Socially Distanced: An Exploratory Study of the Relationships Between Delusional Ideation and Social Imagery Under the Lens of the COVID-19 Pandemic
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Purpose: Delusional ideation, defined as false beliefs and altered thinking, has long been attributed to anomalous/bizarre perceptual experiences and reasoning deficits. Recent studies, however, have challenged this view, suggesting instead that delusional ideation may have more of a social component to its phenomenology and underlying mechanisms. This study investigated associations between delusional ideation and factors of social imagery (felt presence, empathy, loneliness, and social anxiety) in healthy adults, using the COVID-19 pandemic as a natural social experiment rich in perceived threat and social isolation. Methods: 2,200 participants completed the online “How are you coping? COVID-19 survey,” designed to measure the psychological, social, and financial impacts of the pandemic. Delusional ideation was assessed using the Peters Delusional Ideation (PDI) scale and felt presence experiences were assessed by the Other Experiences Questionnaire (OEQ). Other measures of social imagery included the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale (LSAS), the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) (empathy), and the UCLA Loneliness Scale. Results: All aspects of social imagery were positively associated with delusional ideation. The strongest predictor of PDI score was felt presence (ß=.298, p<.001), followed by loneliness (ß=.222, p<.001), LSAS (social fear dimension) (ß=.135, p=.001), IRI (empathic concern scale) (ß=.101, p<.001), and IRI (empathizing with fictitious characters scale) (ß=.088, p<.001). Conclusion: Results support the hypothesis that delusional ideation is sensitive to alterations in sociality, and delusions may involve social cognition for representing social agents. We propose that delusions and social imagery may share common mechanisms and increased propensity for imagining others may contribute to development of delusions.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.006 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".