Psychopathogy

Psychopathology aids in comprehending many causes and how they influence our behaviors in ways that depart from social norms. The primary goal of this study was to establish a link between cognitive values and schizotypy. This association was studied using a variety of ways. A questionnaire was utilized to collect information about schizotypy and social cognitive processes. The information was collected via surveys and then analyzed using SSP for various criteria including mean. Standard deviation, correlation analysis, and other comparisons were performed in order to aid in deriving meaningful conclusions from the data. Minimum and maximum correlation values were calculated and discussed.  Based on the facts a conclusion was drawn to help in summarizing the study objectives.

Introduction

Psychopathology can be defined as people behaviors and conscious awareness that are considered abnormal from the social norms. The report aims at establishing the relationship between schizotypy and cognitive function in relation to the psychopathogy.

Social cognitive can be defined as methods by which a given group of people reacts in terms of perceiving and interpretation of information about themselves or others while schizotypy behaviors or characters that resembles schizophrenia but are normally present in a form that is diminished. Studying this relationship between social cognitive function and schizotypy is important since it will help in relating the actual findings in the field and what recent studies has shown in reference to cognitive functions and schizotypy.

Methods

To study the relationship between social cognitive function and schizotypy. Questionnaires was used. Data collected from 238 students pursuing their undergraduate courses for non-clinical was collected. In order to obtain most accurate data participants to be nominated as fit to take part in this study had to report about history of illness of neurology and psychiatric.

The data obtained from the field by participant was sorted in a chronological order and entered for processing analysis and interpretation. The obtained data was analyzed using SSP in various ways using the following criteria

Variable.

Years, education, age, gender (male/female) were used as the variables to enable the analysis of the obtained data.

Schizotypal personality

To study the relationship of the two, one measures of schizotypal values was used to enable comparisons. From the schizotypal questionnaire that was used in the field. A total of 74 items was considered for the study. 62 of the items was scored as no which was represented by (0) i.e. no = 0 and yes was represented by (1) i.e. yes = 1; the remainder i.e. 12 was scored at no = 0 and yes =2. Total score was taken as 74 which is the sum of the total score of the items used which ranges between 0 and 86. It was also possible to obtain the sub scale scores from the total of schizotypy (Raine, 1991).

Social cognitive function

To be able to make accurate comparison between schizotypy and social cognitive functions, three measures of social cognitive functions had to be included in the study as follows.

Reading the mind in the eye test

In this test one had to read the mind of some two guys from the expression that was evidenced in the eye and decide whether the person in the picture was bored, comforting, playful, irritating in the first picture while in the second picture, the correspondent was to determine whether the person in the picture was jealous, practice, pinched, hateful or arrogant. A total of 36 items was used in the study, each of the items are scored as correct (1) and incorrect (0). The scores in this test also ranges from 0 to 36( Baron-Cohen, et, al, 2001).

Social function scale.

Here the researcher had to fill in the questionnaire with information on the social life of the correspondents. It aimed at establishing social engagement/withdrawals, interpersonal communication of the correspondent, independence performance, recreational activities of the performance, employment occupation, independence competence and prosocial (Molenberghs, Lee, & Sachdev, P. S. (2016). The scoring for each of the items used in this questionnaire varies, however higher score of each of the social functioning is considered as an indication of a better social functioning (Cochrane, Wetton, & Copestake, 1990).

Empathy quotient.

In this questionnaire the correspondent had to give his view on some information to determine the empathy quotient. The questionnaire contained a total of 60 questions on which an individual was required either to strongly agree, slightly agree, slightly disagree or strongly disagree. The test on empathy quotient consisted of 60 items, 40 items of this data measured empathy, while the remaining 20 items measure fillers (Baron-Cohen, & Wheelwright, 2004). For the 40 items a response of strongly with the empathic capacity was scored as 2 while those responses endorsed as slightly consistent with empathic capacity was rated as 1. Total score was taken as the sum of the total scores of the 40 items used in the questionnaire while the range lied between 0 to 80(Baron-Cohen, & Wheelwright, 2004).

Negative effects

To cater for the effects negativity on the data collected, a measure of negativity had to be included this will cater for effects such as depression and anxiety.

Hospital anxiety depression scale (HADS)

To obtain the data about this negativity facto the questionnaire was used that aimed at collecting the feelings of the correspond for a given period of time. In this study a total of 14 items was used, seven of the items used in the data was representing anxiety while the remaining seven represented depressions scoring was done between 0 to 3 since some of the items used was reversed scored. A figure of higher total scores was considered to indicate a greater negative effects caused by depression or anxiety. The sub scales scores used in the data for both depressions and anxiety ranges between 0 to 21.

Results

From the analysis of the various data collected in the field by use of questionnaires various results was obtained that shows various correlation between the parameters that were considered in the research. The results were presented in a tabular form as shown in various tables.

Discussions

From the second table that compares the age and education we observe that at tender age of 15 years the standard deviation was observed to be high at around 100 due to the fact that at this age majority of the correspondents are still in school. At an age of 25 years most of them are through with education hence they don’t fall in this category chosen for our study. The gender also varies so much in the first table as it is evidenced that majority of the correspondent were females since they constituted a higher percentage (Zigmond, & Snaith, 1983)..

In the third table that studies correlation between the parameters such as SPQ, EQ, Eyes, Anxiety, depression and SFS. We observed that the Std deviation was maximum at 13.089 and minimum at 0.7876. at the figure 13.089 corresponds to Empathy quotient column and the figure 0.7876 corresponds to SFS intercom this shows where the points where the correlation was either maximum or minimum. Demographic values and SPQ was also analyzed and correlations analysis was done. The correlation was significant at 0.01 level and 0.05.

Conclusions

The study of schizotypy and socials cognitive functions can be best understood when thorough correlations done for the data obtained as observed in this study. To obtain more elaborate information on the relationship of this two feature more than one effects of negativity should be used in the test, also the schizotypal personality factors should be increased.

Baron-Cohen, S., & Wheelwright, S. (2004). The Empathy Quotient: an investigation of adults with Asperger syndrome or high functioning autism, and normal sex differences. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 34, 163-175. Birchwood, M., Smith, J.,

Baron-Cohen, S., Wheelwright, S., & Hill, J., Raste, Y., & Plumb, I. (2001). The “Reading the Eyes” Test revised version: a study with normal adults, and adults with Asperger syndrome or high-functioning autism. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 42, 241-251.

Cochrane, R., Wetton, S., & Copestake, S. (1990). The Social Functioning Scale. The development and validation of a new scale of social adjustment for use in family intervention programmes with schizophrenic patients. British Journal of Psychiatry, 157, 853-9. doi: 10.1192/bjp.157.6.853 Henry, J. D., von Hippel, W.,

Molenberghs, P., Lee, T., & Sachdev, P. S. (2016). Clinical assessment of social cognitive function in neurological disorders. Nature Reviews Neurology, 12, 28-39. doi: 10.1038/nrneurol.2015.229.

Raine, A. (1991). The SPQ: a scale for the assessment of schizotypal personality based on DSM-III-R criteria. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 17, 555-64.

References

Zigmond, A. S., & Snaith, R. P. (1983). The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 67, 361-370. doi: 10.1111/j.1600-0447.1983.tb09716.x