E-ISSN : 2733-4538
The social reasoning of paranoid, depressed, and normal controls was investigated through manipulating contextual information and target person. 52 college students, 3 persecutory deluded patients, 13 depressed patients, 13 normal controls completed the social reasoning questionnaire. In the attributions for interactions between other persons, there were no group differences. But, in the attributions for situations in which the subjects were postulated as target persons, the paranoid groups (both students and patients) ignored the contextual information and showed defensive and self-enhancing attributional biases. In the contrary, the depressed groups (both students and patients) made self-accusing and modest attributions. Suggestions and limitations of these studies, and directions of future studies were discussed.