Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T05:42:08.892Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Emotionality, Extraversion and Aggression in Paranoid and Nonparanoid Schizophrenic Offenders

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

R. Blackburn
R. Blackburn*
Affiliation:
Broadmoor Hospital, Crowthorne, Berks.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Investigations of schizophrenia have shown that the presence or absence of primary paranoid delusions is correlated with differences in dealing with information from the environment (Venables, 1964; Silverman, 1964) which may well relate to stable personality characteristics. Claridge (1967) has recently proposed a psycho-physiological model in which it is hypothesized that paranoid schizophrenics are more sympathetically reactive, but show lower levels of cortical modulation of subcortical functions than non-paranoid schizophrenics. At the descriptive level of behaviour, this theory would predict greater emotionality (neuroticism) and extraversion in the former group, and this proposition was examined in a sample of psychiatric offenders. Since aggressive behaviour is prominent in this population, it was also predicted from Claridge's theory that the paranoids would more frequently have a history of aggressive behaviour and would show higher attitudinal hostility. However, since extreme (i.e. homicidal) aggression appears to occur in individuals who are not characteristically aggressive (Megargee, 1966), it was predicted that such offences would be more frequent among the non-paranoid schizophrenics.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 114 , Issue 515 , October 1968 , pp. 1301 - 1302
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1968 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Blackburn, R. (1968). “Personality in relation to extreme aggression in psychiatric offenders.” Brit. J. Psychiat., 114, 821–828.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Claridge, G. S. (1967). Personality and Arousal. Oxford: Pergamon Press.Google Scholar
Foulds, G. A., Caine, T. M., and Creasy, M. A. (1960). “Aspects of extra- and intropunitive expression in mental illness.” J. ment. Sci., 106, 599–610.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Giedt, F. H., and Downing, L. (1961). “An extraversion scale for the MMPI.” J. clin. Psychol., 17, 156–159.Google Scholar
Megargee, E. I. (1966). “Undercontrolled and over-controlled personality types in extreme anti-social aggression.” Psychol. Monographs 80, Whole No. 611.Google Scholar
Silverman, J. (1964). “Scanning-control mechanism and ‘cognitive filtering’ in paranoid and nonparanoid schizophrenia.” J. consult. Psychol., 28, 385–393.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shipman, W. G. (1965). “The Validity of MMPI Hostility Scales.” J. clin. Psychol., 21, 186–190.Google Scholar
Venables, P. H. (1964). “Input dysfunction in schizophrenia.” In: Progress in Experimental Personality Research (ed. Maher, B.), Vol. 1. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Welsh, G. S. (1956). “Factor Dimensions A and R.” In: Basic Readings on the MMPI in Psychology and Medicine (eds. Welsh, G. S. and Dahlstrom, W. G.). Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.