Cognitive Styles and the Schizophrenias and Character Disorders

Abstract

Witkin's Embedded-figures Test, Pettigrew's Category Width Measure, the Random Figures Test, the Howard Maze, and Silverman's Scanning Procedure were administered to 48 schizophrenics and 24 character disorders. All Ss were male inpatients at a Veterans Administration Hospital who were without organic impairment. The schizophrenics were divided into 4 groups depending on whether they were paranoid or nonparanoid and process or reactive. Using analysis of variance, a main effect was found for Category Width (p < .05) and a three-way interaction effect for the Embedded-figures Test, Category Width, and Scanning (p < .04) in accounting for a significant amount of the variance on the Paranoid Rating Scale. A three-way interaction effect of these same measures was also found to account for a significant (p < .05) amount of the variance in the chronicity variable. Character disorders were less field independent and formed broader conceptual categories than reactive schizophrenics. They also showed less preference for complexity.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Ammons

Full-Range Picture Vocabulary Test. Missoula, Mont.: Psychological Test Specialists, 1948.

Bellak

(Ed.) Schizophrenia: a review of the syndrome. New York: Logos, 1958.

Feffer

Symptom expression as a form of primitive decentering. Psychol. Rev., 1967, 74, 16–28.

Gardner

Scores for the cognitive control of extensiveness of scanning. Percept. mot. Skills, 1970, 31, 330.

Howard

Diesenhaus

Personality correlates of change-seeking behavior. Percept. mot. Skills, 1965, 21, 655–664.

Munsinger

Kessen

Uncertainty, structure, and preference. Psychol. Monogr., 1964, 78, No. 9 (Whole No. 586).

Neale

Cromwell

Size estimation in schizophrenics as a function of stimulus presentation time. J. abnorm. Psychol., 1968, 73, 44–48.

Pettigrew

The measurement and correlates of category width as a cognitive variable. J. Pers., 1958, 26, 532–544.

Quay

Psychopathic personality as pathological stimulation seeking. Amer. J. Psychiat., 1965, 122, 180–183.

10.

Rodnick

Garmezy

An experimental approach to the study of motivation In schizophrenia. In Jones

M. R.

(Ed.), Nebraska symposium on motivation, 1957. Lincoln, Neb.: Univer. of Nebraska Press, 1957 Pp. 109–184.

11.

Sidle

Acker

McReynolds

Stimulus-seeking behavior in schizophrenics and nonschizophrenics. Percept. mot. Skills, 1963, 17, 811–816.

12.

Silverman

Scanning-control mechanism and ‘cognitive-filtering’ in paranoid and nonparanoid schizophrenia. J. consult. Psychol., 1964, 28, 385–393.

13.

Silverman

Variations in cognitive control and psychophysiological defense in the schizophrenias. Psychosom. Med., 1967, 29, 225–251.

14.

Ullmann

Giovannoni

The selection of extrinsic life-functioning items for a self-administered inventory to identify process and reactive schizophrenics. J. nerv. ment. Dis., 1964, 138, 38-42. (Mimeo, V. A. Hospital, Palo Alto, Calif.).

15.

Witkin

Dyk

Faterson

Goodenough

Karp

Psychological differentiation. New York: Wiley, 1962.