Is the predisposition to non-clinical hallucinatory experiences associated with greater “personal
need for structure”?
The hallucinated perceptions reported by the majority of non-clinical voice hearers are
qualitatively different from those observed in psychiatric patients, as they are generally
“controllable” and perceived as non-distressing. The individual differences that might contribute to a
person’s proneness to experience hallucinations have been a matter of enduring enquiry. Separate
research into illusionary pattern perception (i.e. the predisposition to see inexistent patterns in
visual and auditory perceptual stimuli – a phenomenon that is therefore akin but conceptually
separate from hallucination-proneness) has been linked to individual differences in “personal need
for structure”, a construct defined as the predisposition to employ mental processes attempting “to
structure the world into a simplified, more manageable form” (p. 113 Newberg & Newson, 1993;
Whitson & Galinsky. 2008).
Whitson et al. Lacking Control Increases Illusory Pattern Perception. Science. Vol. 322 no. 5898 pp.
115-117