'Feeling' or 'sensing' the future? Testing for anomalous cognitions in clinical versus healthy populations

Álex Escolà-Gascón*, Abigail C. Wright, James Houran

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Indexed journal article Articlepeer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

In the study and treatment of psychosis, emotional intelligence (EI) and thinking styles are important patient characteristics for successful outcomes in clinical intervention. Anticipation of unpredictable stimuli (AUS) may be understood as an anomalous perception and anomalous cognition in which an individual supposedly senses and recognizes future stimuli in an unexpected way, also referred to as “hunches or premonitions.” This examined the roles of EI and thinking styles in AUSs in convenience samples of healthy participants (n = 237) versus patients diagnosed with psychosis (n = 118). We adjusted several quadratic and exponential regression models according to the obtained functions. Group means were also compared to examine differences in EI scores for participants with psychosis compared to healthy participants. In the healthy group, EI predicted AUSs with a weight between 42% and 58%. Thinking styles were not correlated with AUSs. However, EI was not correlated with AUSs in the clinical group. Patients with psychosis tended to score higher on AUSs and lower on EI and thinking styles compared to participants in the healthy group. We discuss EI as a variable that can contextualize some anomalous perceptions which are otherwise difficult to classify or measure within the classic psychosis continuum model.

Original languageEnglish
Article numbere11303
JournalHeliyon
Volume8
Issue number11
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Nov 2022

Keywords

  • Boundary functioning
  • Emotional intelligence
  • Parapsychology
  • Premonitions
  • Schizophrenia
  • Thinking styles

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