This book represents a unique collection of ideas and empirical data provided by leading experts in a diversity of disciplines: cognitive psychologists involved with normal mechanisms of decision-making and information processing, social psychologists concerned with normal aspects of perception, as well as clinical psychologists, anthropologists, and psychiatrists. Each offers perspectives on such questions as: What criteria should be used to identify, describe, and classify delusions? How can delusional individuals be identified? What distinguishes delusions from normal beliefs? Also examined in this volume are the personal, interpersonal, and situational variables predisposing certain people to developing delusions; the ways in which delusions are perpetuated; and approaches to changing a particular delusional belief.
