Social perceptions in psychiatric inpatients: relation to positive and negative affect levels

Abstract

The present study investigated relationships between social perceptions and positive and negative affect levels within a hospitalized clinical sample. Seventy-four psychiatric inpatients (including 29 schizophrenics and 30 depressives) completed a measure of positive and negative affect (the PANAS). After reading a brief scenario describing a typical social gathering, these participants then indicated their degree of interest in finding out more information about two other persons at this gathering. One of these persons was portrayed as being outgoing and sociable, whereas the other was described as being extremely self-conscious and nervous. In addition, each participant provided self-perception ratings on a wide range of attributes (e.g. intellectual ability, artistic ability, physical health); several of which focused specifically on sociability aspects of self (e.g. social skills, ideal sociability level). Within our clinical sample, inpatients with higher positive affect scores were much more interested in obtaining information about both of the other persons described in the scenario than inpatients with lower levels of positive affect. Higher positive affect scores were also associated with more favorable self-perceptions regarding sociability aspects of self, but were less consistently related to self-perceptions that did not involve sociability elements. In contrast to positive affect, negative affect level was completely unrelated to degree of interest in finding out more information about others, and showed only very limited relationships with the self-perception ratings. These findings were then discussed in terms of the importance of considering both positive and negative affect levels when assessing social and self-perceptions within clinical ranges of psychopathology.