ABSTRACT
Schizophrenic patients were rated on three syndromal dimensions derived from positive and negative symptom ratings. Scores on each dimension were compared to performance on neuropsychological tests before and after coaching instructions. Patients evidenced significant improvement in performance on all measures readministered immediately after instruction. Disorganization symptoms were correlated with lower levels of performance on all pre-coaching, trial 1 tests. Disorganization symptoms were also associated with lower levels of trial 2 post-coaching performance, independent of pre-coaching scores. These results suggest that, within a population of schizophrenic patients, symptoms of disorganization are associated with relatively greater impairments in performance on neuropsychological tests and with impaired ability to improve test performance following coaching instructions. The three symptom dimensions show promise for reducing heterogeneity within samples of schizophrenic patients.
Subject(s)
Neuropsychological Tests , Psychiatric Status Rating Scales , Schizophrenia/diagnosis , Schizophrenic Psychology , Adult , Attention , Brain Damage, Chronic/diagnosis , Brain Damage, Chronic/psychology , Female , Humans , Male , Memory, Short-Term , Middle Aged , Practice, Psychological , Schizophrenia, Disorganized/diagnosis , Schizophrenia, Disorganized/psychologyABSTRACT
Adult participants recruited from the community, one half of whom met criteria for clinical depression, described their day-to-day social interactions using a variant of the Rochester Interaction Record. Compared with the nondepressed participants, depressed participants found their interactions to be less enjoyable and less intimate, and they felt less influence over their interactions. Differences between the two groups in intimacy occurred only in interactions with close relations and not in interactions with nonintimates, and differences in influence were more pronounced for those who were cohabiting than for those who were not. There were no differences in how socially active depressed and nondepressed people were or in the amount of contact they had with different relational partners.
Subject(s)
Depressive Disorder/psychology , Interpersonal Relations , Social Adjustment , Adult , Case-Control Studies , Female , Humans , Linear Models , Male , Middle Aged , Psychiatric Status Rating Scales , Social Behavior , Social Control, Formal , Surveys and QuestionnairesABSTRACT
The purpose of this research was to study the patterns of interpersonal behavior of depressed students. Depressed participants rated themselves lower than non-depressed controls on assertiveness and initiation of interactions and significantly higher than controls on concern about what others think, introversion, and submissiveness. Depressed participants also scored significantly higher than controls on measures of dependency, self-criticism, and the need to please others. Ratings of depressed participants by their roommates were not correlated with depressed participants' self-reports. In contrast, most subscale self-ratings and roommate ratings for the nondepressed participants and their roommates were significantly correlated.
Subject(s)
Depression/psychology , Interpersonal Relations , Social Perception , Students/psychology , Adult , Assertiveness , Depression/diagnosis , Female , Humans , Male , PersonalityABSTRACT
This study investigated the relationship between performance on word association and sentence construction tasks and the three-syndrome model of schizophrenic symptoms. Participants were 70 inpatients with a primary diagnosis of schizophrenia. Each participant was rated on positive and negative symptom scales, and ratings were grouped into three syndromal patterns (Reality Distortion, Psychomotor Poverty, and Disorganization). Among the syndromes, only symptoms of disorganization were significantly related to the ability to construct meaningful sentences using word associations. Results suggest that symptoms of disorganization, length of hospitalization, and premorbid adjustment are dimensions that are related to language disturbance in patients with schizophrenia.
Subject(s)
Language Disorders/complications , Schizophrenia/complications , Adult , Aged , Female , Humans , Language Disorders/diagnosis , Male , Middle Aged , Schizophrenia/diagnosis , Severity of Illness Index , Syndrome , Word Association TestsABSTRACT
This study examined differences in habituation between high and low socially anxious Ss. Participants gave three impromptu speeches, each separated by a brief rest interval. Skin conductance and heart rate were monitored during the speeches. Following each speech participants completed self-ratings of nervousness, heart rate, and palmar sweat activity as well as a modified Social Interaction Self Statement Test. Low anxious controls showed significant reduction of negative expectations and self-reported nervousness, heart rate, and sweat activity across the three trials. Actual heart rate of low-anxious subjects also decreased significantly across trials. In contrast, high anxious subjects did not evidence significant decreases in any of the above measures of anxiety and stress across the three trials. Skin conductance measures increased across trials for both groups, but increased more for the high anxious group than low-anxious controls. Results indicate that high anxiety participants are slow to decrease cognitive and autonomic responsiveness to stressful social situations.
Subject(s)
Anxiety/psychology , Arousal/physiology , Cognition/physiology , Habituation, Psychophysiologic/physiology , Anxiety/diagnosis , Female , Galvanic Skin Response , Heart Rate/physiology , Humans , Life Change Events , MaleABSTRACT
The present study examined the relationships between depressive symptoms and everyday social interaction in a nonclinical population. Depressive symptoms were measured using the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale, and social interaction was measured using a variant of the Rochester Interaction Record. People who were classified as at risk for depression had less rewarding interactions than people who were not at risk. Depressive symptoms and interaction quantity and quality were negatively correlated for participants above the cutpoint, whereas they were uncorrelated for those below the at-risk cutpoint. The results also suggested that, compared with nondepressed people, depressed people derive more rewards from interactions with their closest opposite-sex friends, relative to the rewards they derive from interactions with other opposite-sex friends.
Subject(s)
Depression/psychology , Interpersonal Relations , Female , Humans , MaleABSTRACT
In addition to the direct psychological effects of disaster stressors, anticipation of stress can itself be debilitating. We examined the relationship between the anticipated stress of handling the dead and gender and experience. Experienced persons had lower anticipated stress than inexperienced persons. Inexperienced, females had higher anticipated stress than inexperienced males; experienced males and females did not differ. Results provide support for an 'inoculation' theory of stress buffering in disaster workers.
Subject(s)
Attitude to Death , Cadaver , Gender Identity , Relief Work , Stress, Psychological/complications , Adaptation, Psychological , Adult , Arousal , Disasters , Fear , Female , Humans , Male , Practice, PsychologicalABSTRACT
This study investigated the relationship between performance on a word association task and positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia. Subjects were fifty inpatients with diagnoses of schizophrenia who were rated for positive and negative symptoms using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale. In a single word association task, negative symptoms correlated significantly with idiosyncratic responses; correlations with positive symptoms were not significant. When asked to place their stimulus word-association pairs in the context of a meaningful sentence, 65% of positive syndrome patients and 53% of negative syndrome patients were able to do so in such a way that their idiosyncratic associations were rated as meaningful in the context of a sentence. Negative symptoms were correlated with idiosyncratic associations that could not be used in a related sentence while positive symptoms were correlated with the inability to use common associations in a related sentence. Differential ability to use common and idiosyncratic associations in a related sentence suggests the possibility of two different patterns of language disturbance associated with positive and negative symptoms.
Subject(s)
Schizophrenic Psychology , Word Association Tests , Adult , Female , Humans , Male , Middle Aged , Psychiatric Status Rating Scales , Task Performance and AnalysisABSTRACT
The present study investigated the relationship between reaction time crossover and schizotypy as measured by Chapman's Physical Anhedonia Scale (PAS). Twenty PAS-identified schizotypal college students and 20 nonschizotypal students were administered a computerized version of Rodnick and Shakow's crossover reaction time task. The hypothesized interaction (crossover) between preparatory interval duration and preparatory interval presentation pattern was observed for PAS-identified schizotypics. Results indicated that subjects identified on the basis of the PAS evidenced reaction time crossover patterns similar to those observed in schizophrenic and at-risk populations.
