Exploring Patterns of Eccentricity: Insights from Network Analysis of Schizotypy in Students

For decades, schizotypy has proved its relevance as a useful concept for understanding schizophrenia spectrum disorders. In this paper, schizotypy was considered from a novel perspective, the network approach which conceptualizes mental disorders as dynamic systems, emerging from symptom associations. The aims of this study were to determine central symptoms (those most connected with others), communities (subgroups of symptoms that are more connected among themselves) and bridges (symptoms that connect communities) in a network of schizotypy symptoms. The sample consisted of 775 students, (M age =20.49, SD = 2.35), 83.9% females. Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire–Brief Revised (SPQ-BR) was used as a measure of schizotypy using “state of the art” network suites. The network analysis returned a sparse, stable network with 7 communities. The most central symptom and the strongest bridge was the sense of eccentricity. Some symptoms related to interpersonal problems were intensively connected with each other, suggesting the importance of this domain for the dynamics of schizotypy. The symptom predictability was substantially higher than in the previous literature and explained 41% variance. The theoretical and practical implications of the obtained results were discussed, as well as their meaning for the future perspective of schizotypy construct.