Week 6: Social Cognition in Schizophrenia Flashcards
What is social cognition in schizophrenia?
Social cognition refers to mental operations underlying social interactions, including perceiving, interpreting, and generating responses to others’ intentions, dispositions, and behaviors.
What are the main domains of social cognition studied in schizophrenia?
The main domains include emotion processing, social perception, attributional bias, and theory of mind.
How does social cognition relate to neurocognition in schizophrenia?
Social cognition is associated with, but distinct from, neurocognition; it acts as a mediator between neurocognition and functional outcome.
What is emotion processing in social cognition?
Emotion processing involves perceiving and using emotions adaptively, including identifying, facilitating, understanding, and managing emotions.
What does social perception measure?
Social perception assesses an individual’s ability to identify social roles, societal rules, and social context using nonverbal, vocal, and verbal cues.
What is attributional bias in schizophrenia?
Attributional bias refers to how people infer the causes of events, distinguishing between external personal, external situational, and internal attributions.
What is theory of mind in social cognition?
Theory of mind refers to the ability to infer others’ intentions, dispositions, and beliefs, often tested through social vignettes or cartoon sequencing tasks.
How significant is social cognitive impairment in schizophrenia?
Studies show large effect sizes for impairments in emotion perception (.91) and theory of mind (.90 to 1.25), suggesting they are core features of the illness.
What role does social cognition play in functional outcomes for schizophrenia?
Social cognition is a key determinant of functional disability, affecting interpersonal relationships, occupational functioning, and community integration.
How does social cognition mediate neurocognition and functional outcomes?
Social cognition serves as a mediator, explaining the relationship between neurocognition and daily functioning, reducing direct neurocognition-outcome associations when included in models.
What types of interventions exist for social cognition in schizophrenia?
Interventions include pharmacological approaches targeting neural systems and psychosocial treatments such as social cognitive training exercises.
What are examples of psychosocial interventions for social cognition?
Examples include facial emotion perception training, role-playing, video analysis, and modifying social attributions to improve social cognitive skills.
What limitations exist in current social cognition interventions?
Limitations include a focus on emotion perception over other domains, lack of fully controlled studies, and limited evidence of generalization to real-world functioning.
What future directions are suggested for social cognition research in schizophrenia?
Future research should refine domain definitions, explore social cognition’s relationship with negative symptoms, track impairment progression, and improve assessment tools.
