Violations of social apperception in patients with schizophrenia

The purpose of the study was to determine the relationship between the parameters of social apperception and self-regulation in patients with schizophrenia with different levels of social adaptation. The V.P. Serbsky National Medical Research Center of Psychiatry and Narcology (Moscow) examined 71 men with a diagnosis of "Schizophrenia", of whom 33 committed socially dangerous actions, that is, they had the highest level of social maladaptation. The comparison group included 20 men without mental disorders who were not brought to criminal responsibility. The assessment of the features of social apperception, self-regulation and their violations was carried out using a complex of psychometric and semi-selective methods. Violations of social apperception in schizophrenic patients with normative and criminal behavior are identified, and the relationship between social apperception and selfregulation in schizophrenic patients and healthy individuals is also investigated. In patients with schizophrenia who have committed socially dangerous acts, a greater number of relationships between violations of social apperception and self-regulation parameters were revealed. The components of social apperception that are significant for predicting the commission of socially dangerous actions by patients with schizophrenia are highlighted. It is shown that the greatest contribution to the attribution of schizophrenia patients to the group of persons with criminal behavior is made by excessive detailing of the situational context, introducing personal meaning into the interpretation of the situation with perceptual interference, producing aggressive alternatives with an information deficit.