An analogue study of attributional complexity, theory of mind deficits and paranoia

Recent research suggests that the tendency of paranoid individuals to attribute negative events to external personal factors and positive events to internal factors may be associated with difficulties in understanding the mental states of others, referred to as theory of mind (ToM). The present study aimed to investigate the relationship of these factors with attributional complexity and motivation. In an analogue sample, a relative ToM impairment was associated with an increased tendency to attribute negative events to external personal factors but not with differences in attributional complexity. This indicates that paranoid tendencies and mentalizing deficits are not associated with attributional simplicity, but may be related to schematic patterns of cognition.