The performance of schizophrenics on social concepts.

"A hypothesis was derived from Cameron's view of schizophrenic thinking as a product of the social disarticulation of this group, as contrasted with Goldstein's interpretation of the defect in schizophrenic thought as the result of an impairment of the abstract attitude. The hypothesis was that schizophrenics would exhibit a greater decrement relative to normals on a test of social concepts than on tests of formal concepts." The data support this hypothesis. 22 references. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of social and nonsocial censure on stimulus generalization in neurotics and schizophrenics.

36 schizophrenic and 36 neurotic depressive Ss were given a visual-spatial generalization task under either social or nonsocial (impersonal) censure conditions. The following hypotheses derived from previous investigations were tested: (1) schizophrenics would show higher gradients of generalization than neurotic depressives, and (2) generalization gradients would be higher under conditions of social as opposed to nonsocial censure, especially in schizophrenics. The data supported Hypothesis 1 but not Hypothesis 2. There was no evidence for differential responding between these 2 groups with respect to either stimulus generalization or response to censure. It was suggested that hypotheses concerning the schizophrenic's performance in these 2 situations have been biased and oversimplified by use of normal, rather than patient, control groups in previous investigations. (22 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Performance of good and poor premorbid male schizophrenics as a function of paternal vs. maternal censure.

The hypothesis that interference in schizophrenic performance depends on an interaction between level of premorbid adjustment, paternal vs. maternal source of stimulation, and censuring vs. approval content was tested. 4 tape recordings were played for 80 good and 80 poor premorbid adjustment schizophrenics—father-son censure, father-son approval, mother-son censure, and mother-son approval. Performance was measured by a change from a pre- to post-Digit-Symbol test. The hypothesis was confirmed—good premorbids show interference with paternal censure and poor premorbids with maternal censure. A comparison group of 80 normals did not show this kind of interaction. (18 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Praise and censure as motivating variables in the motor behavior and learning of schizophrenics.

Hullian assumptions regarding drive level were utilized to predict the performance of acute and chronic schizophrenics on learning tasks of varying complexity. Ss were exposed to 3 conditions of reinforcement: censure, praise, and neutral (neither censure nor praise), and faced with simple and complex learning tasks. Acute schizophrenics responded differently from the chronic Ss to the conditions of reinforcement. The performance of the acute group was facilitated on the 2nd task by the experience of being told they were wrong on the 1st; this was not so with the chronic schizophrenics. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interference transfer paradigms and the performance of schizophrenics and controls.

A group of chronic schizophrenics (n = 18) and a group of control Ss (hospital employees, n = 18) were contrasted on the A-C and A-Br negative transfer paradigms. As expected, both groups yielded negative transfer on both paradigms, with significantly greater negative transfer for A-Br relative to A-C in the schizophrenic group only (p     

Vocabulary performance of short-term and long-term schizophrenics.

"The following three measures of vocabulary performance varying in sensitivity were obtained from groups of short-term schizophrenics, long-term schizophrenics, and normals equated for art and education: gesticulation (nonverbal), conventional vocabulary achievement, and level of verbal communication. No differences were found between the short-term schizophrenics and the normals of any of the measures. The long-term schizophrenics were significantly lower than normals and short-term schizophrenics on all of the measures. The decrement on gesticulation for the long-term schizophrenics was significantly less than that for the other measures." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive aspects of psychomotor performance: The effects of performance goals on level of performance.

Reports an experiment stemming from Mace's work on the effects of performance standards on level of performance. It was found that Ss given specific (but difficult) standards performed at a higher level on a complex psychomotor task than Ss told to "do their best," thus replicating Mace's finding with a computation task. In contrast to Mace's study where performance goals worked by prolonging effort during the latter part of the work periods, the standards intensified effort at all stages of the work periods in the present case. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Differential effects of social reward and punishment on dependent and dependency-anxious schizophrenics.

Several recent studies have reported mild social punishment to be more effective than social reward for motivating schizophrenics' learning. However, theoretical formulations of schizophrenia, as well as learning studies with normals, suggest that the relative effectiveness of positive and negative reinforcement varies with the individual's dependency needs and conflicts. This study was therefore designed to determine whether social rewards and social punishments would have differential effects upon the learning performance of highly dependent (HD) and highly dependency-anxious (HD-A) schizophrenics. In accord with theoretical expectations, the dependent Ss performed better under rewards than under punishment, while the dependency-anxious Ss performed better under punishment than under rewards. However, these differential reactions extinguished within a surprisingly short period. (15 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Factorial analysis of complex psychomotor performance and related skills.

A factor analysis of 23 test variables (16 apparatus psychomotor tests and 7 printed tests designed as possible substitutes for apparatus tests) and a flying training criterion is reported. 9 factors rotated to an orthogonal simple structure are described. There are certain broad group factors of psychomotor skill which may account for performance on a wide variety of different psychomotor tasks. Although some of the factors defined in psychomotor tests may also be sampled by printed tests, there is evidence that psychomotor tests sample some factors not covered by any other kinds of tests. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of social reinforcement on the level of abstraction in schizophrenics.

This study was designed to investigate (1) the effects of the nature of contingent vs. noncontingent social reinforcement upon the level of abstraction in schizophrenics as measured on a proverbs task, (2) the generalization of this behavior to another verbal conceptual task administered under neutral conditions, and (3) the predictive and construct validity of the Ullmann-Giovannoni Process-Reactive Self-Report Scale. 64 male schizophrenics were assigned to 4 treatment groups: contingent positive, noncontingent positive, contingent negative, and control. The results indicated that only the contingent positive Ss significantly increased their level of performance on the proverbs task and showed generalization. The other 3 groups showed no significant differences. Validity evidence for the Process-Reactive Scale and marital status was obtained. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stability of vocabulary performance by schizophrenics.

After 13 additional years of institutionalization, 31 schizophrenic men and 36 schizophrenic women were retested with the Wechsler Bellevue vocabulary test, Form I. No Significant decline was found in vocabulary performance. The findings did not support the hypothesis that prolonged institutionalization induces intellectual deterioration. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Failure and the subsequent performance of schizophrenics.

"The present study investigated the questions of whether deficit would obtain for schizophrenics on a timed task of nonsocial content and, if so, whether the deficit would increase or decrease over trials under a condition of nonreinforcement and, finally, differentially affect the subsequent performance of schizophrenics and normals… . The results indicated that both schizophrenics and normals responded with enhanced performance to the negative conditions, but that only the schizophrenics demonstrated enhanced performance under the positive condition." 15 references. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of the interpersonal interaction on abstract thinking performance in schizophrenics.

Schizophrenics were subjected either to a positive or negative interpersonal situation (a standard interview) between administrations of parallel forms of a proverb scale. The level of abstract verbal performance was shown to be affected by the nature of the intervening interpersonal interaction and changes in level of performance were in the predicted directions for positive, negative, and control groups. No relationship between severity of the schizophrenic disorder and amount of change in level of abstract verbal performance was demonstrated. The proverb scales were cross-validated in this research which further supports their validity as prognostic indicators. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of social motivational variables on choice reaction time of schizophrenics.

The effect of 3 kinds of instructions on the reactions times (RT) of schizophrenics was studied. The instruction included nonevaluative and evaluative ("You've done very well" or "You haven't done very well") statements and referred to performance on an apparatus which required S to depress the appropriate key indicating which of two lights had been flashed. The performance of the schizophrenic Ss were compared to that by hospitalized nonpsychiatric patients. In general, the schizophrenic's overall RT was slower than the controls. In both groups, decrease in RT was noted for "failure" instructions, nonevaluative, and "success" in that order. From Psyc Abstracts 36:01:3JQ24G. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effect of instructional set and need for social approval on commonality of word association responses.

This study investigated the effect of various instructional sets (speed, relaxed time instructions, and "set popular" instructions) on commonality of word associations. Findings were generally supportive of the hypotheses: significantly more common associations were given under speed as compared to relaxed instructions, Ss were able to significantly increase their commonality scores under a set to give popular responses, and need for social approval was differentially related to commonality under relaxed but not under speed instructions. Contrary to a suggestion of Jenkins, social sensitivity (as reflected in the need for approval measure) was not related to the ability to increase one's commonality score under "set popular" instructions. (17 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The conditioning of verbal behavior as a function of the need for social approval.

The hypothesis tested herein is that need for approval will facilitate learning. Need for approval was measured by the M-C Social Desirability Scale (Crowne & Marlowe, 1960); the learning task employed the model of verbal conditioning as used by Greenspoon (1955); the Ss were undergraduate psychology students. The results supported the hypothesis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Complexity of response as a factor in the vocabulary performance of schizophrenics.

"Equated pairs of schizophrenics and attendants were tested on two tasks differing in the complexity of the responses required. The performance of the schizophrenic group was significantly poorer than that of the attendants where the more complex response was involved. Where the less complex response was involved, the groups did not differ." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Responsiveness of chronic schizophrenics and normals to social and nonsocial feedback.

This is an investigation of the effect upon learning (of a psychomotor task: depressing a bar in accord with a repetitive double alternation pattern) of feedback on performance from a human being or from a panel of lights in a population of schizophrenics as compared to hospitalized nonpsychiatric patients. It was anticipated that when the feedback was from the human, the schizophrenic would not be able to profit as much from the information as compared to the normals, and that paranoid schizophrenics would profit more than nonparanoid schizophrenics. In general, the hypotheses were supported. The results are discussed as to their theoretical implications. From Psyc Abstracts 36:01:3JQ06J. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Responsiveness of chronic schizophrenics to the social behavior of others in a meaningful task situation.

In this experiment 60 schizophrenics were given the task of stamping a number of greetings to accompany gifts. Instructions to hurray or to be cautious induced reliably differing rates of responding. In order to test the hypotheses concerning the social behavior of the schizophrenic, pairs of Ss were brought together to work in the same room—1 responding slowly and the other rapidly. As a consequence of being in the presence of another patient working at the same task both partners increased their rote of responding, indicating the effect of social facilitation. When the patients were given role instructions with relation to one another their rates of responding converged. Although these changes in behavior took place none of the 22 pairs of Ss (11 in co-working, 11 in role-related conditions) discussed the discrepancy or change in behavior. These results confirmed the hypothesis that schizophrenics will exhibit appropriate social motivation and responsiveness when behaving in a meaningful situation which does not depend on the use of language or complex cognitive skills. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effect of praise and censure on the performance of schizophrenics.

Ss were 36 normals, 36 good, and 36 poor premorbid schizophrenics. Poor premorbids were shown to be primarily motivated to avoid censure and good premorbids to be relatively more sensitive to praise. It was demonstrated that when censure was used on a task with only 2 possible responses, poor premorbids performed better than good premorbids. The opposite relationship was demonstrated for the effects of praise, to which the good premorbids were more responsive. On a task with many responses, the praise or censure gave little information as to the correct response. On this task, censure was demonstrated to be relatively more disruptive to the poor premorbids than praise, but the opposite held for the good premorbids. Comparisons with neutral conditions and normal Ss were also made. (19 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)