SEX-DIFFERENCES IN THE CONTENT OF PERSECUTORY DELUSIONS - A REFLECTION OF HOSTILE THREATS IN THE ANCESTRAL ENVIRONMENT

It is suggested that sex differentials in the probable nature of hosti le threats from conspecifics in the human ancestral environment may be reflected in the content of persecutory delusions, especially the ide ntity of persecutors and the nature of threats. If the necessary assum ptions hold, men would tend to identify physically violent gangs of st rangers as their persecutors, while women would tend to identify their persecutors as being familiar females whose persecution took the form of social exclusion and verbal aggression. Predictions concerning ide ntity were confirmed in a sample of 11 female and 13 male cases identi fied by retrospective analysis of several hundred case note summaries: 73% of women identified familiar people as their persecutors while 85 % of men identified;strangers. Information was inadequate to evaluate the nature of persecutory threats. These preliminary findings invite r eplication and further exploration in larger, prospective, more extens ive and more rigorously-controlled studies. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Inc.