Appraisals of intentional actions from three perspectives: Do they relate to paranoia

People often show a bias of attributing their own actions to more positive causes (e.g., generosity) than other persons' actions. Models of paranoia suggest links between paranoia and negative construals of others' intentions. Research on these biases has focused on causal attributions from two explainer perspectives, the agent (the person performing the action) and the object (the person being acted on), and has omitted the observer (third person) perspective.

This study investigated intention attributions from three perspectives (agent, object, observer). Students (n=149) took one of these perspectives and judged the intentionality, frequency, and positivity of 30 behaviours before completing the Paranoia Scale.

Participants in agent and object perspectives rated positive behaviours more frequent and intentional than those in the observer perspective. Participants higher in paranoia distinguished less between positive and negative behaviours, and, in the object perspective, paranoia correlated with lower perceived intentionality of positive behaviours.

The use of three explainer perspectives and intention attributions clarifies how attributions for actions relate to paranoid beliefs. Results suggest that people higher in paranoia make more negative judgements about other person's positive and negative intentions, especially when they are the object of the action.