Dysfunctional meta-cognitive beliefs mediate the relation between temperament traits and hallucination-proneness in non-clinical population

•We investigated the relation between temperament and hallucination-proneness.•We described temperamental traits with The Regulative Theory of Temperament (RTT).•We tested if negative beliefs about uncontrollability/danger mediate such relation.•RTT traits predicted predisposition to hallucinations in non-clinical population.•Beliefs about uncontrollability/danger mediated temperament and hallucination links.

We investigated whether dysfunctional metacognitive beliefs (negative beliefs about uncontrollability and danger of thoughts) mediate the relationship between temperamental characteristics of behavior and hallucinatory-like experiences in healthy subjects (n=137). Our analyses showed that four temperamental traits (emotional reactivity, perseveration, endurance and briskness) were mediated by negative beliefs about uncontrollability and danger of thoughts in relation to hallucination proneness. Our research tentatively suggests that temperament affects hallucination proneness via metacognition.