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Psychosis, delusions and the “jumping to conclusions” reasoning bias: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Taylor, Peter; Dudley, Robert; Wickham, Sophie; Hutton, Paul

Authors

Peter Taylor

Robert Dudley

Sophie Wickham



Abstract

We did a systematic review and meta-analysis to investigate the magnitude and specificity of the “jumping to conclusions” (JTC) bias in psychosis and delusions. We examined the extent to which people with psychosis, and people with delusions specifically, required less information before making decisions. We examined (1) the average amount of information required to make a decision and (2) numbers who demonstrated an extreme JTC bias, as assessed by the “beads task.” We compared people with psychosis to people with and without nonpsychotic mental health problems, and people with psychosis with and without delusions. We examined whether reduced data-gathering was associated with increased delusion severity. We identified 55 relevant studies, and acquired previously unpublished data from 16 authors. People with psychosis required significantly less information to make decisions than healthy individuals (k = 33, N = 1935, g = −0.53, 95% CI −0.69, −0.36) and those with nonpsychotic mental health problems (k = 13, N = 667, g = −0.58, 95% CI −0.80, −0.35). The odds of extreme responding in psychosis were between 4 and 6 times higher than the odds of extreme responding by healthy participants and participants with nonpsychotic mental health problems. The JTC bias was linked to a greater probability of delusion occurrence in psychosis (k = 14, N = 770, OR 1.52, 95% CI 1.12, 2.05). There was a trend-level inverse association between data-gathering and delusion severity (k = 18; N = 794; r = −.09, 95% CI −0.21, 0.03). Hence, nonaffective psychosis is characterized by a hasty decision-making style, which is linked to an increased probability of delusions.

Citation

Taylor, P., Dudley, R., Wickham, S., & Hutton, P. (2015). Psychosis, delusions and the “jumping to conclusions” reasoning bias: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 42(3), 652-665. https://doi.org/10.1093/schbul/sbv150

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Oct 1, 2016
Online Publication Date Oct 31, 2015
Publication Date Oct 31, 2015
Deposit Date Dec 15, 2016
Publicly Available Date Dec 19, 2016
Journal Schizophrenia Bulletin
Print ISSN 0586-7614
Electronic ISSN 1745-1701
Publisher Oxford University Press
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 42
Issue 3
Pages 652-665
DOI https://doi.org/10.1093/schbul/sbv150
Keywords beads task, schizophrenia, delusions, reasoning, jumping to conclusions,
Public URL http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/454775
Contract Date Dec 19, 2016

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Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

Copyright Statement
© The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
For commercial re-use, please contact journals.permissions@oup.com








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