Abstract
Schizophrenia is often associated with distinctive or odd social behaviours. Previous work suggests this could be due to a general reduction in conformity; however, this work only assessed the tendency to publicly agree with others, which may involve a number of different mechanisms. In this study, we specifically investigated whether patients display a reduced tendency to adopt other people’s opinions (socially learned attitude change). We administered a computerized conformity task, assumed to rely on reinforcement learning circuits, to 32 patients with schizophrenia or schizo-affective disorder and 39 matched controls. Each participant rated 153 faces for trustworthiness. After each rating, they were immediately shown the opinion of a group. After approximately 1 hour, participants were unexpectedly asked to rate all the faces again. We compared the degree of attitude change towards group opinion in patients and controls. Patients presented equal or more social influence on attitudes than controls. This effect may have been medication induced, as increased conformity was seen with higher antipsychotic dose. The results suggest that there is not a general decline in conformity in medicated patients with schizophrenia and that previous findings of reduced conformity are likely related to mechanisms other than reinforcement based social influence on attitudes.
Highlights
Schizophrenia is often associated with distinctive or odd social behaviours
The studies on conformity in schizophrenia were designed to measure public conformity, i.e. the tendency to deliberately and outwardly adopt others’ responses often in spite of clear contradictions to one’s own beliefs and without changing one’s belief or attitude[7]. This has been referred to as public compliance[8,9] and sheds light on social behaviour under social pressure. It is unclear whether reduced conformity in patients with schizophrenia is restricted to public conformity or whether they display a general reduction in the tendency to conform to others, including a reduced tendency to adopt and maintain others’ behaviours, attitudes and beliefs in the absence of experienced social pressure
We found that medicated patients with schizophrenia do not present a reduced tendency to conform to others’ opinions when there is minimal social pressure
Summary
Schizophrenia is often associated with distinctive or odd social behaviours. Already in the 1930s it was suggested that this could be due to a decline in responsiveness to social stimuli and studies from the 1960s and 70 s partly confirmed this hypothesis, indicating that patients with schizophrenia show reduced conformity to the expressed opinions of others[1,2,3,4]. The studies on conformity in schizophrenia were designed to measure public conformity, i.e. the tendency to deliberately and outwardly adopt others’ responses often in spite of clear contradictions to one’s own beliefs and without changing one’s belief or attitude[7] This has been referred to as public compliance[8,9] and sheds light on social behaviour under social pressure. The high number of ratings make it unlikely that group ratings, seen during the first session, would be consciously remembered in the second session Conformity in this task likely reflects an immediate, socially learned, change of attitude toward the group opinion[12,13] and not public conformity. When they are unexpectedly asked to rate the faces again 1 hour later, they presumably cannot deliberately act on the feedback given during the first round because they cannot consciously remember it
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