Associations among metacognitive beliefs, anxiety and positive schizotypy during adolescence

The expression of early delusion and hallucination-like symptoms, known as positive schizotypy (PS), holds predictive power for later development of psychotic disorders. However, little is known about the psychological and emotional processes promoting the expression of PS during adolescent development. Our study's objective was to examine the nature of the relationships between adolescent PS and two dimensions previously identified to contribute to adult positive symptoms of psychosis, metacognitive beliefs and anxiety. Using a structural equation modeling design, data from self-report questionnaires measuring anxiety, metacognitive beliefs, and PS were collected from 179 adolescents aged 12 to 19 years. Our results indicate that although metacognitive beliefs significantly influence adolescent PS and anxiety, maladaptive contradictory metacognitive beliefs specifically potentiate positive schizotypal expression in hallucination-prone adolescents. Furthermore, we observe that PS and anxiety entertain reciprocal relationships. These findings suggest that relationships between metacognitive beliefs, anxiety, and PS can already be observed during adolescence.