Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T17:38:06.106Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Schizophrenics and Social Judgement

Why Do Schizophrenics Get It Wrong?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

P. Cramer*
Affiliation:
St Bernard's Hospital, Uxbridge Road, Southall, Middlesex UB1 3EU
J. Bowen
Affiliation:
St Bernard's Hospital
M. O'Neill
Affiliation:
Hillingdon Hospital, Middlesex
*
Correspondence

Abstract

Videotaped social interactions were shown to a population of schizophrenics and controls who were asked to comment on the emotional state of the principal protagonist. Their free responses were subjected to a content analysis to examine which of three possible explanations of known schizophrenic inaccuracies on this task were responsible: formal thought disorder, selective avoidance of psychological factors, or perceptual/attentional deficits. Neither selective avoidance nor marked thought disorder were found to explain these errors. The schizophrenics as a group rated much the same, irrespective of clinical profile. Their judgements of personality were less clear-cut than the controls.

Type
Papers
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1992 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anderson, N. H. (1968) Likeableness ratings of 555 personality trait words. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 9, 272279.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bannister, D. (1960) Conceptual structure in thought disorder. Journal of Mental Science, 108, 825842.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bannister, D. & Slamon, E. (1966) Schizophrenic thought disorder, specified of diffuse? British Journal of Medical Psychology, 39, 215219.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bodlakova, V., Hemsley, D. & Mumford, D. (1974) Psychological variables and the flattening of affect. British Journal of Medical Psychology, 47, 227234.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cramer, P., Weegman, M. & O'Neill, M. (1989) Schizophrenia and the perception of emotions. How accurately do schizophrenics judge the emotional state of others? British Journal of Psychiatry, 155, 225228.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Caudrey, D. J., Kirk, K., Thomas, P. C., et al (1980) Perceptual deficit in schizophrenia: a defect in redundancy, utilisation, filtering or scanning? British Journal of Psychiatry, 137, 352360.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cutting, J. (1981) Judgement of emotional expressions in schizophrenics. British Journal of Psychiatry, 139, 16.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dougherty, F., Bartlett, E. & Izard, C. (1974) Responses of schizophrenics to expression of fundamental emotions. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 30, 243246.3.0.CO;2-0>CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Feinberg, T. E., Rifkin, A., Schaffer, C., et al (1986) Facial discrimination and emotional recognition in schizophrenia and affective disorders. Archives of General Psychiatry, 43, 276279.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Forgas, J. P. (1985) Interpersonal Behaviour: The Psychology of Social Interaction. Sydney: Pergamon Press.Google Scholar
Frith, C. D., Stevens, M., Johnstone, E. C., et al (1983) Integration of schematic faces and other complex objects in schizophrenia. Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases, 171, 3439.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gessler, S., Cutting, J., Frith, C. D., et al (1989) Schizophrenic inability to judge facial emotion; a controlled study. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 28, 1929.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Greene, J. & Hicks, C. (1984) Basic Cognitive Processes. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.Google Scholar
Hemsley, D. R. (1977) What have cognitive deficits to do with schizophrenic symptoms? British Journal of Psychiatry, 130, 167173.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Izard, C. (1959) Paranoid schizophrenic and normal subjects' perception of photographs of human faces. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 23, 119124.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jonsson, C. O. & Sjostedt, A. (1973) Aural perception in schizophrenia, a second study of the intonation test. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 49, 558600.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
La Russo, L. (1978) Sensitivity of paranoid patients to non-verbal cues. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 87, 463471.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levy, L. H., Orr, T. B. & Rosenzwig, S. (1960) Judgements of emotion by facial expressions by college students, mental retardates and mental hospital patients. Journal of Personality, 28, 342349.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McPherson, F. M., Barden, V. & Hay, J. (1970) Flattening of affect and personal constructs. British Journal of Psychiatry, 116, 3943.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McPherson, F. M., Armstrong, J. & Heather, B. B. (1975) Psychological construing: “difficulty” and thought disorder. British Journal of Medical Psychology, 48, 303315.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mandal, M. K. (1986) Judgement of facial affect amongst depressives and schizophrenics. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 25, 8792.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Muzekari, L. & Bates, M. (1977) Judgement of emotion among chronic schizophrenics. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 33, 662666.3.0.CO;2-A>CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nelson, H. & MacKenna, P. (1975) The use of current reading ability in the assessment of dementia. British Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 14, 259267.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Overall, J. & Gorham, D. (1962) The Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale. Psychological Reports, 10, 799812.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Place, E. J. S. & Gilmour, G. C. (1980) Perceptual organisation in schizophrenia. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 89, 409418.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pilowsky, I. & Bassett, D. (1980) Schizophrenia and response to facial emotions. Comprehensive Psychiatry, 1, 236244.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spiegel, D. E., Gerard, R. M., Grayson, H. M., et al (1962) Reaction of chronic schizophrenic patients and college students to facial expressions and geometric forms. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 18, 396402.3.0.CO;2-J>CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Spitzer, R., Indicott, J. & Robbins, P. (1975) Research Diagnostic Criteria. Instrument Number 58. New York: New York State Psychiatric Institute.Google Scholar
Spohn, H. E., Coyne, L., Larson, J., et al (1986) Episodic and residual thought disorder pathology in chronic schizophrenics: effect of neuroleptics. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 12, 394407.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Turner, J. (1964) Schizophrenics as judges of vocal expressions of emotion meaning. In The Communication of Emotional Meaning (ed. Davitz, J.), pp. 129142. New York: McGraw Hill.Google Scholar
Walker, E. (1981) Emotion recognition in disturbed and normal children: a research note. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 22, 263269.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Walker, E., McGuire, M. & Betts, B. (1984) Recognition and identification of facial stimuli by schizophrenics and patients with affective disorders. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 23, 3744.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Williams, J. & Quirke, E. (1972) Psychological construing in schizophrenics. British Journal of Medical Psychology, 45, 7984.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wing, J. & Brown, G. (1970) Institutionalisation and Schizophrenia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.