Individuals with schizophrenia display behaviour inconsistent with learned social impressions during a gambling task.

Many studies of social perception and judgement have required individuals to make evaluations of social parameters based on static presentations of social stimuli. In the current study, we assessed whether individuals with a schizophrenia spectrum disorder and community controls differed in their judgements of others based on a series of computerized encounters designed to simulate impression formation over time. Twenty-eight community controls and 29 individuals with a schizophrenia spectrum disorder completed 25 gambling interactions with three different computer partners. After interacting with each partner, subjects rated how much they liked, trusted, and would like to play again with each partner. Results indicated that while individuals with schizophrenia rated the three partners differently (evaluating partners who returned more money higher than partners who returned less money), they did not adjust their gambling strategies with the different partners. Community controls adjusted the amount of money they gambled with the different partners, gambling more with partners that returned more money and gambling less with partners who returned less money, despite not rating the neutral and positive partners significantly differently from one another. These results suggest differences in behavioural strategies and social evaluation practices between community controls and individuals with schizophrenia. PRACTITIONER POINTS: Schizophrenia (SZ) and community control (CC) participants evaluate virtual partners on a gambling task in accordance with their behaviour (e.g., positive > neutral > negative in terms of trustworthiness, how much they liked them, and the likelihood that they would play with that individual again). Individuals with schizophrenia gambled equally with neutral, negative, and positive partner. Individuals with schizophrenia demonstrate an intact ability to form social impressions based on others' behaviour. However, subsequent behaviour does not parallel the formed impression (i.e., changing their gambling amount so that they are betting less money with a virtual partner they know is untrustworthy).