Recognition of Female-Spoken and Male-Spoken Evaluative Words: Implications for a Theory of Schizophreniform Development

Abstract

The theory has been proposed that given sustained maternal control and rejection, the son may develop one of two primary styles of adapting to social evaluation; a closed style combines defensive tactics of social withdrawal and perceptual blocking, whereas an open style involves manipulative social approach and perceptual vigilance. The schizophreniform character of these two styles has been noted, drawing upon their parallels with process and reactive distinctions in schizophrenia, thereby presenting a hypothetical linkage between mother-child dynamics and the learning of schizophrenic behaviors. The present study tested the prediction that closed-style late-adolescents would show a deficit in recognizing evaluative words spoken near threshold in a female (“mother-figure”) voice. This prediction was generated by both the adaptive-style theory and empirical demonstration of this deficit in process schizophrenics. Results confirmed the prediction. Closed-style subjects recognized fewer female-spoken (relative to male-spoken) words than their control subjects, and open-style subjects did not. The closed-style deficit was especially obvious for those words on the list not having unfavorable connotations.