M247. PAST AND ANTICIPATED HUMILIATION MAY CONTRIBUTE TO ANXIETY AND PRONENESS TO PSYCHOSIS EXPERIENCES IN A COMMUNITY SAMPLE

BACKGROUND: Childhood adversity is a risk factor for psychosis. Bullying, abuse, neglect and family conflict can cause biological (e.g. stress hyper-reactivity) and psychological (e.g. negative beliefs about self and perceived threat from others) changes that may lead to psychopathology in adulthood. Past and anticipated humiliation is associated with proneness to persecutory ideation in non-clinical samples. However, whether this is associated with proneness to other positive psychosis symptoms is unclear. This study measured how humiliation is related to hallucination-like experiences (HLE) and intrusive thinking assessed via the Launay-Slade Hallucination Scale Extended and disorganisation assessed via the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire-Brief Revised, and if increased anxiety mediates this relationship. METHODS: This cross-sectional study recruited a community sample of 92 adults (62% female; Mean [SD] age = 27.3 [10.8]) who completed measures of past/anticipated humiliation, risky family environment, family socioeconomic status, state anxiety and proneness to positive psychotic 1 2020 Congress of the Schizophrenia International Research Society symptoms. Serial mediation tested for direct and indirect relationships among study variables. RESULTS: Worse past and anticipated humiliation, risky family environments and state anxiety correlated with more severe intrusive thoughts, multisensory HLEs and disorganisation (r range 0.23–0.54). Serial mediation showed that of the historical factors, only past humiliation predicted anticipated humiliation (p < 0.001), which in turn was the only unique predictor of state anxiety (p = 0.004). The relationship then differed for proneness to different positive psychosis symptoms. Only state anxiety was a unique predictor of audio-visual HLEs (p = .03) and intrusive thoughts (p = .01), whereas both past humiliation and anxiety predicted disorganisation and multisensory HLEs (both p < .03). DISCUSSION: Anxious anticipation about potential harm in interpersonal interactions, likely caused by cumulative past humiliation, may increase proneness to positive psychosis experiences through increased difficulty controlling negative emotions and the frequency and content of worrying thoughts and memories.