Specificity of the jump‐to‐conclusions bias in deluded patients

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the specificity of the 'jump-to-conclusions' (JTC) bias in delusions. METHODS: Thirty-seven psychotic patients were divided into two separate groupings: (1) deluded versus non-deluded individuals and (2) individuals with and without a diagnosis of schizophrenia. Groups were compared on three reasoning tasks ('Beads' task, Wason's 2-4-6 task, and Wason's selection task). RESULTS: Deluded participants had a tendency to show a JTC bias on data-gathering tasks, but no differences were found with the schizophrenia diagnosis grouping. There were no differences between any groups on tasks of general reasoning and probability judgments. CONCLUSION: The results suggest that JTC is specific to delusions rather than diagnosis, and to data gathering rather than a general deficit in reasoning.