SCHIZOPHRENIC DEFICIT AND ITS RELATION TO SOCIAL MOTIVATION.

A study investigating the effects of praise and encouragement on the performance of schizophrenics was carried out with 48 normal and 48 hospitalized schizophrenics, the latter being drawn equally from open and closed wards. All Ss performed a simple motor task, those in the experimental groups receiving verbal praise and encouragement from E after each trial and those in the control groups no evaluative comments. The results indicated that all experimental groups performed better than their controls but that the amount of improvement did not differ among the diagnostic groups. In absolute performance level, normals were significantly superior to the schizophrenics but the 2 schizophrenics groups did not differ significantly from each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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