Social anxiety and paranoid beliefs in adolescents.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Paranoid beliefs are common in the general adolescent population. The paranoia hierarchy suggests common social evaluative concerns may develop into persecutory thoughts via ideas of reference, a milder intermediary facet of paranoia. Socially anxious concerns and paranoid beliefs co-occur in adolescent and adult groups, but the specifics of their association is not well understood. In a general population adolescent sample, we examined (a) whether social anxiety and paranoia can be differentiated, (b) patterns of co-occurrence and (c) psychosocial factors that differentiate social anxiety alone versus in combination with paranoia.

Methods

An online cross-sectional survey design, recruiting UK adolescents (n = 604, 14-17 years), via Qualtrics. Participants

SUBMITTER: Kingston JL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12446695 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature