Proneness to hallucinations and delusions in a non-clinical sample: Exploring associations with metacognition and negative affect

Commonly, individuals prone to hallucinations and delusions hold dysfunctional metacognitive beliefs and report higher levels of negative affect, yet, these associations have not been clearly investigated in non-clinical samples due to the failure to control for high intercorrelations between variables. The aim of the current study was to investigate how hallucination and delusion proneness are associated with dysfunctional metacognitions and negative affect. A cross-sectional sample of 715 students free from psychiatric diagnoses (M-age=28.1 years, SD=10.9, range 18-65) completed the Launay-Slade Hallucination Scale (LSHS-R); Peters etal. Delusion Inventory (PDI-21); Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS-21); and the Metacognition Questionnaire (MCQ-30). Findings that participants who were prone to both hallucinations and delusions reported elevated levels of negative affect support the need for targeted mental health treatment for individuals who experience psychological distress related to their hallucinatory and delusional experiences. While metacognition beliefs of need to control thoughts and cognitive self-consciousness, along with the anxiety and stress DASS-21 subscales appeared as significant cross-sectional predictors of proneness to hallucinations and delusions, only metacognitions demonstrated any notable predictive value for delusion proneness. This finding questions the role of metacognitions in determining hallucination and delusion proneness in non-clinical samples.