Relationship between paranoia and hostility: the role of meta-beliefs

Paranoia is a common phenomenon that covers a continuum from slight everyday suspicion to severe delusions of persecution. It is considered helpful for survival because it protects individuals from the malevolent intentions of others, but over-reliance on this mechanism impairs individual functioning. Paranoid beliefs are associated with a harmful and malevolent view of others and an external attribution style that would help reduce a sense of internal threat. The paranoid thought process is associated with several metacognitive dysfunctions, such as difficulties with decentralization, cognitive fusion, and personalization bias. Several researchers have found associations between paranoia, self-hatred, and self-persecution, which is the most damaging form of self-criticism and most linked to psychopathology. Furthermore, paranoia is associated with aggressive attitudes, leading others to react in a way that confirms the belief that they intend to harm. Given the lack of clarity in the interplay between paranoia, self-hatred, and aggression and the relevance of investigating the antecedents of interpersonal violence, the present study set out to clarify the relationship between these variables. A sample of 564 participants (M = 35.12, SD = 12.8), including 389 females and 175 males, were recruited from the general population. They were asked to fill out online questionnaires designed to investigate the presence of specific symptomatology, levels of self-criticism, and meta-beliefs about it. Since self-criticism is an internal hostility mechanism that reinforces negative beliefs about oneself by increasing the sense of external threat from which the individual feels he/she must defend him/herself, the first hypothesis was that self-hatred would partially mediate the relationship between paranoia and hetero-directed hostility. Furthermore, given the relevance of the role of negative self-evaluation in psychopathology and in order to assess the factors that exacerbate the perceived sense of threat leading to aggression, it was hypothesized that the relationship between paranoia and hostility would change as a function of positive meta-beliefs about self-persecution. Mediation analysis showed that self-hatred partially mediates the relationship between paranoia and hostility, supporting the hypothesis of a sense of inferiority and worthlessness regulated through external attribution. In addition, the belief that one deserves self-persecution and self-punishment was found to moderate the relationship between paranoia and hostility, confirming that for higher levels of positive meta-beliefs about self-criticism, the relationship between paranoia and hostility isstronger. Given the evidence of associations between suspicious attitudes towards others, characterized by anger and impulsivity, and subsequent violent behavior, it is of paramount importance to study the antecedents of such risky behavior, which is extremely harmful to society, to develop more effective prevention interventions.