it has been found not to trigger state paranoia in people low in trait paranoia (Freeman et al., 2003, Freeman et al., 2008) and because it includes an interpersonal quality of sharing the space with others. Hypothesis 3 is that reported state paranoia will be significantly higher when cycling than when using the Tube, and hypothesis 4 is that there will be a significant positive correlation between trait paranoia and reported state paranoia when using the Tube (i.e. because in lower threat/stress environments state paranoia arises because of vulnerability expressed as trait paranoia).

Section snippets

Participants

The inclusion criteria for the study were that participants were adults aged 18 years or over, and cycled regularly in London (self-reported frequency of at least once per week). Average self-reported length of journey was 34.5 minutes (range 7–120 min). A total of 323 members of the general population aged 18–66 (Mage = 33.2, sd= 11.24) participated; 58% were male.

Measures

Paranoia Scale (Fenigstein and Vanable, 1992) is a trait measure of paranoia designed specifically for use with nonclinical

Results

Table 1 shows the number of participants endorsing each response category for each of the four state paranoia items. Taking a conservative definition of presence of state paranoia as endorsing Maybe, Probably, or Definitely (i.e. excluding Unsure), the proportion of the total sample (n = 323) evidencing state paranoia was as follows for each item: hostile towards me (n = 187, 58%); wants to upset me (n = 145, 45%); wants to harm me (n = 95, 29%) and has it in for me (n = 160, 50%).

As well as

Discussion

The present research explores the applicability of a stress-vulnerability framework to non-clinical paranoia, by examining the relationship between trait and state paranoia in two naturalistic environments of differing levels of threat – urban cycling and travelling on the London underground (Tube). The study first established the presence of reported state paranoia when cycling in London, an environment high in interpersonal threat: as predicted, state paranoia when cycling was common, with

Declarations

Ethical standards

The study was approved by the institutional ethics committee and has therefore been performed in according with the ethical standards laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments.

All persons gave their informed consent prior to their inclusion in the studies.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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