THE EFFECTS OF DEPENDENCY AND SELF-ASSERTIVENESS 011‘ SCHIZOPHRENIC PATIENTS ON SUSCEPTIBILITY TO GROUP

INFLUENCE I N PERCEPTUAL TASKS DONALD E. SPIEQEL AND ALAN J. LITROWNIK

Veterans Administration Center, Los Angeles Brentwood nwersity of California, Los Angeles

PROBLEM g, have sought to elucidate the most significant

determinants of perceptual judgments in group pressure situations among persons without known organic or behavior pathology. Perhaps the most crucial variables which have been ascribed the role of major contributors to perceptual yielding or independence have been the character or personal significance of the material (9),

the character of the group forces, the character of the individual, or some combina- tion of these variables@@ 4 9 6 , *I.

In studies of the susceptibility of schizophrenic patients to group pressure, some apparently contradictory findings have been reported. Whereas Gill (6 ) found schizophrenic patients less influenced by group pressure than normals, Schooler and Spohn (7) reported that regressed schizophrenic patients were actually more responsive to their immediate social environment than normals.

Careful examination of the literature reveals rather clear-cut within-group differences in perceptual yielding to group pressure among both schizophrenics and normals. The apparently contradictory findings alluded to may have been less a function of differences in study methods than a function of the failure of the authors to take into consideration or control for the effects of within-groups personality differences on perceptual responsiveness to group pressure.

In the present study it was proposed that when other variables are controlled, perceptual responsivity to group pressure will be a function of degree of dependency and self-assertiveness of the individual patient. It was predicted that schizophrenic patients who are highly dependent and non-assertive would be more perceptually responsive to group pressure than would patients who are independent and self- assertive.

METHOD Subjects. Seventy-six schizophrenic patients from a Veterans Administration

neuropsychiatric hospital were administered an inventory consisting of items com- prising the “self-assertiveness scale” and the “dependency scale” of the Spiegel Personality Inventory (SPI)2 and the “lie scale” of the MMPI. Lie scale scores were used to eliminate Ss who might falsify scores by always choosing socially desirable responses. Two matched groups of 8 male Ss were formed from the re- maining patients. Group A were Ss who scored more than one SD (2.7) below the mean of 12.0 on the dependency scale and more than one SD (2.9) above the mean (12.5) on the self-assertiveness scale of the SPI. Group B patients scored more than one standard deviation above the mean on the dependency scale and more than one standard deviation below the mean on the self-assertiveness scale. The reference means and standard deviations were from hospital norms for male neuropsychiatric patients (N = 300).

Numerous investigators ( l - 6 ~

‘The authors wish to thank Ira Nathanvon arid Patricia Keith-Spiegel for assistance on t h i project.

Vhie inventory, developed by Donald E. Spie el, consists of 35 Guttman scales which have been shown by factor analysis to be relatively inde entent scales. Scales and scorin system used here were-taken from the prepublication manual w&ch is available from the author. 1 recent aiislyvis of covariance involving six different groups who took the SPI revealed that (with the error variance contributed by age, education and childhood economic level statistically removed) male neuro- psychiatric patients are significantly higher in dependency and lower in self-atsertiveness t,han normal adults ( p < .01).

THE EFFECTS OF DEPENDENCY AND SELF-ASSERTIVENESS ON PERCEPTUAL TASKS 13

Patients were matched for age, years of hospitalization, diagnosis, education and intelligence (based upon Shipley-Institute of Living Scale scores). There were no statistically significant differences between the two groups in age (range 38 to 50), years in the hospital (range 1 to 2.5 years), vocabulary raw scores (x = 30 for each group), or years of school (x = 12).

Procedure. Ss were tested in groups of four, seated in chairs with 5’ x 4’ sound absorptive paneling placed between them so that they could neither see nor hear each other. The two experimenters (El and Ez) sat facing the Ss approximately six feet away from them. The discrimination task was presented on 8” x 11” paper which was held at a distance of four to five feet away.

All four Ss were naive in each group. To accomplish this a procedure similar to one employed by Tuddenham(8) was used. In the present case, Ss were told that there were four colors, red, blue, yellow, and green, and that each S had been de- signated a different color. They were instructed to answer only when El called their color by holding up the card with the letter that matches the line that they believed to be the same as the given line. The fact that each S was assigned the color green allowed El to give wrong answers for the other three colors. This was done by calling out the colors (to which no S responded) and then scanning the group (with dark glasses on so that they could not make eye-contact with El), and finally announcing aloud the false answers. El made himself busy by preparing for the next task, thus looking away and allowing EZ to look up and record the answers.

Task. The task involved 20 sub-tasks on which discriminations were to be made. On twelve of these, wrong answers were given by the E to produce distorted norms and to establish group pressure. The remaining eight discriminations were preceded by correct answers.

ASCH STUDY

X A B C

L L I X A B C

c loo U C X A B

FIQ. 1. PERCEPTUAL TASK MATERIAIS U S E D BY ABCH AND BY THE k B N T INVE8TIOATORS

14 DONALD E. SPIEOEL AND ALAN J. LITROWNIK

Each perceptual sub-task required Ss to judge which of three similar geometric figures was identical to a standard or given figure. Choices involved judgments of line length, line slope or figure size. Examples of stimulus materials used in the present study and by Asch are shown in Fig. 1. The twelve subtasks with distorted norms involved judgments of line length. The lengths of these lines and the differ- ences in the correct and given responses are shown in Table 1.

TABLE 1. DISTORTED NORMS ON THE TWELVE TASKS

Sub-Task Correct Length Given Length Difference Number Response (Col. X) Response (Col. Y) (Col. Y - X)

2 3 6 8 9

10 11 13 15 16 18 20

B B B B B C B C A C C B

C A C A C B C A B B A C

After completing the task, all Ss filled out a short questionnaire indicating how they felt the group fared and how sure they were of their own answers. They re- sponded in terms of one of the following categories in evaluating how sure they were: (1) sure of answers, (2) somewhat sure, (3) not sure. On the basis of their state- ments about how well they felt the group did, El rated responses as (1) excellent, (2) good, (3) fair, (4) poor. Instructions to Ss were as follows:

“We are going to do a simple perceptual task which should take about 15 minutes. (Show example). What I want you to do is to match the length, slope, etc. of the first or given line to the one that is the same length, slope, etc. of the three lettered A, B or C. Once we start you must remain silent and answer only by holding up the letter that you think is right. So that you will not know who is answering at a given time, each of you will find a color in your folder along with your letters. This is your color and you are to answer by holding up the letter only when your color i s called. I will call the colors in the same order: red, blue, yellow, and green; so be prepared.”

RESULTS The group low in dependency and high in self-assertiveness had a mean of 1.88

“Asch errors’),3 while the group high in dependency and low in self-assertiveness had a mean score of 4.38. Because of the small saiiiples involved in this study, the Mann-Whitney U test was used to test the hypothesis that the number of errors for the high dependency, low self-assertiveness group would be greater than for the low dependency, high self-assertiveness group. With 8 Ss in each group, an obtained U of 3 was significant a t p < .001, using a 1 tail test.

Fig. 2 shows the number of Asch errors for each task for which the group answers were distorted. On 10 of 12 tasks, the low dependency, high self-assertive- ness group gave fewer Asch errors than did the high dependency, low self-assertive- ness group, as predicted.

“he term “Asch error” refers to a response which agrees with the distorted norm.

THE EFFECTS OF DEPENDENCY AND SELF-ASSERTIVENESS ON PERCEPTUAL TASKS 15

LOW DEPENDENCY

TASK NUMBER FIG. 2. NUMBER OF ASCH ERRORS ON THE TWELVE PERCEPTUAL SUB-TASKEL

Of a possible 192 answers, 50 went along with the distorted norm and on 7, the Ss did not answer. Therefore, on 26% of their answers, Ss went along with the group. This is only slightly below the figure of 31.8% found by Asch with normal Ss. This comparison, of course, must take into consideration the differences which existed in task niaterials, social group situation, dependency and self-assertiveness of the Ss, etc.

The mean ratings of “self” and “others” inade by Group A and Group B did not differ significantly, although trends in the expected direction were noted for each group. In terms of modal ratings, Group B tended to see themselves as “some- what sure” of their answers and evaluated others as doing “good”. Group A patients tended t,o see themselves as “sure” of their answers and others as doing “fair”.

DISCUSSION In this experiment, since other variables which might affect perceptual re-

sponsiveness were held constant for both groups, any difference in the effect of group pressure on the responses of the groups may be attributed rather safely to differences in dependency and self-assertiveness.

On 7 trials, Ss did not give an answer, and 6 of these 7 failures to respond were made by Ss in t,he high dependency, low self-assert,iveness group. Only 4 non-con-

16 DONALD E. SPIEGEL AND ALAN J. LITROWNIK

forming errors were given out of the 185 responses. Thus, the giving of non-conform- ing errors can hardly be considered a trend for schizophrenic patients as has been suggested by Schooler and S p ~ h n ( ~ ) .

Present findings suggest that the schizophrenic patient is neither unaware of nor unresponsive to group pressure, but that his susceptibility to group pressure is in part a function of variables such as dependency and self-assertiveness. The more dependent and non-assertive the patient, the more likely he is to yield to group pressure.

These findings suggest further that the dependency and self-assertiveness scales of the Spiegel Personality Inventory may be useful in distinguishing among schizo- phrenic subgroups who may be expected to respond best to different treatment approaches.

SUMMARY A probable partial explanation of contradictory evidence concerning perceptual

susceptibility to group pressure in schizophrenic patients arises from a failure of investigators to control for the effects of personality differences within groups. By considering schizophrenics as homogeneous personality groups, investigators achiev- ing contradictory results may have sampled from different poles of crucial person- ality dimensions.

In the present study, it was proposed that perceptual responsiveness to group pressure is a function of degree of dependency and self-assertiveness of the individual patient as well as other variables. It was predicted that when situation and stimulus are held constant, highly dependent and non-assertive schizophrenic patients would be more perceptually responsive to group pressure than patients who were independ- ent and self-assertive.

A relatively homogeneous pool of male schizophrenic patients were separated into dependent, non-assertive and independent, self-assertive groups on the basis of two scales of the Spiegel Personality Inventory. Patients were matched on variables which might affect perceptual responsiveness.

Ss were administered Asch-type perceptual tasks in a group pressure situation. Highly dependent, non-assertive Ss made significantly more conforming errors than highly independent, self-assertive Ss and tended to be less confident in their judg- ments.

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4p? ARTWRIQHT, D. and ZANDER, A. Croup dynumm. .New York: Harper & Row, 1960. 5. DEUTSCH, M. and GERARD, H. A study of normative and informational social influences upon individual judgment. In D. Cartwright and A. Zander (Eds.). Croup dynumh. New York: Harper & Row, 1960.

6. GILL, W. The effect of group influence upon attitude change in normal and schizophrenic in- dividuals. DissertcrtiOn Abstrads, 1962, %?, 1781. 7. SCHOOLER, C. and SPOHN H. The susceptibility of chronic schizophrenics to social influence in the formation of erceptual)judgments.. J . abnonn. SOC. PSychol.,.196O1 61, 348359.

8. TUDDENHAM, g. The lnfluence of a dlstorted group norm upon mdividual judgment. J. Psychol., 1958, 48, 227-241. 9. VAUQHN, G. and MANQAN, G. Conformity to group pressure in relation to the value of the task material. J. abnwmcrl SOC. P~ychol., 1963,66,179-183.

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