Korean J Schizophr Res.  2013 Oct;16(2):69-79. 10.16946/kjsr.2013.16.2.69.

Characteristics of Social Perception and their Changes after Treatment in Patients with Schizophrenia Using the Idea of Reference Provoking Task

• Choi S
• Park IH
• Lee SK
• Kim JJ

• KMID: 2288326
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.16946/kjsr.2013.16.2.69

Abstract

OBJECTIVES
Patients with schizophrenia often present idea of reference in social situations, but there has been a limitation in quantitatively measuring their reactions to the social stimuli. The aim of this study was to investigate behavioral characteristics of patients with schizophrenia in social situations in which idea of reference can be provoked.
METHODS
Forty subjects with schizophrenia (21 males) and 26 healthy volunteers (17 males) performed the idea-of-reference-provoking task, which was composed of movie clips with scenes of two women sitting on a bench of 1 or 5 m away. The conditions consisted of "referential conversation", "non-referential conversation" or "no conversation". The reactions of the participants were rated by the questionnaires for self-referential perception, malevolent interpretation and anxiety reaction.
RESULTS
There were significant group differences in the reactions on self-referential perception, malevolent interpretation and anxiety reaction. After the treatment, patients with schizophrenia showed improved scores of the reactions. In particular, score changes of malevolent interpretation and anxiety reaction in patients with schizophrenia were correlated with change of paranoia scale (rs=0.65, p<0.05 and rs =0.73, p<0.05, respectively).
CONCLUSION
Patients with schizophrenia revealed self-referential bias and paranoid responses to social situations, which were improved after psychiatric treatment. Self-referential perceptions and paranoid responses may be state dependent rather than trait of schizophrenia.

Keyword

Schizophrenia; Idea of reference; Social perception; Social cognition

MeSH Terms

Anxiety
Bias (Epidemiology)
Female
Healthy Volunteers
Humans
Paranoid Disorders
Surveys and Questionnaires
Schizophrenia*
Social Perception*

Figure

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  Fig. 1. A schematic description of the task conditions.

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  Fig. 2. Correlations between score change in paranoid scale and changes in mean scores of self-referential perception, malevolent interpretation and anxiety reaction.

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