Grand Delusions and Fake News

Laura

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Grand delusions: Why we all believe the weirdest things
_https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23631520-800-grand-delusions-why-we-all-believe-the-weirdest-things/

The human mind is the perfect breeding ground for bizarre beliefs, so we shouldn’t be surprised that fake news has such a powerful influence

By Dan Jones

THREE Messiahs walk into a psychiatric unit… No, this isn’t the set-up to a tasteless joke, but the beginning of a study done in the 1950s by Milton Rokeach at Ypsilanti State Hospital, Michigan. Rokeach brought together three men, each harbouring the delusion that he was Jesus Christ, to see if meeting the others and confronting their mutually contradictory claims would change their minds. Two years and many arguments later, their beliefs had barely budged. For each Jesus, the other two were fakers, while they were the real deal.

As delusions go, the Messiah complex is extreme. Most delusions are far more mundane, such as an unfounded belief that you are exceptionally talented, that people are out to get you or that a celebrity is in love with you. In fact, more than 90 per cent of us hold delusional beliefs. You may find that figure shockingly high – or perhaps you see evidence all around, in the willingness of so many people to swallow fake news, in the antics of politicians and celebrities, and even among your Facebook friends. Either way, what exactly does it mean? Why are some of us more prone to delusions than others? How do false beliefs get a hold in our minds? And can we all learn to tame our delusional tendencies?

First we need to be clear about what a delusion is. “There’s a loose way of talking about delusions – like when we talk about the ‘God delusion’ – which simply means any belief that’s likely to be false and is held despite lack of evidence, or even in spite of the evidence,” says Lisa Bortolotti at the University of Birmingham, UK. The psychological take is more nuanced. Delusions are still seen as irrational, but they are also idiosyncratic, meaning the belief is not widely shared. That rules out lots of things including most religious beliefs, conspiracy theories and the denial of climate change. Furthermore, the idiosyncratic nature of delusions makes them isolating and alienating in a way that believing, say, a conspiracy theory is not. Delusions also tend to be much more personal than other irrational beliefs, and they usually conform to one of a handful of themes.

Bizarre beliefs

At any time, around 0.2 per cent of people are being treated for delusional disorders. We now know that this is the tip of an iceberg. In 2010, Rachel Pechey and Peter Halligan, both at Cardiff University, UK, presented 1000 people with 17 delusion-like beliefs, and asked whether they held them strongly, moderately, weakly or not at all. The beliefs were either relatively mundane, such as “Certain people are out to harm me” and “I am an exceptionally gifted person that others do not recognise”, or more bizarre, including “I am dead and/or do not exist” and “People I know disguise themselves as others to manipulate or influence me”. In all, 39 per cent of participants held at least one of these beliefs strongly, and a whopping 91 per cent held one or more at least weakly. What’s more, three-quarters of people subscribed to bizarre beliefs to at least some extent.

“Symptoms of psychosis-like delusions are just the extreme end of a continuum of similar phenomena in the general population,” says Ryan McKay at Royal Holloway, University of London. More evidence for this comes from the Peters Delusion Inventory, which is frequently used to measure how prone people are to delusional thinking. The inventory asks respondents whether or not they have ever experienced various different beliefs that often crop up in a clinical context, resulting in a delusion-proneness range from 0 to 21. Among the general population, people score an average of 6.7, with no difference between men and women. People with psychotic delusions score about twice this. So they do have more of these beliefs, but what really sets them apart from others is that they tend to be more preoccupied with their delusional beliefs and more distressed by them. “It’s not what you think, it’s the way that you think about it,” says Emmanuelle Peters of King’s College London, who led the development of the inventory.

That we are all prone to delusions may not be so surprising. A range of cognitive biases makes the human mind fertile soil for growing all kinds of irrational beliefs. Confirmation bias, for example, means we ignore inconvenient facts that go against our beliefs and uncritically accept anything that supports them. Desirability bias leaves us prone to shoring up beliefs we have a vested interest in maintaining because they make us or our group look good. Clustering bias refers to our tendency to see phantom patterns in random events, impairing our ability to draw logical conclusions from the available evidence.

A quick trawl of social media is all it takes to see how these utterly human ways of thinking can contribute to a cornucopia of strange and idiosyncratic beliefs. But the question of why some of us are more delusion prone than others is more difficult to answer.

It could have something to do with how we see the world – literally. In one study, volunteers watched an optical illusion consisting of a set of moving dots that could either be perceived as rotating clockwise or anticlockwise. The dots seemed to periodically flip direction, in much the same way a Necker cube changes its orientation as you look at it. Those individuals who scored highly on delusion-proneness perceived the dots as switching direction more frequently, suggesting they have a less stable perceptual experience. How this influences thinking remains unclear, but it doesn’t end there. Participants then wore glasses, which they were told would make the dots appear to rotate one way rather than the other. In reality, the glasses had no effect, but delusion-prone people reported seeing the dots move in the supposed biased direction – a case of seeing what you believe. Another recent study revealed that their perception of time is distorted, too. Delusion-prone people were more likely to believe they had predicted events they could not have because of the order they happened in, indicating that they were making mistakes in judging the temporal order of their thoughts.

It is tempting to conclude that people susceptible to delusional thinking are more suggestible than others, but another study designed to test this explicitly found the opposite. In fact, delusions don’t typically start out as an idea seeded by someone else, but from a strange or anomalous experience generated by ourselves. The crucial second step in forming a delusion is that the person then invents an explanation for this experience. People with Capgras delusion, for example, explain a disturbing feeling of disconnection from a loved one by concluding that he or she has been replaced by a doppelgänger or hyper-realistic robot. This implies some kind of problem with evaluating the plausibility of one’s beliefs, says McKay. In Capgras, it has been linked to damage in specific brain networks. However, there is a more everyday reason that people hold implausible beliefs: a tendency to jump to conclusions on the basis of limited evidence.

The extent to which anyone does this can be measured with a simple experiment. Imagine two jars containing a mix of black and orange beads: one contains 85 per cent black beads and 15 per cent orange, and the other has the reverse proportions. You select a bead from one, without knowing which it is. Let’s say the bead is orange. You are then asked whether you would like to make a call on which jar you are taking beads from, or whether you want to draw another bead to help work it out. It is prudent to examine a few beads at least – it is quite possible to draw two orange beads from a jar with mostly black, and vice versa. Yet, around 70 per cent of people being treated for a delusion make a judgement after seeing just one or two beads. Only 10 per cent of the general population are as quick to jump to conclusions, but the more prone you are to delusional thinking, the fewer beads you are likely to sample before making your decision.

This jumping-to-conclusions bias might seem stupid, but it isn’t a sign of low intelligence, according to clinical psychologist Philippa Garety at King’s College London. Instead, she believes it reflects the kind of reasoning an individual favours. Some of us rely more on intuitive thinking – so-called system one thinking – while others are more likely to engage slower, analytic “system two thinking”, which is needed for reviewing and revising beliefs. In a recent study, Garety’s team found that the less analytical a person’s style of thinking, the fewer beads they wanted to see before making a judgement. “It’s not that people with a jumping-to-conclusions bias don’t understand or can’t use evidence,” she says. “They’re just overusing system one at the expense of system two.” And sure enough, Garety’s latest study confirms that these intuitive thinkers are also more prone to clinical delusions.

It looks like a vulnerability to delusions is part and parcel of regular human psychology. After all, everyone is an intuitive thinker at times: even people who favour system two thinking rely on quick, system one thinking when tired, stressed or scared. Whether humanity is becoming more deluded than ever is another question. In today’s hyper-mediated world, we are continually exposed to new experiences and people, and called upon to evaluate all sorts of beliefs that our forebears wouldn’t have encountered. We may also be more tired and stressed. As a result, it is possible we have more numerous or richer delusions than past generations. Nobody has done the research. But even if that is the case, this may have some advantages. “Delusions can be helpful when they make people feel good about themselves or explain aspects of their life that are difficult to understand,” says Bortolotti. It can be empowering to feel that a celebrity is in love with you, for example. And there is plenty of evidence that an inflated belief in your talents can have all sorts of benefits, from success in job interviews to attracting a sexual partner.

Alternatively, our alarming susceptibility to fake news and the outlandish behaviour of key players on the world stage might lead you to conclude that we could do with a bit less delusional thinking. If so, the good news is that insights into delusion psychology point to some ways we can curb it. Garety has helped design an intervention to train people’s slow-thinking skills. SlowMo, which includes therapy and an app, is intended for people with paranoid delusions, but it nurtures mental habits all of us can benefit from. They include gathering sufficient data before making conclusions, learning to question your initial thoughts and impressions about events, and considering different explanations of experiences. SlowMo is currently being tested. If it proves effective, the app will be available in the UK through the National Health Service.

Changing your mind

Of course, changing the way you think isn’t easy. It takes effort, and support. “There’s some evidence that people who have good relationships at home and have someone to talk to are more able to activate slow thinking,” says Garety. Even if that’s not your goal, sharing your thoughts is a good first step to dispelling delusions. “It’s psychologically healthy to recognise that our thoughts sometimes need inspection and engagement with the world to assess how right they are,” says clinical psychologist Daniel Freeman at the University of Oxford.

Simply talking can highlight delusional thoughts in ourselves and others. But then what? We know that delusions are impervious to counterargument. In fact, trying to disprove them can backfire. Freeman has some advice based on his clinical work. First, provide a plausible, non-threatening alternative perspective. Then, help the deluded person gain evidence that bolsters this perspective.

“We don’t try to disprove people’s beliefs,” he says, “because we know that has the opposite effect, just like when people argue in a pub – no one changes their mind.” If you don’t believe him, ask any Jesus Christ.


Strange Beliefs

Despite being diverse and idiosyncratic, delusions cluster into a few core themes.

Persecutory Delusions: beliefs that others are out to harm you. This is the most common type of delusion, affecting between 10 and 15 per cent of people.

Referential Delusions: beliefs that things happening in the world – from news headlines to song lyrics – relate directly to you. Persecutory and referential delusions often go hand in hand.

Control Delusions: beliefs that your thoughts or behaviours are being manipulated by outside agents. Such delusions are common in schizophrenia.

Erotomanic Delusions: beliefs that someone who you don’t know, typically a celebrity, is in love with you.

Grandiose Delusions: unfounded beliefs that you are exceptionally talented, insightful or otherwise better than the hoi polloi.

Jealous Delusions: irrational beliefs that your partner is being unfaithful. This is the type of delusion most commonly associated with violence.

Somatic Delusions: erroneous beliefs about the body. In Ekbom’s syndrome, people believe they are infested with parasites. People with Cotard delusion believe they are dead or don’t exist.

Misidentification Delusions: beliefs about changed identity. A classic is Capgras delusion, where people believe that a loved one has been replaced by a doppelgänger.

How Deluded Are You?

Almost everyone is vulnerable to delusions, but some of us more than others. These 21 questions constitute the Peters Delusion Inventory, which is the most widely used measure of delusion proneness. Give yourself one point for each “yes” and zero points for each “no”, then tot up your score.

1 Do you ever feel as if people seem to drop hints about you or say things with a double meaning?

2 Do you ever feel as if things in magazines or on TV were written especially for you?

3 Do you ever feel as if some people are not what they seem to be?

4 Do you ever feel as if you are being persecuted in some way?

5 Do you ever feel as if there is a conspiracy against you?

6 Do you ever feel as if you are, or destined to be someone very important?

7 Do you ever feel that you are a very special or unusual person?

8 Do you ever feel that you are especially close to God?

9 Do you ever think people can communicate telepathically?

10 Do you ever feel as if electrical devices such as computers can influence the way you think?

11 Do you ever feel as if you have been chosen by God in some way?

12 Do you believe in the power of witchcraft, voodoo or the occult?

13 Are you often worried that your partner may be unfaithful?

14 Do you ever feel that you have sinned more than the average person?

15 Do you ever feel that people look at you oddly because of your appearance?

16 Do you ever feel as if you had no thoughts in your head at all?

17 Do you ever feel as if the world is about to end?

18 Do your thoughts ever feel alien to you in some way?

19 Have your thoughts ever been so vivid that you were worried other people would hear them?

20 Do you ever feel as if your own thoughts were being echoed back to you?

21 Do you ever feel as if you are a robot or zombie without a will of your own?



0-5 You are less prone to delusions than most. Your thinking style is probably more analytical than intuitive.
6-7 Congratulations! You are normal. The average score is 6.7, with no difference between men and women.
8-21 You are more prone to delusions than most. You are likely to think intuitively and jump to conclusions.

Schizophrenia Bulletin

This article appeared in print under the headline “Delusional you”
Article amended on 24 November 2017

We corrected the scoring of the Peters Delusion Inventory questionnaire
 
Wow, I should be in a padded room!

While this article seems to have a valid underlying point, the ridiculous quiz that goes with it seems a rather obvious case of the good ol' bait and switch misdirection. With the exception of the messianic questions, which I consider to be a rather flagrant straw man, I could answer "yes" or "at some point" to almost every single one. I'm sure anyone who believes in multinational conspiracies or spirit communication is equally delusional according to these buffoons.

It looks like a way to vector people who are a bit more analytically minded into more "scientifically acceptable" mainstream thought by providing some truthful observations about people who live in a subjective fantasy world, and then the "twist" is applied at the end where the researchers define what is real and what isn't and try to get you to conform to their fantasy world. The creators of this quiz are as deluded as anyone else if they believe all of these items are false.
 
Neil said:
Wow, I should be in a padded room!

While this article seems to have a valid underlying point, the ridiculous quiz that goes with it seems a rather obvious case of the good ol' bait and switch misdirection. With the exception of the messianic questions, which I consider to be a rather flagrant straw man, I could answer "yes" or "at some point" to almost every single one. I'm sure anyone who believes in multinational conspiracies or spirit communication is equally delusional according to these buffoons.

It looks like a way to vector people who are a bit more analytically minded into more "scientifically acceptable" mainstream thought by providing some truthful observations about people who live in a subjective fantasy world, and then the "twist" is applied at the end where the researchers define what is real and what isn't and try to get you to conform to their fantasy world. The creators of this quiz are as deluded as anyone else if they believe all of these items are false.

LOL! I know.

Let's look at the questions with a little annotation and I'm going to color the ones that might actually be useful to detect delusional weirdness in red:

1 Do you ever feel as if people seem to drop hints about you or say things with a double meaning? {That certainly happens to everyone at one time or another in social situations, especially if they are socially inept!}

2 Do you ever feel as if things in magazines or on TV were written especially for you? {Okay, this one is weird. Unless, of course, you know the writer or publisher. }

3 Do you ever feel as if some people are not what they seem to be? {Based on modern cognitive science, that's true of everyone.}

4 Do you ever feel as if you are being persecuted in some way? {Nowadays, being persecuted is more and more widespread, so a lot of people can answer this "yes" objectively.}

5 Do you ever feel as if there is a conspiracy against you? {I guess it depends on how you describe the conspiracy! 4 D STS? About everyone could answer "yes". But only a smaller group could answer "yes" to a human level conspiracy. I happen to be one of them. And it's not just a "feeling", it's a verified set of facts with legal files and witnesses!}

6 Do you ever feel as if you are, or destined to be someone very important? {Nobody is a nobody. But yeah, ego can get in the way. Best to aspire to be a good workman and not try to sit above the salt lest you be asked to move!}

7 Do you ever feel that you are a very special or unusual person? {This one is similar to the preceding one. One has to handle this kind of thinking very carefully.}

8 Do you ever feel that you are especially close to God? {Ummm... no. I'd say this is a real clue to delusion!}

9 Do you ever think people can communicate telepathically? {Of course they can; there are tons of experiments and anecdotal evidence that prove it.}

10 Do you ever feel as if electrical devices such as computers can influence the way you think? {Again, there are experiments and evidence that this IS the case!!! Even including experiments by neuro/cognitive scientists.}

11 Do you ever feel as if you have been chosen by God in some way? {Ummm... this is another one that is a clue to real delusion.}

12 Do you believe in the power of witchcraft, voodoo or the occult? {There is certainly evidence that something is going on with these things and anyone who isn't aware of that is too ignorant to discuss the topic.}

13 Are you often worried that your partner may be unfaithful? {I'd say that most people have a 50/50 chance of this being true and it shouldn't be on this test. But, if a person obsesses over it with no evidence, that's a problem.}

14 Do you ever feel that you have sinned more than the average person? {Same answer as previous.}

15 Do you ever feel that people look at you oddly because of your appearance? {For a LOT of people, this is true because we live in a society that places a high value on "star qualities" and being "cool". If the question was "do you think about this all the time", it might have value, but as it is phrased, it is a worthless question.}

16 Do you ever feel as if you had no thoughts in your head at all? {I'd say that this one is a clue to true weirdness. I can't imagine "no thoughts".}

17 Do you ever feel as if the world is about to end? {Yes, the world changes, sometimes a lot, but unless a giant asteroid was reported coming this way, or unless the USA manages to get a nuke war going with Russia, this one has to be another clue to weirdness.}

18 Do your thoughts ever feel alien to you in some way? {Considering the question above, about mental influence by machines and the one about telepathy, I'd say that having this happen now and again shouldn't be a sign of delusion; it could simply be fact.}

19 Have your thoughts ever been so vivid that you were worried other people would hear them? {I think this might be a clue to weirdness.}

20 Do you ever feel as if your own thoughts were being echoed back to you? {Another clue to weirdness.}

21 Do you ever feel as if you are a robot or zombie without a will of your own? {LOL! Just about everybody is at the mercy of their own brain programming! But, taken in a more serious way, yeah, could be a sign of real weirdness.}

So, basically, I put in red 10 out of the 21 as being possible real signs of delusional weirdness. That means, that a person to could answer "yes" to the other eleven and NOT be delusional. Yet the scoring system says:

0-5 You are less prone to delusions than most. Your thinking style is probably more analytical than intuitive.
6-7 Congratulations! You are normal. The average score is 6.7, with no difference between men and women.
8-21 You are more prone to delusions than most. You are likely to think intuitively and jump to conclusions.

Plus, we could even say that a "yes" answer could be MORE analytical depending on the basis of the response!!!
 
Although you posted again while I was writing this, I'll add my two cents.

We corrected the scoring of the Peters Delusion Inventory questionnaire
What was it before?

The article is interesting and has some valid observations, like the cluster groupings make sense and the idea that delusions are usually generated by ourselves, but I agree with Neil that the quiz questions
are pretty open to interpretation and too general. From my perception, a positive answer to questions 3, 9, 12, 13, 17, 18 can be made by most serious followers of the Cs and Laura's work and hey
we're OK :lol: There is evidence collected from many sources that show the validity of esp, the power of electrical devices to influence thinking, and that the majority of married people cheat on their spouses at one time or another, and some of us who have been married to serial adulterers for twenty years know there is nothing remotely delusional about worrying about our spouse's activities. Every time my intuition told me he was cheating again it turned out he was. Healthy functioning intuition is a valuable tool that should be used to motivate us to engage our logical thinking processes to study what our intuition may have red-flagged for us to pay more attention to. I don't remember where I first heard the phrase "You're not paranoid if they are really out to get you," but there is a logic to it.
 
Interesting quiz but they did unnecessarily group together things that normal peeps would feel from time to time with some downright nutty stuff.

I've known some people who, if they had the insight, would answer yes to the questions in red and they really are weird. Schizophrenic level weird.
 
I guess my biggest issue with this quiz and many other similarly conceived psychology quizzes is that they ask these broad sweeping generalized questions as if everything is black and white with little respect for nuance. Almost all of these questions could be indicative of delusional thinking or not, depending on the basis. Like this cheating partner question, if you were a control freak and saw every other man your wife talked to as a potential affair, then I can see where that would be delusional thinking. Where is the context to define the situation? To think that you need ~8years of university education and advanced degrees to produce this which is really a high school opinion poll dressed up as science is ridiculous. However, when one sees what "higher" education does to the mind almost across the board now, I really shouldn't be surprised. In reality most of these questions require paragraph answers to make anything remotely resembling a diagnosis. Speaking in my own case:
Laura said:
1 Do you ever feel as if people seem to drop hints about you or say things with a double meaning? {That certainly happens to everyone at one time or another in social situations, especially if they are socially inept!}
Pretty much what I was thinking. Also sometimes people try to get you to notice your faults in a gentle way without coming right out and saying it.
Laura said:
2 Do you ever feel as if things in magazines or on TV were written especially for you? {Okay, this one is weird. Unless, of course, you know the writer or publisher. }
Hmm... I seem to remember this. "There is a disinformation campaign for everyone, it doesn't matter who you are or what your interests are, there is a program just for you, to vector your thinking and get you to think the way that they want you to think." I'm also aware of how 4D STS can set up certain synchronicities in your life to try and push you to make a certain choice, and news and television shows that just happen to "coincidentally" appear at an impressionable time could definitely be used to do this. I guess the operative word in this question is "especially." While I don't feel specifically targeted in this way, I'm aware that it exists and the general dynamic is true enough.
Laura said:
3 Do you ever feel as if some people are not what they seem to be? {Based on modern cognitive science, that's true of everyone.}
Yeah, and I wonder what they would say if I started talking about demonic possession, walk-ins, and wanderers. Padded room, here I come.
Laura said:
4 Do you ever feel as if you are being persecuted in some way? {Nowadays, being persecuted is more and more widespread, so a lot of people can answer this "yes" objectively.}
Agree, although it isn't yet "personal" for me.
Laura said:
5 Do you ever feel as if there is a conspiracy against you? {I guess it depends on how you describe the conspiracy! 4 D STS? About everyone could answer "yes". But only a smaller group could answer "yes" to a human level conspiracy. I happen to be one of them. And it's not just a "feeling", it's a verified set of facts with legal files and witnesses!}
Exactly what I was thinking.
Laura said:
6 Do you ever feel as if you are, or destined to be someone very important? {Nobody is a nobody. But yeah, ego can get in the way. Best to aspire to be a good workman and not try to sit above the salt lest you be asked to move!}

7 Do you ever feel that you are a very special or unusual person? {This one is similar to the preceding one. One has to handle this kind of thinking very carefully.}
There have certainly been times in the past where I have wondered this, but now it's more of "prefer not to go there"/can of worms type of thing.
Laura said:
Do you ever feel that you are especially close to God? {Ummm... no. I'd say this is a real clue to delusion!}
Well, the thing about this question is, I had serious doubts that the biblical depiction of God was accurate and even if there was some truth to it, it was a purely human affair. If God is supposed to be the lord of the cosmos, I thought that there must be some sort of galactic level bible with a much broader perspective than some tribe in the desert. In order to understand the Jews, it was necessary to understand the Egyptians, Romans, Mesopotamians, and the Greeks; in order to understand Earth you needed know what was going on in the galactic neighborhood. I guess now I would have to expand that to include alternate universes which may intersect in the past and the future. Anyway, all of the authority figures in my life believed in the Biblical version, so I kind of went along to get along and didn't have much interest in the god question until I encountered the Cassiopaean version of it. I can see where if one had a profoundly deep mystical experience they might seem to be filled with the "Holy Spirit"; however the concept of God held by Christianity in general is very constrictive, and pretty much the only people who are going to respond to that linguistic pattern are authoritarians who believe that the Bible is the holiest of holies. Overall, this question was a no for me as well.
Laura said:
9 Do you ever think people can communicate telepathically? {Of course they can; there are tons of experiments and anecdotal evidence that prove it.}

10 Do you ever feel as if electrical devices such as computers can influence the way you think? {Again, there are experiments and evidence that this IS the case!!! Even including experiments by neuro/cognitive scientists.}

12 Do you believe in the power of witchcraft, voodoo or the occult? {There is certainly evidence that something is going on with these things and anyone who isn't aware of that is too ignorant to discuss the topic.}
Yeah, these are basically what I call "Duh questions," it is hard to answer no to them and not be delusional, although people do make a lot of stuff up too.
Laura said:
11 Do you ever feel as if you have been chosen by God in some way? {Ummm... this is another one that is a clue to real delusion.}
Considering how vast the universe is and how tiny Earth is, the notion that some insignificant human would be the "vanguard of God" is just silliness. At best, people select themselves and God just kind of helps them along. No for me as well.
Laura said:
13 Are you often worried that your partner may be unfaithful? {I'd say that most people have a 50/50 chance of this being true and it shouldn't be on this test. But, if a person obsesses over it with no evidence, that's a problem.}
Never been in a sexual relationship so this question is irrelevant.
Laura said:
14 Do you ever feel that you have sinned more than the average person? {Same answer as previous.}
I dunno, sin is such a loaded term. Objectively, sin is probably the act of actively doing something against your chosen polarity. If you don't know what that means, you're probably to mechanical for the question to have any relevance, for you everything "just happens" as Gurdjieff put it. So this one ends up being a no.
Laura said:
15 Do you ever feel that people look at you oddly because of your appearance? {For a LOT of people, this is true because we live in a society that places a high value on "star qualities" and being "cool". If the question was "do you think about this all the time", it might have value, but as it is phrased, it is a worthless question.}
LOL, being in some backwater town in SE Asia and having the children come running out to take a look at me because I'm basically the blond haired blue eyed "alien" was kind of an unforgettable experience.
Laura said:
16 Do you ever feel as if you had no thoughts in your head at all? {I'd say that this one is a clue to true weirdness. I can't imagine "no thoughts".}
Yeah, this is probably the best question on the test, one of the few where a clear cut no is warranted, although it seems like it belongs on some kind of postmodernist personality inventory.
Laura said:
17 Do you ever feel as if the world is about to end? {Yes, the world changes, sometimes a lot, but unless a giant asteroid was reported coming this way, or unless the USA manages to get a nuke war going with Russia, this one has to be another clue to weirdness.}
Well, it depends on what you mean by "end." A sudden total erasure from existence seems pretty delusional. However, the most likely future from this point in time looks like the fruition of a totalitarian postmodernist dystopia which is wholly dead inside; something no sane person would actually want to live through. For me, that qualifies as an "end" because I won't be sticking around if it comes to pass. So this question ends up being a yes.
Laura said:
18 Do your thoughts ever feel alien to you in some way? {Considering the question above, about mental influence by machines and the one about telepathy, I'd say that having this happen now and again shouldn't be a sign of delusion; it could simply be fact.}
Indeed, I've gotten the sensation of things "whispering in my ear" more than once masquerading as my own internal thought process. Yes.
Laura said:
19 Have your thoughts ever been so vivid that you were worried other people would hear them? {I think this might be a clue to weirdness.}
I think this question actually goes with the telepathy stuff. I have this thing which comes and goes where sometimes when I sit next to someone and look at them and I can get a general idea of what they're feeling and it's like their emotions generate some sort of waves which can be read or felt in some way. I've had a minor concern in the past that some people who are really psychic would be able to do this to a much more refined degree and be able to pull out every stray thought I was thinking before I was ready to tell them. (In one case this revolved around my thoughts that the "psychic" in question was really attractive.) So while I don't think my thoughts ever would make a physical sound, if one's receiver is sensitive enough and tuned in, there is a possibility that they could be decoded by someone else. So yes to this one.
Laura said:
20 Do you ever feel as if your own thoughts were being echoed back to you? {Another clue to weirdness.}
This is very similar to the previous question. It does seem as if there are certain "waves" which come into the forum, and several different people have the same idea at similar times but coming at it from different angles. It doesn't necessarily mean the thought was originally mine to begin with, although it may seem that way initially. Maybe we were all just riding the wave. In the sense of a physical echo, which is probably how this question was intended, it's definitely a no, but in a more metaphorical reflective consciousness sense I think there's something to it. So my final answer is yes with an asterisk.
Laura said:
21 Do you ever feel as if you are a robot or zombie without a will of your own? {LOL! Just about everybody is at the mercy of their own brain programming! But, taken in a more serious way, yeah, could be a sign of real weirdness.}
Yeah, after reading Gurdjieff for the first time I really wondered. I was also taken with your description of "cardboard people" and how apt that was for describing certain individuals I had encountered. So the overall answer is no, although there was a time when it could've been yes, again in a more metaphorical context.

So I've only got 4 outright nos, and three more "mostly no." I only see two questions that are pretty good "smoking gun" indicators of delusional thinking (No thoughts and chosen by God), and 5 or 6 more that could be decent indicators, but where context can change the picture a lot. The three "Duh questions" are a pretty good indicator of how submissive you are to the scientific thought police, and the rest of them are entirely contextual. Good research idea, terrible execution.
 
The little test is obviously bogus. It was appended to the end of the article and I don't think it was part of it. It is actually the article that interests me.
 
I was very disappointed that I only got 2/10! I always thought I was an intuitive thinker. I suppose the good news is I'm (currently) not schizophrenic, because a lot of schizophrenics would say 'yes' to the questions, but would be delusional because of brain chemical imbalance, and would have no objective proof, or criteria for their beliefs.

Some of the questions could be answered "it depends" or "sometimes" depending on what circumstances a person finds themselves in.

I am occasionally shocked at how strongly people hold on to their beliefs, even with objective proof shows them to be false.
 
It is interesting, I have thought that breaking a believe is the same as breaking chunks of their personality and therefore a chunk of perception (which is patterns of organization of information)

People base their personality in assumptions about reality, thinking that the reality of life is the result of Jesus' grace is a assumption that does not explain with everything in life, people instead try to make everything fit within the believe, rather than a system of checks and self questioning.

People who assume the earth is flat, give this idea a reality through their belief, and center everything around the argument, their energy is focused in making everything fit inside this belief, not in questioning or finding the necessary evidence, it is mere psychological comfort.

I think that the questionnaire has a consensus of "normalcy" it determines what should and should not be normal, and in no way considers its own set of beliefs. It focuses in a set of feelings rather than marked personality traits, though it is interesting to answer these questions to the self as much as possible and compare/identify things here and there and do this question weather we are or are not assuming things with the required knowledge.


The difference is that people who do not have this internal system of checks to question assumptions, have no balancing system to process believes as beliefs and reality as reality in their corresponding realm.

It is a different thing when there is a basis for the assumptions, when you say that there is paranoia involved if one's environment is being systematically targeted, if we go to our neighborhood and we are being targeted there is a basis for the belief of persecution, the idea is to get to the reasoning behind the persecution to resolve the imbalance.
 
The article was interesting. The way we were raised, along with our genetics effect the way that we seek patterns in life. The brain filters out so many things and sometimes ascribes wrong meanings to things. Scary!

The capgras delusion amazed me the first time that I have read about it.
It was also mentioned here by Ramachandran the neuroscientist.
You can read the 5 parts transcript on the right side: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2003/lecture1.shtml

There is an interesting delusion about disabilities that people had. Despite having a crippled limb, some were convinced that it was not crippled and would also say that others who could not control that limb were "faking it". The part of their brain that validates was not believing in the disability!

In part 1, there was a person that laughed when pain was applied to their body. It turned out that laughter was happening because a part of the brain that legitimizes the pain/ the danger is not aware or functional of it! So even though the brain saw pain, it was not confirmed to be harmful and the result was a laugh which in evolution says everything is ok!
 
Laura said:
The little test is obviously bogus. It was appended to the end of the article and I don't think it was part of it. It is actually the article that interests me.
The test is referenced in the 5th paragraph of the article.
“Symptoms of psychosis-like delusions are just the extreme end of a continuum of similar phenomena in the general population,” says Ryan McKay at Royal Holloway, University of London. More evidence for this comes from the Peters Delusion Inventory, which is frequently used to measure how prone people are to delusional thinking. The inventory asks respondents whether or not they have ever experienced various different beliefs that often crop up in a clinical context, resulting in a delusion-proneness range from 0 to 21. Among the general population, people score an average of 6.7, with no difference between men and women. People with psychotic delusions score about twice this. So they do have more of these beliefs, but what really sets them apart from others is that they tend to be more preoccupied with their delusional beliefs and more distressed by them. “It’s not what you think, it’s the way that you think about it,” says Emmanuelle Peters of King’s College London, who led the development of the inventory
I decided to do an internet search and found this research paper about this test. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/7788961_Measuring_delusional_idea-tion_The_21-item_peters_delusions_inventory_pdi I scrolled down to the appendix and confirmed that the questions were the same. The real test has you rank things on a scale of 1-5 and has a column for how often you think about the items and how much they distress you. The distress index is probably the best indicator for delusion, but even that has its limits. I think this version of the test might modulate our scores some, but if you answer yes to the paranormal questions and with strong convection, you will be racking up those delusion points rather quickly. The underlying implication is that if you aren't a materialist you have schizophrenia. It just so happens that there are raving antimaterialists who are also schizophrenics. Yes, if you can separate out the materialist agenda, there are some gems in the research that might assist in the identification of delusional thinking, but taken as a whole, I think it's just psychobabble.
 
Maybe it's a test of how affective their programming/social conditioning/propaganda et al is today? vs in the past? What they need to tweek quickly to maintain control of the herd?
As the question about who is more prone to delusions seems to ask who had to deal with reality in their childhood the most, to the point in which you couldn't delude, pretend or fantasize your way out of it? The earlier this happens, the more effective the catalyst as it expands out into your future. Pain is the usual tool of the trade; too much and you are almost forced to escape it in some fashion, too little and it might not hit its mark that forces you to keep your eyes open to how things are, like them or not... you learn to deal with things as they are and not as you wish them to be... which leads to delusions to escape that painful reality... as I don't remember people seeking to escape a life they find too happy... except those with mostly empty lives seeking thrills... in some extreme form.
 
The article is interesting, what I took from it was that we should practice thinking about our thinking. That also includes questioning beliefs/notions with the intent of approaching the truth.

The test is just a basic “conventional knowledge” check list. I’m sure that soon we will see a question added that would go something along the lines of “do you believe that vaccines cause autism?”.

I may be putting a straight jacket on me here, but there’s also great value to intuitive thinking and even though is presented as somewhat lesser in the article, it could perhaps be explained differently from a psychological point of view.

I believe it was the book The Gift of Fear by Gavin De becker where it was mentioned that a lot of the times what we call intuitive decision making is in fact our concious behavior changing to information our subconscious did pick up on and signaled to our conscious mind.

A lot of the times we’re unaware of how this takes place and most people go about their lives explaining certain decisions with “I can’t explain why, but I knew I had to do this...”. Now, of course, a lot of the time our lives get in the way and we end up interpreting and acting upon information based on wrong beleifs, traumatic experiences, cultural factors and so on.

So maybe, the key is not to turn strictly to analytical thinking exclusively, as it can slowdown your response time to life and that can literally be dangerous, but to understand and incorporate the knowledge of how our subconscious mind works and how many tricks it can play on us when we have tendencies to misinterpret or ignore parts of the information that we come in contact with.

Hope that makes sense, just my two humble cents
 
I think the gold nugget in this article is this paragraph.
Alternatively, our alarming susceptibility to fake news and the outlandish behaviour of key players on the world stage might lead you to conclude that we could do with a bit less delusional thinking. If so, the good news is that insights into delusion psychology point to some ways we can curb it. Garety has helped design an intervention to train people’s slow-thinking skills. SlowMo, which includes therapy and an app, is intended for people with paranoid delusions, but it nurtures mental habits all of us can benefit from. They include gathering sufficient data before making conclusions, learning to question your initial thoughts and impressions about events, and considering different explanations of experiences. SlowMo is currently being tested. If it proves effective, the app will be available in the UK through the National Health Service.
Although we all have sacred cows, this seems like it should be common sense. The following sentence is also important.
And sure enough, Garety’s latest study confirms that these intuitive thinkers are also more prone to clinical delusions.
Now since this forum has a marked interest in what might be considered "shamanic realities," you might be able to take this a step further. We know that the delusion inventory on which much of this article is predicated has a bias for flagging people who harbor "alternative beliefs." The article goes on to say that people who scored higher on the delusion inventory also had more issues with the bead and the dot test. You could probably make a reasonably accurate assumption that people who are more psychically sensitive deal more with "fuzzy data" and rely on the system 1 thinking a lot. Also, since science, which is supposed to be a predominantly system 2 activity at least in theory, has lost its way and taken a largely adversarial attitude toward these phenomena, some of this cohort may be pushed away from the scientific method because it has been abused so much. So what's the difference between a shaman and a schizophrenic? The shaman seems to be able to continually run some kind of conscious feedback loop during his inspirational/ecstatic journey, while the schizophrenic is just totally swept up by the experience and the system 2 is too weak to integrate it into something meaningful. Thus a lot of the paranormal realities which we know to be real as much as the mundane are relayed to psychologists by crazy people. That might partially explain some of the bias on the test.

The moral of the story is that people who might be good transceivers for higher density impressions often fail because their system 2 is too weak. I think this is territory that was covered in a lot more detail in the Thinking Fast and Slow thread or one of the spinoff threads. For me, this study had a rather large bucket of mud to sift through in order to find the nugget, but when I remove the materialist bias and distill it down to its fundamental essence, that's what I get out of it.
 
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