How do Non-clinical Paranoid Vs. Socially Anxious Individuals React to Failure Vs. Success? An Experimental Investigation

We did a quasi experimental study with 223 college students divided into three groups according to the presence of non-clinical paranoid ideation vs. social anxiety: the paranoia group (PG) vs. the social anxiety group (SAG) vs. the control group (CG). We measured participants’ trait anger, paranoid ideation, external shame, state anxiety, state anger and depressive symptomatology using self-reports at time 1. Afterwards, we randomly assigned participants to a success vs. a failure condition using a computer game task. We then assessed their emotional and paranoid reactions (time 2). Independent sample t tests showed that the PG was more temperamentally aggressive than the SAG. Wilcoxon Sign tests showed that during failure, the paranoia group significantly increased their paranoid ideation, negative emotional reactions to performance, state anger and state social paranoia from times 1 to 2. In contrast, the SAG increased their state anxiety and external shame from times 1 to 2. The PG didn’t significantly decrease in paranoid ideation but they showed a significant increase in positive emotional reactions while significantly decreasing in state anger during success. The SAG increased significantly in their positive emotional reactions during success but they also significantly increased in paranoid ideation. The negative impact of failure for PG and of success for the SAG alerts us to key individual differences and the importance of managing anger, anxiety and paranoid feelings during evaluation.