The impact of religiosity, anxiety and depression on proneness to auditory hallucinations in healthy individuals

Abstract

Background: Auditory hallucinations (hearing voices in the absence of physical stimuli) are present in clinical conditions, but they are also experienced less frequently by healthy individuals. In the non-clinical population, auditory hallucinations are described more often as positive and not intrusive; indeed, they have received less attention.

Aims: The present study explores the phenomenology of non-clinical auditory hallucinations and their possible relationship with religiosity.

Method: Starting from previous findings suggesting that non-clinical auditory hallucinations are often described as a gift or a way to be connected with 'someone else', we administered standardised questionnaires to quantify proneness to experiencing auditory hallucinations, religiosity and anxiety/depression scores.

Results: Regression analysis carried out using an auditory hallucinations, index as the dependent variable on a final sample of 680 responders revealed that a total of 31% of the variance was explained by a five-steps model including demographic characteristics (i.e. being young, a woman and a non-believer) and negative (e.g. being afraid of otherworldly punishments) and positive (e.g. believing in benevolent supernatural forces) components of religiosity, anxiety and depression. Crucially, compared with believers, non-believers revealed higher scores in depression, anxiety and in a specific questionnaire measuring proneness to auditory hallucinations.

Conclusions: Results suggests that religiosity acts as a potential protective factor for proneness to paranormal experiences, but a complex relationship emerges between religious beliefs, mood alterations and unusual experiences.

Keywords: Auditory hallucinations; anxiety; depression; religiosity; voice hearing.

Fig. 1

Distribution plots for auditory hallucinations questionnaires. The thick horizontal line indicates the median; the box indicates the interquartile range (IQR); the whiskers indicate extreme data points not exceeding the IQR by1.5; outliers are plotted as dots. CAPS, Cardiff Anomalous Perceptions Scale; O-LIFE, Oxford–Liverpool Inventory of Feelings and Experiences; AHRS, Auditory Hallucinations Rating Scale; HPSVQ, Hamilton Program for Schizophrenia Voices Questionnaire.