Unravel the mystery of suspicion with '9 Signs That Someone Is Too Suspicious'. Discover the subtle cues that may indicate a person's overly suspicious nature, and learn how to navigate relationships with such individuals effectively.
It can be helpful to be prepared for threat, but being too tuned in can come at a risk
By learning to separate rational from irrational bias toward threat, you can find more ways to enjoy what’s pleasant in your environment
- Attentional bias is nine ways to measure your own hypersensitivity to danger
- It’s one thing to imagine yourself in these situations and then another to experience them
- Think back to your pre-COVID self and ask whether this mindset was typical for you back then
How to Lower Your Own Threat Levels
Take stock of your own hypervigilance to threat and see how you can expand your horizons to other, more pleasant aspects of your environment.
- Without throwing caution to the wind, being able to look at the rewards rather than the threats in your surroundings can be a valuable way to preserve your mental health.
Attention Bias and the Perception of Threat
People high in what’s called “threat-related attention bias” approach situations such as those you might encounter on this trip with “the tendency to preferentially allocate attention to threatening over benign stimuli in the environment.”
- This sensitivity to threat leads you to latch immediately onto possible sources of harm rather than sources of pleasure.
- Having this bias could be protective, but it can also make you more likely to experience such threats to your mental health as the development of depression and anxiety.
9 Items That Can Detect Your Own Attentional Bias
The Tel Aviv U.S. researchers narrowed the possible test down to 15 items, which they then administered to an online sample of 350 adults (18-67 years old, average age 27).
- After performing the requisite statistical tests, the research team arrived at the following nine-item Attention Bias Questionnaire (ABQ):
- Test yourself by responding from 0 (“not at all”) to 4 (“to a great extent”): It is difficult for me not to look at threatening things.
- My attention tends to get stuck on threatening things even before I have looked at them directly (e.g., from the corner of my eye)
- When I notice threats, it is difficult to stop focusing on them
- These nine items statistically fall into two groups: difficulty to disengage from threat and engagement with threat
- People with high scores also had high scores on a post-traumatic checklist scale, neuroticism, overall anxiety, and social anxiety and reported more symptoms of depression
