SUBTHRESHOLD THOUGHTS DISORDER: A CONTINUUM WITH PARANOID DELUSIONS ? THE ROLE OF ATTRIBUTIONAL HEURISTICS BIASES IN A SYSTEMIC THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

摘要

The aim of present paper is to comprehend if delusional thought (mainly of paranoid type) is at the end of the spectrum of heuristic thinking biases (in particular of social and attributional biases), rather than regard it as a discontinuity from the form of thought shared among people. The systemic interest of this hypothesis is that what we consider to be clinically more severe (delusions) may in fact represent only the tip of the iceberg in a series of sub-threshold thinking disorders, that, just because it is very common and socially accepted, represent a more serious kind of human miscommunication, also justify dangerous behavior derived i.e. from moral disengagement. An unitary hypothesis that links sub-threshold thoughts disorder to delusions, is that, both, from a psychological point of view, serve to preserve our self-esteem.