Moritz S, et al. – The study aimed to determine the monocausal attribution and its association with reasoning biases in schizophrenia. The findings suggested that monocausal attributions might play a role in the pathogenesis of psychosis. In addition, the true prevalence of monocausal attributions in psychosis is perhaps underestimated in the study, as groups were equated on school education, which was associated with monocausal attributions.

Methods

• For the purpose of this study, the researchers compared a large sample of patients with diagnosed schizophrenia (n = 145) to nonclinical controls (n = 30) on a revised version of the Internal, Personal and Situational Attributions Questionnaire (IPSAQ-R).
• In this task, members have to assign probability estimates to each of 3 potential causes (i.e., myself, others, circumstances) for a specific (negative or positive) event.

Results

• According to the findings obtained, members with schizophrenia showed an abolished self-serving bias and demonstrated a significant preference for one-sided/monocausal attributions, which was neither associated with jumping to conclusions nor overconfidence in errors.
• Findings revealed that school education associated with less monocausal attributions.
• They didn't discover any congruence between attributional styles with core delusional ideas.