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Mistrust and negative self-esteem: Two paths from attachment styles to paranoia.

Anton P Martinez1, Maximilian Agostini2, Azzam Al-Suhibani3

  • 1Department of Psychology, University of Sheffield, UK.

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Insecure attachment styles contribute to paranoia through both negative self-esteem and a bias towards mistrust. This study highlights mistrust as a key factor in understanding paranoid beliefs linked to attachment.

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Area of Science:

  • Psychology
  • Clinical Psychology
  • Social Psychology

Background:

  • Paranoia is linked to insecure attachment, with negative self-esteem as a known mediator.
  • Existing models are insufficient to fully explain paranoid beliefs about malevolent others.
  • Mistrust, a core feature of paranoid thinking, is also associated with insecure attachment.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate if mistrust, operationalized as judgments of face trustworthiness, forms a second pathway from insecure attachment to paranoia.
  • To examine the roles of negative self-esteem and mistrust in the relationship between insecure attachment and paranoia.

Main Methods:

  • Cross-sectional study of 1,121 adults from a nationally representative British sample.
  • Measurements included attachment style, negative self-esteem, and paranoid beliefs.
  • Signal detection analysis assessed bias (tendency to assume untrustworthiness) and sensitivity (accuracy) in trustworthiness judgments of computer-generated faces.

Main Results:

  • Structural equation modeling showed a good model fit.
  • A bias towards mistrust demonstrated indirect effects between attachment anxiety/avoidance and paranoia.
  • Negative self-esteem showed an indirect effect between attachment anxiety and paranoia, but trust judgments and self-esteem were not directly associated.

Conclusions:

  • Mistrust bias is significantly associated with increased paranoia.
  • Indirect pathways from attachment styles to paranoia exist through mistrust bias.
  • Both mistrust bias and negative self-esteem are important mediators in the development of paranoia, alongside attachment styles.