A proposed basis for delusion formation within an information-processing model of paranoid development

A developmental model for paranoid behaviour is proposed within a broader theory of schizophrenic development. The model stipulates that given exposure to sustained aversive maternal control and a maternal communication style which is subtle and devious, the child comes to adapt with approach, stratagem-based behaviours and heightened vigilance for evaluative information (i.e. open adaptive style). The model, already supported empirically at several points, postulates that the delusion serves to organize an overextended and disorganized information-processing system for the person and generates its reinforcement from reduction of the anxiety associated with thought disorganization. The present study tested an aspect of this postulate. It was predicted that late-adolescent males who had an open style of adapting to experienced aversive maternal control would find the organization of disorganized evaluative cues uniquely reinforcing. Subjects were presented with an anagrams task made up of scrambled words which they were told came from a poll of mothers asked to evaluate their college-age sons. This task was followed by the individual tachistoscopic and slightly unfocused presentation of a longer series of words, again described as maternal evaluative terms. The longer series comprised the words used in the anagrams task and an equal number which were not. Reinforcement value of proper ordering of disorganized cues was inferred from the subject's heightened ability to detect previously solved anagram terms, indicating stronger learning of these terms upon prior solution. Males identified as open-style adapters were far more cognizant of words which they had previously ordered than other child-rearing groups, as predicted.