Schizophrenia and the display of embarrassment

Abstract

Although the experience of self-conscious emotion is critical for motivating social behavior, no study to date has tested whether this type of emotional responding is disrupted in the context of schizophrenia. In the present study we compared the responses of 27 participants with schizophrenia and 28 controls to a loud acoustic stimulus; a manipulation that has previously been shown to elicit a defensive behavioral response, followed by the self-conscious emotional response of embarrassment. The results indicated that there were no group differences in the magnitude of the defensive response, as indexed by both behavioral and physiological assessment. Further, although the acoustic paradigm was effective in eliciting embarrassment (as evidenced by positive associations between defensive reaction and subsequent self-conscious emotional behavior), no group effects were observed in the magnitude of the embarrassment response. However, since greater embarrassment in the schizophrenia group was associated with better social functioning and lower negative affect, these data are broadly consistent with theoretical models that regard the experience of self-conscious emotion as indicative of greater interpersonal connectedness and enhanced social functioning.

Keywords:

• Embarrassment
• Self-conscious emotion
• Social cognition
• Schizophrenia
• Social function

This research was supported by grants from the Australian Research Council. The authors acknowledge the Research Register of the Schizophrenia Research Institute, Australia, for assisting with the recruitment of the volunteers participating in this research, as well as the participants themselves. The authors have no financial or other relationships that could be interpreted as a conflict of interest affecting this manuscript.

Notes

¹Whilst this conversion is more controversial as applied to atypical antipsychotics (see Taylor, Paton, & Kerwin, 2003), it is nevertheless useful for assessing broad trends across patient groups. See Henry et al. (2007) for fuller details of the conversion procedure used.