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Aug 13, 2023 · Defining paranoia. Like most psychological phenomena, paranoia exists on a continuum. It is more than fleeting, heightened awareness, and not always of well-formed delusional proportions.
Paranoia is an instinct or thought process that is believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety, suspicion, or fear, often to the point of delusion and irrationality. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of conspiracy concerning a perceived threat towards oneself (i.e., "Everyone is out to get me" ).
- Paranoid (adjective)
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Background Paranoia—incorrectly thinking that others are deliberating trying to harm you—causes distress, undermines social interactions and leads to withdrawal. It presents across multiple psychiatric diagnoses.
- Confirmation bias. A suspicious person is a person who has something on his mind and searches intensely for confirmation of his anticipations. He will pay no attention to rational arguments except to find in them some aspect or feature that confirms his original view.
- Attention bias. The instrument for an individual's confirmation bias is his attention. His attention is intense and exceedingly narrow in focus. For example, a person with low self-esteem is highly sensitive to other people ignoring them.
- Disorders of reasoning. Once a suspicious person accepts a belief based on some piece of evidence, he is reluctant to give it up. When confronted with new evidence, he is less likely to revise his original judgments about the possibility of alternative explanations.
- Distorted reality. Paranoid people impose a biased view on the actual world. Their thought processes go from belief to evidence. A paranoid person generally listens and watches only for specific clues that interest him, which tie into suspicious beliefs.
Jul 6, 2023 · If we take a look at paranoia, we can see it involves a heightened sense of suspicion and fear towards others, driven by a belief that others pose a threat or harbour malicious intent....
Feb 22, 2024 · What does it mean to be paranoid in a world where drone cameras, computer hacking, and identity theft are real concerns? How can you tell the difference between caution about personal privacy and delusions about people spying on you? Here’s what psychology has to say about paranoia in the contemporary world.
Learn what it means to experience paranoia. Our introduction to paranoia looks at common types of paranoid thoughts, plus how it relates to mental health.