Abstract

This study investigated the probabilistic judgments and the accidentality-intentionality judgments for positive and negative future events in persecutory deluded, depressed, and normal subjects. Twenty persecutory deluded patients, 20 depressed patients, and 20 normal controls were asked to rate the probability and the accidentality-intentionality for 14 positive and 14 negative events. The persecutory deluded patients rated positive and negative events as occurring more frequently to themselves in comparisons to the depressed patients or the normal controls. They rated negative events as occurring more frequently to others in comparisons to the depressed and the normal controls. The depressed patients rated positive events as occurring less frequently and negative events as occurring more frequently in comparisons to the persecutory deluded or the normal controls. They rated negative events as occurring more frequently to themselves in comparison to the others. The normal controls rated positive events as occurring more frequently than negative events. They rated positive events as occurring more frequently to themselves in comparison to the others, and rated negative events as occurring less frequently to themselves in comparison to the others. In accidentality-intentionality judgments, the persecutory deluded patients rated negative events as occurring more intentionally in comparisons to the depressed and the normal controls. The suggestions and the limitations of this study, and the directions of future study were discussed.