The Role of the Disintegration Trait in Everyday Situation Perception

The Disintegration trait reflects the proneness to psychotic-like experiences and behaviors (PLEBs) in the general population. We examined its links to momentary situation perception using the DIAMONDS taxonomy. In an experience sampling method study and a diary study ( N total = 1,350 participants, n total = 28,114 episodic measures), we found that Disintegration (beyond the HEXACO traits) was associated with more intense perceptions of situations in everyday life across all DIAMONDS characteristics (except Positivity). This applied in particular to unpleasant and stimulating aspects of situations. This pattern aligns with the conceptualization of Disintegration as a tendency toward illusory perception—seeing, thinking, and feeling connections among objectively unrelated phenomena (false-positive detection errors)—and trait activation theory. Proneness to PLEBs thus help explain how individuals in the general population perceive situations.