The effects of dependency and self-assertiveness of schizophrenic patients on susceptibility to group influence in perceptual tasks
✍ Scribed by Donald E. Spiegel; Alan J. Litrownik
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1968
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 344 KB
- Volume
- 24
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0021-9762
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
PROBLEM
g, have sought to elucidate the most significant determinants of perceptual judgments in group pressure situations among persons without known organic or behavior pathology. Perhaps the most crucial variables which have been ascribed the role of major contributors to perceptual yielding or independence have been the character or personal significance of the material (9), the character of the group forces, the character of the individual, or some combination of these variables@@ 4 9 6, *I.
I n studies of the susceptibility of schizophrenic patients to group pressure, some apparently contradictory findings have been reported. Whereas Gill ( 6 ) found schizophrenic patients less influenced by group pressure than normals, Schooler and Spohn (7) reported that regressed schizophrenic patients were actually more responsive to their immediate social environment than normals.
Careful examination of the literature reveals rather clear-cut within-group differences in perceptual yielding to group pressure among both schizophrenics and normals. The apparently contradictory findings alluded to may have been less a function of differences in study methods than a function of the failure of the authors to take into consideration or control for the effects of within-groups personality differences on perceptual responsiveness to group pressure.
I n the present study it was proposed that when other variables are controlled, perceptual responsivity to group pressure will be a function of degree of dependency and self-assertiveness of the individual patient. It was predicted that schizophrenic patients who are highly dependent and non-assertive would be more perceptually responsive to group pressure than would patients who are independent and selfassertive.
METHOD Subjects. Seventy-six schizophrenic patients from a Veterans Administration neuropsychiatric hospital were administered an inventory consisting of items comprising the "self-assertiveness scale" and the "dependency scale" of the Spiegel Personality Inventory (SPI)2 and the "lie scale" of the MMPI. Lie scale scores were used to eliminate Ss who might falsify scores by always choosing socially desirable responses. Two matched groups of 8 male Ss were formed from the remaining patients. Group A were Ss who scored more than one SD (2.7) below the mean of 12.0 on the dependency scale and more than one SD (2.9) above the mean (12.5) on the self-assertiveness scale of the SPI. Group B patients scored more than one standard deviation above the mean on the dependency scale and more than one standard deviation below the mean on the self-assertiveness scale. The reference means and standard deviations were from hospital norms for male neuropsychiatric patients (N = 300).
Numerous investigators ( l -6 ~ 'The authors wish to thank Ira Nathanvon arid Patricia Keith-Spiegel for assistance on t h i project.
Vhie inventory, developed by Donald E. Spie el, consists of 35 Guttman scales which have been shown by factor analysis to be relatively inde entent scales. Scales and scorin system used here were-taken from the prepublication manual w&ch is available from the author. 1 recent aiislyvis of covariance involving six different groups who took the SPI revealed that (with the error variance contributed by age, education and childhood economic level statistically removed) male neuropsychiatric patients are significantly higher in dependency and lower in self-atsertiveness t,han normal adults ( p < .01).