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Reasoning and delusions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 January 2018

Róisín Kemp ,
Siew Chua ,
Peter McKenna  and
Anthony David
Róisín Kemp
Affiliation:
Department of Psychological Medicine, King's College School of Medicine and Dentistry and the Institute of Psychiatry, London
Siew Chua
Affiliation:
Department of Psychological Medicine, King's College School of Medicine and Dentistry and the Institute of Psychiatry, London
Peter McKenna
Affiliation:
Fulbourn Hospital, Cambridge
Anthony David*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychological Medicine, King's College School of Medicine and Dentistry and the Institute of Psychiatry, London
*
Professor A. S. David, Department of Psychological Medicine, King's College School of Medicine and Dentistry and the Institute of Psychiatry, 103 Denmark Hill, London SE5 8AF
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Abstract

Background

Delusions are assumed to reflect disordered reasoning, but with little empirical support. We attempted to study this in 16 relatively intelligent deluded patients and 16 normal volunteers.

Method

Standard tests were used which required subjects to choose between logically fallacious and valid responses, both of which were plausible. The tests were: (a) conditional statements (if… then), (b) syllogisms (e.g. no A are C, some B are C, some C are not A), and (c) judgements of probability. All three tasks incorporated neutral and emotive content.

Results

Both normal and deluded subjects frequently made logical errors. With conditionals, deluded subjects tended to endorse fallacies more often than normal controls and this was accentuated when the content was emotive. Similarly, with syllogisms, the effect of emotional content on the endorsement of unbelievable responses was increased slightly in the deluded group. Finally, the deluded patients showed a trend to be less prone to the conjunction fallacy than normals, suggesting less reliance on existing schema.

Conclusions

Differences in reasoning between deluded patients and controls are surprisingly small. Patients are somewhat more prone to endorse invalid or fallacious responses, especially when emotive themes are involved.

Type
Papers
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 170 , Issue 5 , May 1997 , pp. 398 - 405
Copyright
Copyright © 1997 The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

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