Narrative Construction, Social Perceptions, and the Situation Model

A cognitive model of diminished expression in schizophrenia: The interface of metacognition, cognitive symptoms and language disturbances

The resistance of negative symptoms to pharmacologic treatment has spurred interest in understanding the psychological factors that contribute to their formation and persistence. However, little is understood about the psychological processes that reinforce and sustain the negative symptoms domain of diminished expression. Prior research has shown that higher levels of diminished expression relate to deficits in metacognitive capacity. We propose a more complex model in which diminished expression occurs when impairments in metacognitive self-reflectivity, alterations in higher-order language structure, and cognitive symptoms interact and thus interfere with persons' ability to understand and express emotions in ways others can recognize. Individuals with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders (N = 201) provided personal narratives detailing their life story and reflections about their mental illness. Self-reflectivity was measured with the Metacognition Assessment Scale-Abbreviated, and situation models were extracted from participants' personal narratives via Coh-Metrix 3.0, an automated program that calculates language indices. Diminished expression and cognitive symptoms were measured with the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale. Structural equation models (SEM) examined whether self-reflectivity mediated the impact of cognitive symptoms and situation models on diminished expression. Results of the SEM revealed that self-reflectivity partially mediated the impact of situation models on diminished expression (β = -.073, p = .008, ±95% CI [-0.126, -0.019]). and fully mediated the influence of cognitive symptoms in diminished expression (β = 0.099, p = .001, ±95% CI [0.038, 0.160]). In conclusion, results suggest that self-reflectivity, linguistic cohesion, and cognitive symptoms may be useful targets for intervention in efforts to treat diminished expression in psychosis.

Downstream Effects of Dispositional Inferences on Confirmation Biases

Although research has given substantial attention to understanding the antecedents of dispositional inferences, less attention has been directed at the consequences of these inferences, such that evidence linking dispositional inferences to downstream effects is relatively scarce. The present investigation examined whether dispositional inferences formed during initial observations elicited confirmatory processing of subsequent information about observed targets. Because confirmation biases influence a variety of information processing strategies, four experiments examined the extent to which dispositional inferences guided memory of new information (Experiment 1), interpretation of ambiguous information (Experiment 2), and information-seeking behavior (Experiments 3 and 4). Results indicated that biased processing of subsequent information was more likely when dispositional inferences were encouraged (i.e., impression formation objective) versus discouraged (i.e., narrative construction objective). This investigation highlights the role of causal inferences on confirmation biases and reveals the ease with which biases can be both bolstered and attenuated.