Impaired preferences for praise in schizophrenic adolescents.

Explanations of schizophrenia consistently have emphasized a reduced preference for social rewards. However, experiments that purportedly tested these explanations have used performance measures, which are affected by learning as well as preferences. Moreover, these experiments rarely have used nonsocial rewards as controls, in order to determine whether the schizophrenics' impaired responsiveness is specific to praise. The present experiment directly measured the preferences of paranoid and nonparanoid schizophrenic adolescents and of nonpsychotic adolescent controls (N = 60). Both praise and tangible rewards were used. Results consistently supported the preference theories. Schizophrenics exhibited impaired preferences for praise, but unimpaired preferences for tangible rewards. It was concluded that one reason that schizophrenics are withdrawn and uncommunicative is that they are apathetic toward social rewards. Their apathy also may be responsible for their poor social skills.