Truman Show Delusion

Two Canadian psychiatrists claim to have identified a new delusion. They have treated a small group of patients who believe they are being watched by millions of people and that their friends and family are actors reading scripts. They call this the "Truman Show Delusion" because their beliefs are so similar to the plot of the film The Truman Show. They argue that this is a new mental illness for the youtube era. Other psychiatrists are not convinced that it's a new mental disorder. Sounds like a variation of paranoid schizophrenia to me.

National Post article on the "Truman Show Delusion"

Paranoid Schizophrenia

In the film the 'Truman Show' Jim Carey is the star of a T.V. show. He lives in a T.V. studio and 5000 cameras observe his every move. People watch him constantly, asleep and awake. All the people he knows are actors and are controlled by a director from a central control room. Even the lines they speak are scripted. Eventually Truman begins to believe that something is wrong and sets out to discover the truth.



Paranoid schizophrenia is the most common type of schizophrenia and many of the scenes in the film capture the way someone diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia thinks and feels: delusions of control; delusions of reference, delusions of persecution, and even delusions of grandeur.

How would you like to be put in the same situation as Truman? What could psychologists learn? What ethical issues might be raised if psychologists replicated the Truman Show as a psychological experiment?

Link to the Truman Show experiment

Post Avatar Depression

"I'd like to talk to you about a fresh start on a New World where you can make a difference."

There have been self-reports that people are feeling blue after watching Avatar. According to this news report this is because their lives lack meaning.



Is this the beginning of a new syndrome, a new mood disorder, like the Truman Show delusion? Or has it got something to do with the 3D technology used to make and watch the film? 

A clinical psychology professor at Oxford, Dr Gordon Claridge, claims that 3D technology may be the cause. He points out that 3D virtual simulations are used to educate and treat paranoid disorders and:

"If the presentation of a virtual reality under lab conditions can affect behaviour, it is not hard to believe that it has the power to do so in the Cinema."

Answer the following question:

A clinical psychologist has observed some people who watch the film Avatar have developed depression. Design a study to investigate the relationship between watching the film in 3D and 2D and the development of depression. You should include sufficient details to permit replication, for example a hypothesis, variables, detail of design and procedure, sampling, etc. (12 marks)

This Times article discusses post-avatar depression