Paranoia and Defensiveness
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DOES EGO THREAT INCREASE PARANOIA? A Thesis presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School at the University of Missouri-Columbia In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts by DAVID CICERO Dr. John Kerns, Thesis Supervisor August 2007 The undersigned, appointed by the dean of the Graduate School, have examined the thesis entitled DOES EGO THREAT INCREASE PARANOIA? presented by David Cicero, a candidate for the degree of Master of Arts and hereby certify that, in their opinion, it is worthy of acceptance. Professor John Kerns Professor Tim Trull Professor Niels Beck Professor Laura King Professor Phil Wood Professor Brian Colwell To my wife Anne: Thank you for your love and support. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my thesis advisor John Kerns and my thesis committee Laura King, Phil Wood, Niels Beck, Tim Trull, and Brian Colwell. Also, I would like to thank other graduate students who read and/or commented on earlier drafts of this thesis including Aaron Luebbe and Theresa Becker. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………………………………....ii LIST OF TABLES………………………………………………………………………..v LIST OF FIGURES……………………………………………………………………...vii ABSTRACT…..…………………………….………………………………...…..……...xi INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………….……..…1 1. Attributional Style and Paranoia………………………………………………4 2. Paranoia and Self-Esteem……………………………………………………..6 3. Paranoia and Self-Consciousness……………………………………………..8 4. Overview and Goals…………………………………………………………..9 5. Measurement of Paranoia……………………………………………………12 6. Ego Threat Manipulations……………………………………………………14 METHOD……..………………………………………………………………….……...15 1. Participants…………………………………………………………………...15 2. Materials……………………………………………………………………..15 a. Paranoia………………………………………………………………15 b. Self-Esteem Scales…………………………………………………...16 c. State Self-Esteem…………………………………………………….16 d. Implicit Self-Esteem…………………………………………………16 e. Mood…………………………………………………………………18 f. Personality……………………………………………………………18 g. Ego Threat Manipulation…………………………………………….19 h. Social Interaction…………………………………………………….21 i. Experimenter Evaluation…………………………………………….22 j. Behavioral Measure of Paranoia……………………………………..23 3. Procedure…………………………………………………………………….24 4. Data Analysis………………………………………………………………...24 RESULTS………..……………………………………………………………….……...26 1. Manipulation Checks………………………………………………………...26 2. Self-Esteem………………………………………………………..................26 3. Mood………………………………………………………............................27 4. Correlations………………………………………………………..................27 5. MANOVA………………………………………………………....................28 6. Main Effects: Comparisons Between Groups………………………………..28 7. Distance………………………………………………………........................29 8. Self-Report Paranoia………………………………………………………....29 9. Trust Inventory……………………………………………………….............29 10. Experimenter Evaluation…………………………………………………….29 11. Mediation……………………………………………………….....................30 iii 12. Moderation………………………………………………………...................31 a. Distance………………………………………………………............31 b. Trust Inventory……………………………………………………….32 c. Experimenter Evaluation…………………………………………….32 d. SPQ-S………………………………………………………..............34 DISCUSSSION.………………………………………………………………….………35 1. Implications………………………………………………………..................41 2. Limitations and Future Directions…………………………………………...42 3. Conclusion………………………………………………………...................46 REFERENCES………….………………………………………………………….........47 TABLES…………..…………………………………………………………….……….59 FIGURES…………………..……………………….……………………………..……..73 APPENDIX A: CORRELATION TABLES..………………...………………….……...84 APPENDIX B: MEASURES.....……………………………………………………..…..93 APPENDIX C: ADDITIONAL ANALYSES………………………………………….106 iv LIST OF TABLES Table Page 1. Effect sizes (r) for internal attributions for positive and negative events comparing people with paranoia with normal people………………………………………..59 2. Means, Standard Deviations and Cronbach’s Alpha values for all the scales used in the study……………………………………………………………………….61 3. Rotated factor loadings for experimenter evaluation…………………………………63 4. Self-esteem scores by condition……………………………………………………….64 5. Mood by Condition…………………………………………………………………....65 6. Pearson Correlation Coefficients for the paranoia and personality measures………...66 7. Mean paranoia scores by condition……………………………………………………67 8. Regression predicting Distance from condition, Gender, and the Gender X Condition interaction………………………………………………….68 9. Experimenter Evaluation by condition………………………………………….…….69 10. Mean paranoia scores by Gender…………………………………………………….70 A1. Pearson Correlation Coefficients for all scales used in the study for the ego threat condition………………………………………………………………………....85 A2. Pearson correlation coefficients for all the scales used in the study for the control condition………………………………………………………………………....89 C1. Mean rank of self-esteem scores by condition……………………………………..107 C2. Mean rank within gender of self-esteem scores by condition……………………...108 C3. Rank of Mood by Condition……………………………………………………….109 C4. Rank within gender of mood by condition…………………………………………110 C5. Mean of rank of paranoia scores by condition……………………………………..111 C6. Mean of gender rank of paranoia scores by condition……………………………..112 C7. Rank of experimenter evaluation scores by condition……………………………..113 v C8. Rank within gender of experimenter evaluation by condition……………………114 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1. Relations among paranoia, referential thinking, narcissism, negative schizotypy, and peculiarity with self-serving attributional bias score…………...73 2. Relations among paranoia, referential thinking, narcissism, negative schizotypy, and peculiarity with implicit self-esteem……………………………74 3. Relations among paranoia, referential thinking, narcissism, negative schizotypy, and peculiarity with explicit self-esteem……………………………75 4. Relations among paranoia, referential thinking, narcissism, negative schizotypy, and peculiarity with self-consciousness…………………………….76 5. Distance by Gender and Condition……………………………………………………77 6. SPQ-S by Gender and Condition……………………………………………………...78 7. Mediation of Ego Threat on “The experimenter was watching me through the window in the cubicle” by Performance Self-Esteem………………79 8a. Distance by condition and agreeableness in males…………………………………..80 8b. Distance by condition and agreeableness in females………………………………...80 9a. Experimenter Evaluation by condition and agreeableness in males…………………81 9b. Experimenter Evaluation by condition and agreeableness in females…………….…81 10a. Paranoia Experimenter Evaluation by condition and agreeableness in males……...82 10b. Paranoia Experimenter Evaluation by condition and agreeableness in females…....82 11a. SPQ-S by condition and agreeableness in males…………………………………...83 11b. SPQ-S by condition and agreeableness in females…………………………………83 C1. Predicting the rank score of "The experimenter was influencing my performance” from condition, neuroticism, and the condition by neuroticism interaction……115 C2. Predicting the rank score within gender of "The experimenter was influencing my performance” from Condition, Neuroticism, and the condition neuroticism interaction………………………………………………………………………116 vii C3. Rank ordered distance within gender by condition, neuroticism, and the condition by neuroticism interaction…………………………………………...117 C4. Rank order SPQ-S scores within gender for neuroticism, condition, and the neuroticism by condition interaction…………………………………………...118 C5a. Rank of experimenter evaluation scores by agreeableness, condition, and the agreeableness by condition interaction for males………………………………119 C5b. Rank of experimenter evaluation scores by agreeableness, condition, and the agreeableness by condition interaction for females…………………………….119 C6a. Rank of experimenter evaluation score within gender by agreeableness, condition, and the agreeableness by condition interaction in males……………120 C6b. Rank of experimenter evaluation score within gender by agreeableness, condition, and the agreeableness by condition interaction in females……….…120 C7a. Rank of paranoia experimenter evaluation by agreeableness, condition, and the agreeableness by condition interaction in males……………………………121 C7b. Rank of paranoia experimenter evaluation by agreeableness, condition, and the agreeableness by condition interaction in females………………………….121 C8a. Rank of “The experimenter was watching me through the window in the cubicle” by agreeableness, condition, and the agreeableness by condition interaction in males……………………………………………………………..122 C8b. Rank of “The experimenter was watching me through the window in the cubicle” by agreeableness, condition, and the agreeableness by condition interaction in females……………………………………………………….…..122 C9a. Rank of “the experimenter was watching me through the window in the cubicle” score within gender by agreeableness, condition, and the agreeableness by condition interaction in males…………………………….….123 C9b. Rank of “the experimenter was watching me through the window in the cubicle” score within gender by agreeableness, condition, and the agreeableness by condition interaction in females……………………………...123 C10a. Rank of SPQ-S scores by agreeableness, condition, and the agreeableness by condition interaction in males…………………………………………………..124 C10b. Rank of SPQ-S scores by agreeableness, condition, and the agreeableness by condition interaction in females……………………………………………..124 viii C10c. Rank of SPQ-S scores by agreeableness, condition, and the agreeableness by condition interaction………………………………………………………...125 C11a Rank of SPQ-S scores within gender by agreeableness, condition,