Abstract: | 30 schizophrenic patients and 30 psychiatric aides were required in 4 experimental tasks to change their responses to meet changing conditions. It was hypothesized that (a) schizophrenic patients are more likely than normals to continue a response after it becomes ineffective; (b) the persistence of the maladaptive response is a function of the severity of schizophrenia. As predicted, the patients persisted longer than the aides in the first learned but later maladaptive responses, and there was some evidence that degree of resistance to change was related to the severity of schizophrenia in the patient. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |