Investigating the presence of peer bias against ptosis in young children.

PURPOSE: To investigate the presence of peer bias directed at young children aged 3-6 years of age and the age at which this bias emerges. METHODS: Children (3-6 years) completed an individual testing session involving two tasks: (1) a paired photograph task examined the effect of the appearance of ptosis on children's preferences in two different social situations (toy sharing and birthday party); (2) a ranking task investigated whether different grades of ptosis are evaluated differently by children of different ages. RESULTS: A total of 217 children were included. The paired photograph task showed that with increasing age, subjects were less likely to invite children with ptosis to share a toy or attend their birthday party. Three-year-olds did not show a bias against peers with ptosis; however, 4- to 6-year-olds did chose significantly fewer children with an apparent ptosis across both social situations. The ranking task highlighted that 6-year-olds viewed a grade 3 ptosis significantly more negatively than 3- and 4-year-olds; however, there was no effect of age on the rankings given to other grades of ptosis. CONCLUSIONS: Bias against ptosis emerges at about 4 years of age and is still evident at 6 years.

Biased interpretation in paranoia and its modification.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Cognitive models of psychosis implicate interpretation biases as one of the mechanisms involved in the formation and maintenance of symptoms. First we measured the strength of association between interpretation biases and psychosis-relevant traits. Next we manipulated these biases and quantified the effects of doing so on psychosis-relevant outcomes. METHODS: Experiment 1 used two measures of interpretation bias in a healthy sample (n = 70). Experiment 2 used a novel cognitive bias modification procedure (CMB-pa) in individuals with moderate trait paranoia (n = 60). RESULTS: Experiment 1 revealed that over a third of the variance in interpretation bias could be explained by the combined effect of trait measures of paranoia/psychosis. In Experiment 2, CBM-pa produced training-congruent changes in the interpretation of new ambiguous information and influenced the interpretation, attribution and distress associated with a real-life social event. LIMITATIONS: The potentially confounding effects of elevated anxiety and depression on interpretation bias and the restricted range of outcome measures to assess the wider effects of CBM-pa. CONCLUSIONS: These studies are consistent with interpretation biases contributing to the maintenance of paranoia. CBM-pa could next be adapted and evaluated to test its efficacy as a therapeutic intervention.