Abstract

The present study was to explore the relationships of mental representations on self and significant others and to perceived parenting behaviors in people with paranoid tendency. Study 1 was carried out to investigate mental representations on self and significant others in people with paranoid tendency. For this, 370 college students were asked to complete the Paranoid Scale, Beck Depression Inventory, and Self-Others Representation Inventory which is a self-report measure evaluating self, mother, father, and friend in terms of benevolence, capability, sociality, and obstinacy. The results showed that paranoid tendency related closely to the dimension of other-benevolence which is to view other as hostile or bad, to the dimension of self-benevolence which is to regard self as bad or cold, and to the dimension of self-obstinacy which is to consider self stubborn or dominant. Study 2 was conducted to investigate the perceived parenting behaviour and the mental representations on parents in childhood of people with paranoid tendency. As a result, paranoid tendency showed close relation to abuse, overinterference, inconsistency or negligence of the perceived parenting behaviors in childhood. And the representations on parents suggested that people with paranoid tendency had the image of bad and hostile parents in childhood.