ArticleNature human behaviour2019
An evolutionary perspective on paranoia.
Article in Nature human behaviour, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 41 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
41 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 115 citations in OpenAlex.
- Meta-analysis of human prediction error for incentives, perception, cognition, and action.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2022Pooled it
- Dopamine manipulations modulate paranoid social inferences in healthy people.Translational psychiatry · 2020Trial
- A population-based cross-lagged panel network analysis of multidimensional mental health symptoms among Chinese secondary school students.BMC public health · 2026Article
- A review and integration of models on delusion maintenance.Psychological medicine · 2026Review
- SN/VTA neuromelanin signal is associated with subclinical paranoia irrespective of familial risk for psychosis.Schizophrenia (Heidelberg, Germany) · 2026Article
- Conspiratorial thinking in a 50-state survey of American adults.Journal of affective disorders · 2025Article
- Using machine learning to predict persecutory beliefs based on aetiological models of delusions identified in a systematic literature search.Communications psychology · 2025Article
- The International Consortium on Paranoia Research: an introduction.World psychiatry : official journal of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA) · 2025Article
- A counterweight model for understanding and treating persecutory delusions.Psychological medicine · 2025Article
- Disruption of Epistemic Trust in Borderline Personality Disorder: A Possible Adaptation to Avoid Making Costly Mistakes.Personality and mental health · 2025Article
- Conspiracy beliefs and perceptual inference in times of political uncertainty.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Value Representations of Spite Sensitivity in Psychosis on the Minnesota Trust Game.Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging · 2024Article
- Could an evaluative conditioning intervention ameliorate paranoid beliefs? Self-reported and neurophysiological evidence from a brief intervention focused on improving self-esteem.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2024Article
- The effects of paranoia and dopamine on perception of cohesion and conspiracy: a pre-registered, double-blind, placebo-controlled experiment.Psychopharmacology · 2024Article
- D2/D3 dopamine supports the precision of mental state inferences and self-relevance of joint social outcomes.Nature. Mental health · 2024Article
- Development of the Delusional Interpretation Scale and examination of related variables.PCN reports : psychiatry and clinical neurosciences · 2023Article
- A Child-Parent Dyad Study on Adolescent Paranoia and the Influence of Adverse Life Events, Bullying, Parenting Stress, and Family Support.Schizophrenia bulletin · 2023Article
- A preliminary study examining terminology used by individuals with lived experience describing beliefs about being targeted or harmed by others.Psychiatry research · 2023Article
- Assumed shared belief about conspiracy theories in social networks protects paranoid individuals against distress.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Face masks negatively skew theory of mind judgements.Scientific reports · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Paranoia is the most common symptom of psychosis but paranoid concerns occur throughout the general population. Here, we argue for an evolutionary approach to paranoia across the spectrum of severity that accounts for its complex social phenomenology - including the perception of conspiracy and selective identification of perceived persecutors - and considers how it can be understood in light of our evolved social cognition. We argue that the presence of coalitions and coordination between groups in competitive situations could favour psychological mechanisms that detect, anticipate and avoid social threats. Our hypothesis makes testable predictions about the environments in which paranoia should be most common as well as the developmental trajectory of paranoia across the lifespan. We suggest that paranoia should not solely be viewed as a pathological symptom of a mental disorder but also as a part of a normally-functioning human psychology.
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.