Abstract
Social cognitive impairment is a core feature of schizophrenia and plays a critical role in poor community functioning in the disorder. However, our understanding of the relationship between key biological variables and social cognitive impairment in schizophrenia is limited. This study examined the effect of sex on the levels of social cognitive impairment and the relationship between social cognitive impairment and social functioning in schizophrenia. Two hundred forty-eight patients with schizophrenia (61 female) and 87 healthy controls (31 female) completed five objective measures and one subjective measure of social cognition. The objective measures included the Facial Affect Identification, Emotion in Biological Motion, Self-Referential Memory, MSCEIT Branch 4, and Empathic Accuracy tasks. The subjective measure was the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI), which includes four subscales. Patients completed measures of social and non-social functional capacity and community functioning. For objective social cognitive tasks, we found a significant sex difference only on one measure, the MSCEIT Branch 4, which in both patient and control groups, females performed better than males. Regarding the IRI, females endorsed higher empathy-related items on one subscale. The moderating role of sex was found only for the association between objective social cognition and non-social functional capacity. The relationship was stronger in male patients than female patients. In this study, we found minimal evidence of a sex effect on social cognition in schizophrenia across subjective and objective measures. Sex does not appear to moderate the association between social cognition and functioning in schizophrenia.
Highlights
Social cognitive impairment is a core feature of schizophrenia
For the Mayer–Salovey–Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test 2.0 (MSCEIT) Branch 4, we found a significant effect of sex such that female participants performed better than male participants, and this sex effect did not differ between patients and controls as evidenced by a nonsignificant sex by group interaction
This study examined the effect of sex on the levels of social cognitive impairment and the relationship between social cognition and functioning
Summary
Social cognitive impairment is a core feature of schizophrenia. During the past two decades, a large body of work has shown the pervasive nature of social cognitive impairment and its critical role in poor functioning in schizophrenia[1,2,3]. For non-social cognition, studies on sex differences in schizophrenia have produced mixed findings, such that some found better performance in female than male patients[8,9,10], whereas others found the opposite[11,12] or no difference between female and male patients[13,14,15]. The inconsistent findings of these studies raise a possibility that sex differences in social cognition in schizophrenia may differ depending on the type of measures (e.g., subjective versus objective measures), which in turn may affect the relationships between social cognition and functioning. Females performed slightly better at understanding thoughts of another person[24] or the emotional state of another person[25] compared to males It appears that sex differences in healthy samples are more consistently found using subjective versus objective social cognitive measures
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
