Services on Demand
Journal
Article
Indicators
- Cited by SciELO
- Access statistics
Related links
- Cited by Google
- Similars in SciELO
- Similars in Google
Share
Revista Colombiana de Psiquiatría
Print version ISSN 0034-7450
Abstract
PARRA, Alejandro and MASCHI, Gianina. Attributional Biases in Psychiatric Patients, a Religious, and a Control Group in the Assessment of a Hallucinatory Experience: The "White Christmas Test". rev.colomb.psiquiatr. [online]. 2018, vol.47, n.2, pp.82-89. ISSN 0034-7450. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rcp.2017.01.010.
The aim of this study was to evaluate the auditory hallucinatory experience in a clinical sample of patients with psychiatric symptoms (e.g. Schizophrenia), a religious group (eg. Christians) and a "control" group (with no mental disorder and non-religious). The sample consisted of individuals of both sexes. The patient sample was recruited in two psychiatric hospitals of Buenos Aires City, the religious from an evangelical cult, and people with no religious beliefs or previous psychiatric symptoms (control group). The Hallucinatory Experiences Questionnaire and the Oxford-Liverpool Inventory Feelings and Experiences were the measurement tools used. The White Christmas Test was also administered in order to assess the degree of vivid imagery hearing based on a version of signal detection paradigm in which the subjects think that they hear a song in the background of white noise. The results showed that patients showed greater attributional bias (compared with evangelicals and the control group), but the religious group also tended to show greater bias (although less) than the control group. In addition, patients tended to show greater schizotypal and hallucinatory experiences compared with the evangelicals and the control group, but surprisingly, the control group showed higher negative schizotypy than the religious group, which indicates that religious practices could help reduce the negative effects of schizotypy.
Keywords : Hallucination; White Christmas Test; Schizotypy; Religion; Unusual perceptual experiences.