Psychotic patients' impressions of a person from written descriptions.

Abstract

The present study examined the impressions of personality formed from written descriptions of behavior by over 200 hospitalized male schizophrenics, tested individually when they seemed in contact with reality. One description was of extrovert (E) behavior by a youth named Jim; another was of his introvert (I) behavior in similar settings. Combined communications gave one description immediately after the other. After 150 patients read one of the communications, they were generally willing and able to respond to a 36-item questionnaire about Jim. This also occurred when 96 patients were asked to answer it before any communication, on the basis of their expectations about Jim; 56 subsequently received a communication, followed by readministration of the questionnaire. Patients' responses, before or after the communications, revealed few pathological signs and, like those of normal Ss, could usually be classified as E or I. Patients had less differential effects, and far fewer I responses than normal Ss. Patients and normals showed preconceptions of Jim as extrovertive. Results were discussed in light of the projective hypothesis and other theories.