Aberrant Salience among Young Healthy Postgraduate University Students: The Role of Cannabis Use, Psychotic-Like Experiences, and Personality.

Aberrant salience, an anomalous way of experiencing the world linked to psychosis proneness, was examined in 106 postgraduate university students. Cannabis users reported higher aberrant salience scores than nonusers. Among all participants, aberrant salience was associated with positive psychotic-like symptoms, personality traits (low self-directedness and high self-transcendence), and cannabis use. However, the relative importance of these factors differed: personality traits were more prominent among nonusers, while positive psychotic-like experiences played a larger role among cannabis users. The findings suggest that pre-reflexive anomalous experiences are intertwined with personality, subclinical symptoms, and cannabis use.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Aberrant salience (AS) is an anomalous world experience which plays a major role in psychotic proneness. In the general population, a deployment of this construct - encompassing personality traits, psychotic-like symptoms, and cannabis use - could prove useful to outline the relative importance of these factors. For this purpose, 106 postgraduate university students filled the AS Inventory (ASI), the Community Assessment of Psychic Experiences (CAPE), the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI), and the Symptom Checklist 90-Revised (SCL-90-R). Lifetime cannabis users (n = 56) and individuals who did not use cannabis (n = 50) were compared. The role of cannabis use and psychometric indexes on ASI total scores was tested in different subgroups (overall sample, cannabis users, and nonusers). The present study confirmed that cannabis users presented higher ASI scores. The deployment of AS proved to involve positive symptom frequency (assessed through CAPE), character dimensions of self-directedness and self-transcendence (TCI subscales), and cannabis use. Among nonusers, the role of personality traits (assessed through the TCI) was preeminent, whereas positive psychotic-like experiences (measured by means of CAPE) had a major weight among cannabis users. The present study suggests that pre-reflexive anomalous world experiences such as AS are intertwined with reflexive self-consciousness, personality traits, current subclinical psychotic symptoms, and cannabis use. In the present study, subthreshold psychotic experiences proved to play a major role among cannabis users, whereas personality appeared to be more relevant among nonusers.