Paranoia is an instinct or thought process that is believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety, suspicion, or fear, often to the point of delusion and irrationality.
An investigation of a non-clinical paranoid population found that characteristics such as feeling powerless and depressed, isolating oneself, and relinquishing activities, were associated with more frequent paranoia.
[5] Some scientists have created different subtypes for the various symptoms of paranoia, including erotic, persecutory, litigious, and exalted.
According to a mental health survey distributed to residents of Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua (in Mexico) and El Paso, Texas (in the United States), paranoid beliefs seem to be associated with feelings of powerlessness and victimization, enhanced by social situations.
[10] Experiences found to enhance or create paranoia included frequent disappointment, stress, and a sense of hopelessness.
[13] Colby (1981) defined paranoid cognition as "persecutory delusions and false beliefs whose propositional content clusters around ideas of being harassed, threatened, harmed, subjugated, persecuted, accused, mistreated, killed, wronged, tormented, disparaged, vilified, and so on, by malevolent others, either specific individuals or groups" (p. 518).
Three components of paranoid cognition have been identified by Robins & Post: "a) suspicions without enough basis that others are exploiting, harming, or deceiving them; b) preoccupation with unjustified doubts about the loyalty, or trustworthiness, of friends or associates; c) reluctance to confide in others because of unwarranted fear that the information will be used maliciously against them" (1997, p. 3).
Pathological forms reflect exaggerated perceptual biases and judgmental predispositions that can arise and perpetuate them, are reflexively caused errors similar to a self-fulfilling prophecy.
[15] A paranoid reaction may be caused from a decline in brain circulation as a result of high blood pressure or hardening of the arterial walls.
Even when abbreviated down to the prefix para-, the term crops up causing trouble as the contentious but stubbornly persistent concept of paraphrenia".
[25] A meta-analysis of 43 studies reported that metacognitive training (MCT) reduces (paranoid) delusions at a medium to large effect size relative to control conditions.
[26] The word paranoia comes from the Greek παράνοια (paránoia), "madness",[27] and that from παρά (pará), "beside, by"[28] and νόος (nóos), "mind".
[30] For example, a person who has the sole delusional belief that they are an important religious figure would be classified by Kraepelin as having "pure paranoia".
The authors note that other studies such as one by Taylor (1985), have shown that violent behaviors were more common in certain types of paranoid individuals, mainly those considered to be offensive such as prisoners.
The results of this study revealed specifically that although the violent patients were more successful at the higher level theory of mind tasks, they were not as able to interpret others' emotions or claims.
According to Kramer (1998), these milder forms of paranoid cognition may be considered as an adaptive response to cope with or make sense of a disturbing and threatening social environment.
Paranoid cognition captures the idea that dysphoric self-consciousness may be related with the position that people occupy within a social system.
[44] This model identifies four components that are essential to understanding paranoid social cognition: situational antecedents, dysphoric self-consciousness, hypervigilance and rumination, and judgmental biases.
Three main judgmental consequences have been identified:[40] Meta-analyses have confirmed that individuals with paranoia tend to jump to conclusions and are incorrigible in their judgements, even for delusion-neutral scenarios.