ABSTRACT
This chapter presents more extended normative data for the Oxford-Liverpool Inventory of Feelings and Experiences (O-LIFE). The existence of a fourth scale in the O-LIFE – unlike comparable questionnaires – needs further comment. O-LIFE is unique in being predicated on a different view of the dimensionality of psychotic traits, compared with most other scales of its type. On a more clinical front the O-LIFE has been used successfully to investigate schizotypy in relation to such topics as dissociative experience and childhood abuse, membership of new religious movements, and paranormal beliefs and experiences as a function of mental health. The fully dimensional model, on the other hand, emerged out of personality theory and regards psychotic characteristics as no different from other individual differences traits – such as anxiety – that potentially have either healthy or unhealthy outcomes. Finally, a large quantitative genetic analysis has established convincing heritability for the O-LIFE scales, along the lines predicted for schizotypal traits.
