A study of learning under stress by schizophrenics and psychopaths, with an investigation of some aspects of their personalities, motives and problems

Abstract

Psychopaths and schizophrenics with violent, dangerous or criminal propensities were the subjects in this investigation. It was hypothesised that the two psychiatric groups would not differ as regards their learning impairments under stress. Learning consisted in remembering sequences of lights. Stress consisted of simultaneous distraction. It was found that (i) the psychopaths were better learners than the schizophrenics (ii) simultaneous distraction reduced the learning efficiency (iii) the two groups differed in their learning decrements under stress, the psychopaths' decrement, being greater than that of the schizophrenics under the simple stress situation, but the schizophrenics' decrement being greater than that of the psychopaths under the intense stress situations. These experimental findings have refuted the null hypothesis. The differences between the two groups as regards their personalities, motives and problems were also investigated. It was found that although the two groups differ on some personality trains, they closely resemble each other in their problems and motives.