Introduction
Paranoia is a way of irrational thinking in which a person thinks that others are trying to "get him" or her. Because of this a person suffering from paranoia might make false accusations against other people. Paranoia is a common symptom of psychosis, which is a psychiatric term for a person’s irrational interpretation of reality.
| Daniel Freeman’s 2007 review article about paranoia gives an excellent overview of the topic. |
Ten to fifteen percent of the population experiences paranoid thoughts regularly (Freeman, 2007).
The Green et al. Paranoid Thought Scales (GPTS) measures 2 dimensions of paranoid thinking:
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Ideas of social reference: "The person holds the belief that some neutral event has special personal significance/refers to them personally by means of observation or communication by another." (Startup & Startup, 2005). For example "I often heard people referring to me"
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Ideas of social persecution: For example "People have intended me harm"
The mean sample scores are from Table 3 of the Green et al. (2008) paper. The averages are based on 353 people without known mental health issues and 50 people with persecutory delusions.
| Did you know that there is a literary genre called paranoid fiction? Read more about it here. |
| Score | Non-clinical samle | Clinical Sample | Possible range |
|---|---|---|---|
GPTS Ideas of social reference |
26.8 |
46.4 |
16-80 |
GPTS Ideas of persecution |
22.1 |
55.4 |
16-80 |
GPTS Total |
48.8 |
101.9 |
32-160 |
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Legal stuff
It seems that GPTS can be used for research, but you need to acknowledge the authors and their research paper when writing about it (Green et al., 2008).
Technically
This is a simple scale question.
The survey code for PsyToolkit
scale: much
- Not at all
- .
- Somewhat
- .
- Totally
l: gtps_refs
t: scale much
o: width 50%
q: The following items refer to thoughts and feelings you may have had about others <b>over the last month</b>.<br>
Think about the last month and indicate the extent of these feelings from 1 (Not at all) to 5 (Totally).<br><br>
(N.B. Please do not rate items according to any experiences you may have had under the influence of drugs.)<br><br>
- I spent time thinking about friends gossiping about me
- I often heard people referring to me
- I have been upset by friends and colleagues judging me critically
- People definitely laughed at me behind my back
- I have been thinking a lot about people avoiding me
- People have been dropping hints for me
- I believed that certain people were not what they seemed
- People talking about me behind my back upset me
- I was convinced that people were singling me out
- I was certain that people have followed me
- Certain people were hostile towards me personally
- People have been checking up on me
- I was stressed out by people watching me
- I was frustrated by people laughing at me
- I was worried by people’s undue interest in me
- It was hard to stop thinking about people talking about me behind my back
l: gtps_pers
t: scale much
o: width 50%
q: The following items refer to thoughts and feelings you may have had about others over the last month.<br>
Think about the last month and indicate the extent of these feelings from 1 (Not at all) to 5 (Totally).<br><br>
(N.B. Please do not rate items according to any experiences you may have had under the influence of drugs.)<br>
- Certain individuals have had it in for me
- I have definitely been persecuted
- People have intended me harm
- People wanted me to feel threatened, so they stared at me
- I was sure certain people did things in order to annoy me
- I was convinced there was a conspiracy against me
- I was sure someone wanted to hurt me
- I was distressed by people wanting to harm me in some way
- I was preoccupied with thoughts of people trying to upset me deliberately
- I couldn’t stop thinking about people wanting to confuse me
- I was distressed by being persecuted
- I was annoyed because others wanted to deliberately upset me
- The thought that people were persecuting me played on my mind
- It was difficult to stop thinking about people wanting to make me feel bad
- People have been hostile towards me on purpose
- I was angry that someone wanted to hurt me
l: gtps1
t: set
- sum $gtps_refs
l: gtps2
t: set
- sum $gtps_pers
l: gtps3
t: set
- sum $gtps1 $gtps2
l: feedback
t: info
q: Your score on the GPTS is as follows:<br>
Note, scores on both dimensions have a possible range from 16 to 80.<br>
Score on the GTPS Ideas of social reference: {$gtps1}.<br>
Score on the GTPS Ideas of persecution: {$gtps2}.<br>
Total score (ranging from 32 to 160: {$gtps3}.<br>
Write down the scores for comparison with others.
References
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Green, C. E. L., Freeman, D., Kuipers, E., Bebbington, P., Fowler, D., Dunn, G., & Garety, P. A. (2008). Measuring ideas of persecution and social reference: the Green et al. Paranoid Thought Scales (GPTS). Psychological medicine, 38, 101-111.
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Freeman, D. (2007). Suspicious minds : the psychology of persecutory delusions. Clinical Psychology Review, 27, 425-457.
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Startup, M. & Startup, S. (2005). On two kinds of delusions of reference. Psychiatry Research 137, 87-92.