Verbal conditioning of affect responses of process and reactive schizophrenics in a clinical interview situation.

Sixteen process and 16 reactive schizoprenics out-patients were compared on a verbal conditioning task in an alternating conditioning-extinction design, using verbal and non-verbal positive social reinforcement to influence the emission of self-referred affect statements. It was found that process subjects failed to condition during the time periods used, while reactives demonstrated a significant trials effect showing trends consistent with those hypothesized from the type of design used. This differential conditionability between groups was shown not to be a function of diagnosis, sex, motivation, severity of illness, medication, hospitalization history, or general speech output. It was concluded that the degree of social responsiveness manifested in the premorbid history of the two groups is also operative in behaviour during the psychotic period, specifically, in responsiveness to positive social reinforcers in a verbal conditioning task.