Self-Confidence and Paranoia: An Experimental Study Using an Immersive Virtual Reality Social Situation.

BACKGROUND: Paranoia may build directly upon negative thoughts about the self. There have been few direct experimental tests of this hypothesis. AIMS: The aim of the study was to test the immediate effects of manipulating self-esteem in individuals vulnerable to paranoia. METHOD: A two condition cross-over experimental test was conducted. The participants were 26 males reporting paranoid ideation in the past month. Each participant experienced a neutral immersive virtual reality (VR) social environment twice. Before VR participants received a low self-confidence manipulation or a high self-confidence manipulation. The order of manipulation type was randomized. Paranoia about the VR avatars was assessed. RESULTS: The low self-confidence manipulation, relative to the high self-confidence manipulation, led to significantly more negative social comparison in virtual reality and higher levels of paranoia. CONCLUSIONS: Level of self-confidence affects the occurrence of paranoia in vulnerable individuals. The clinical implication is that interventions designed to improve self-confidence may reduce persecutory ideation.

A healed femoral fracture of Threskiornis aethiopicus (Sacred Ibis) from the Animal Cemetery at Abydos, Egypt.

The Bolton Museum and Archive Service collection holds an ibis mummy from Abydos, which was partially unwrapped at one time, extracting two femora. The left is anatomically complete, yet the right exhibits an oblique fracture that had healed at an angle of 90°. The radiographic examination shows that the fracture had completely united. The significant amount of bone remodelling suggests a period of months between the occurrence of the fracture and the death of the bird. There are two possible scenarios that can be derived from this evaluation: human intervention or a chance survival in the wild, both of which are possible, though difficult to prove with certainty.