Are people with schizophrenia more logical than healthy volunteers?

[Ibid]

http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/full/191/5/453

The results suggest that under conditions where common sense and logic conflict, people with schizophrenia reason more logically than controls.

Personal observations anyone?

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[Manicsleep]

Sounds like the ability to be concrete helping out.

 

[ClinPsycMasters]

I would say they're worse at common sense. I don't think they're more rational. I await subsequent studies.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

There was a "study" done that showed people with schizophrenia were more likely to vote for a Republican......though most likely because it was more concrete. Go figure.

 

[maranatha]

I would say they're worse at common sense. I don't think they're more rational. I await subsequent studies.

Right. That is what the study suggests.

"Our main results show that under conditions where common sense and logic conflict, people with schizophrenia reason more logically than healthy individuals. On a straightforward interpretation this is either because people with schizophrenia are better at logic or because they are worse at common sense. We present some exploratory evidence that it is because they are worse at common sense, but the question remains open."

 

[urnextshrink]

There was a "study" done that showed people with schizophrenia were more likely to vote for a Republican......though most likely because it was more concrete.

I have so noticed that anecdotally at work. I work primarily with middle-aged schzophrenic African-American males in the deeply democratic inner-city and it's amazing how many of them are Republicans, probably the only ones on their block.

 

[whopper]

There are some problems with this study.

17 patients, 19 controls. That's hardly the minimum for a conclusive study. It's well within an area where the results could be attributed to random chance.

The syllogism test they used, as far as I know is not a standardized method to score performance of "logic" vs "common sense."

 

[Manicsleep]

I have so noticed that anecdotally at work. I work primarily with middle-aged schzophrenic African-American males in the deeply democratic inner-city and it's amazing how many of them are Republicans, probably the only ones on their block.

Ok. Maybe I am being a little concrete.

Is this a joke?

T4C, can you cite that study.

 

[maranatha]

Ok. Maybe I am being a little concrete.

Is this a joke?

T4C, can you cite that study.

Are you a republican?

 

[whopper]

Getting OT, I found it ironic how patients in a long term care facility were given every opportunity to vote when several of them were there because they were not competent to stand trial. Many of them were likely not competent to vote but they got to vote anyways. Every effort was made so they could cast their ballot conveniently in the hospital.

While I, who worked there, and a heck of a lot of people who are competent to vote had to take some extra effort to vote.

At least from my experience, I didn't notice an outlier trend among my patients because they were mentally ill. Many of them who openly stated their politicla positions voted the way I'd expect someone in their demographic to vote.

 

[Ibid]

As Whooper points out it is a poor study. If only jumping to conclusions were an Olympic event, the academic community would be a dead cert for a clean sweep of the medals.

With all respect the paper suggest that people chose logic over common sense when those two things conflict. The notion that people with schizophrenia might be worse at common sense as a general rule is just a notion the author has pulled out of no where.

ClinPsycMasters point about rationality is interesting although rationality is of course in the eye of the beholder. I post the link below because of the nifty insert rather than the original paper which shows people with schizophrenia being right nearly all the time compared to controls.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/04/schizoillusion/

The study used a variation on the three-dimensional ‘hollow mask’ illusion. A hollow mask of a face (pointing inwards, or concave) appears as a normal face (pointing outwards, or convex). During the experiment, 3D normal faces and hollow faces are shown to patients with schizophrenia and control volunteers while they lay inside an fMRI scanner.
All 16 control volunteers perceived the hollow mask as a normal face – mis-categorising the illusion faces 99 percent of the time. By contrast, all 13 patients with schizophrenia could routinely distinguish between hollow and normal faces, with an average of only six percent mis-categorisation errors for illusion faces.
Politics politics…..the original article is from the The British Journal of Psychiatry so surely we should be referring to Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Labour voters. Btw I believe a study exists that showed LD voters had the highest IQs. Just joking in case any takes offense.

Whooper with respect to your last post that is an interesting distinction. Would you not say though that each of those issues is a matter of capacity to be taken seprately? One could have the capacity to make a choice to take up the right to vote but not have the capacity to take up the right to a fair trail. (The trial not being fair if the person lacks capacity)

 

[Manicsleep]

Im not a republican or democrat but i think that using race, especially anecdotally, to support whatever idiotic argument you have about politics is racist. Certainly don't think its funny maranatha.
Same things can be said about using mental illness. You aren't being degrading to the politician but to the person with the mental illness.

Im not saying T4C or UNS are racists BTW so dont get all worked up.
Just looking for the article.

 

[maranatha]

Im not a republican or democrat but i think that using race, especially anecdotally, to support whatever idiotic argument you have about politics is racist. Certainly don't think its funny maranatha.
Same things can be said about using mental illness. You aren't being degrading to the politician but to the person with the mental illness.

Im not saying T4C or UNS are racists BTW so dont get all worked up.
Just looking for the article.

I was trying to make a joke about being concrete and republicans, period. In no way or form was I commenting about African Americans or race. I wasn't trying to support an argument about politics either. It was intended to be a joke about republicans. I apologize if you took offense, but please don't throw out racism at people without knowing the context or who you are directing it at. I find that offensive.

BTW, if you look at what I highlighted to comment on it was only about being concrete.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

T4C, can you cite that study.

I didn't mean to come of quippy, it was more of a comment about how the news twists research to get a headline. A study came out during one of the Bush elections that had something to do with people with schizophrenia and their preference for people who utilized concrete thought. I believe the researcher explained the preference by saying concrete thought was more predictable and thus preferred by people with schizophrenia.

Someone twisted the research and said: concrete thought = conservative/republican, therefore people with schizophrenia were more likely to vote for Bush. It was an obvious twisting of facts, but it was "true enough" that a number of news outlets ran sensationalized headlines. The end result being negative comments about people with schizophrenia being "crazy", and people calling conservative supporters mentally ill......all because a researcher who works with schizophrenia came out with some data during an election.

For those who prefer a visual explanation:

ps. I'll see if I can find the study, or at least a press release about the twisted headlines.

 

[loveoforganic]

Awesome image

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

Awesome image

It happens ALL OF THE TIME. It frustrates me because most news people understand very little about WHY they are wrong, and explaining it will just hurt the researcher's head.

 

[Ibid]

Therapist4change

The way copy number variation studies get reported just kills me.

Never in the course of human scientific endeavor has so much been spent and so little learned.

What is really ironic is that often it is the same journals that originate both the stories that CNVs are going to solve everything and in the next moment publish studies casting doubt on that.

Its a funny old world.