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Princeton University

Melissa Fisher, Christine Holland, and Sophia Vinogradov
University of California, San Francisco, and San Francisco VA Medical Center
Successful social interactions rely on the ability to make accurate judgments based on social cues as well
as the ability to control the influence of internal or external affective information on those judgments.
Prior research suggeststhat individuals with schizophrenia misinterpret social stimuli and this misinterpretation contributes to impaired social functioning. We tested the hypothesis that for people with
schizophrenia, social judgments are abnormally influenced by affective information. Twenty-three
patients with schizophrenia and 35 healthy control participants rated the trustworthiness of faces
following thepresentation of neutral, negative (threat-related), or positive affective primes. Results
showed that all participants rated faces following negative affective primes as less trustworthy than faces
following neutral or positive primes. Importantly, this effect was significantly more pronounced for
participants with schizophrenia, suggesting that schizophrenia may be characterized by an exaggeratedinfluence of negative affective information on social judgment. Furthermore, the extent that the negative
affective prime influenced trustworthiness judgments was significantly associated with patients’ severity
of positive symptoms, particularly feelings of persecution. These findings suggest that for people with
schizophrenia, negative affective information contributes to an interpretivebias, consistent with paranoid
ideation, when judging the trustworthiness of others. This bias may contribute to social impairments in
schizophrenia.
Keywords: schizophrenia, paranoia, person perception, trustworthiness, social cognition

dict social functioning (Hooker & Park, 2002; Poole, Tobias, &
Vinogradov, 2000) and mediate the relationship between neurocognition and functional outcome(Brekke, Kay, Lee, & Green,
2005; Gard, Fisher, Garrett, Genevsky, & Vinogradov, 2009).
Identifying the mechanisms that contribute to the misinterpretation
of social cues in schizophrenia could facilitate the development of
effective interventions and ultimately improve outcome. However,
at this point, the factors that influence social interpretations in
schizophrenia are unclear.
Onepossible mechanism is that internal or external affective
information is exerting inappropriate influence over social judgments and consequently affecting social functioning. That is, patients with schizophrenia may have an impaired ability to control
the influence of affective information on social judgments. Affective priming studies with healthy adults demonstrate that judgments, includingjudgments about a person’s state and trait characteristics, are influenced in a mood-congruent manner by the
observer’s affective state and/or by affective information in the
environment that may impact affective state (Forgas, 1995; Murphy & Zajonc, 1993; Schwarz & Clore, 1983). This bias occurs
even when the internal or external affective information has an
incidental cause and is irrelevant tothe present judgment, thereby
contributing to misinterpretations. For example, people are more
likely to judge a face as happy after a positive mood prime, such
as viewing a pleasant film, and are more likely to judge a face as
sad after a negative mood prime, such as viewing a sad film

Successful social interactions rely on the ability to make accurate social judgments of others based ona variety of complex cues
indicating a person’s trait and state qualities: Is this person trustworthy, competent, or domineering? Is he or she feeling angry,
disappointed, or bored? These social judgments influence our
overall impressions of others and are directly related to our social
behavior (Adolphs, 2002; Todorov, 2008). It is well established
that patients with schizophrenia do not...