Social cognition is a field in social psychology that focuses on how people store, retrieve, perceive, regulate, and encode information about themselves, other people, and social situations. Some of the processes that are involved in social cognition include experience sharing, social cue perceptions, managing one’s reaction to others, and making inferences about other people’s emotions and thoughts. Social cognition is important is important to ensure adequate interactions with others as it is the basis of ensuring that people understand how to relate adequately with others. The importance of social cognition can be understood by analyzing the role that social cognition plays in schizophrenia. This study considers three studies and identifies that social cognition impairment and deficits is a feature in schizophrenia.
Schizophrenia is a disorder that is characterized by experiences of psychotic and non-psychotic symptoms. It is a disabling condition and is usually associated with a reduction in one’s social connection and could impact one’s ability to live independently and to even have an employment. The reduction in social connections in schizophrenia are usually characterized by impairments in the ability to process social information. This can result in misinterpretations of the social intent of other individuals and even one withdrawing from social functions. Social cognition impairment can thus have a significant negative impact on people with schizophrenia. Improvements of social cognition can thus provide a general insight to the treatment strategies that can be used to treat schizophrenia.
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Empathy and Social Cognition in Schizophrenia
One of the critical processes associated with an adequate social cognitive function is empathy. Green, Horan, and Lee (2015) analyzed the impact of empathy as a social cognition process and how it can impact one’s symptoms with schizophrenia. The study established that people with schizophrenia have problems with the perception of other people’s emotions and they have impairments with their empathetic accuracy. The empathetic accuracy defects in schizophrenia usually results in a reduction in one’s capacity to be able to accurately decipher the emotions of others. This suggests that people with schizophrenia exhibit impairments in their empathic accuracy. The study further revealed that the empathic impairments usually come about as a result of a reduced ability to capitalize on the social cues that have been emitted by other people. The result is that one has inaccurate interpretations about the moods of other people. The research shows that a reduction in the symptoms of schizophrenia can be realized by having one learn about how to interpret different emotions.
Deficits in General Social Cognitions
Impairments and deficits in social cognition has also been found to be one of the critical factors that enhances schizophrenia symptoms. Charernboon & Patumanond (2017) analyzed the emotion perceptions, social knowledge, and theory of mind in schizophrenia patients compared with that of healthy patients. The study involved 36 healthy participants while 26 other participants were in the control group. The study involved the administration of social knowledge tests, theory of mind tests, and emotion perception tests. The study showed that the performances of the individuals based on negative symptoms were highly associated with schizophrenia. The study also established that there were deficits in social cognitions in schizophrenia even when the population was in a clinically stable condition.
Social cognition impairements was thus established as the core symptom and the character trait of schizophrenia. The study by Charernboon & Patumanond (2017) was thus in agreement with most studies about schizophrenia which suggested that social cognition impairments is usually a central trait in schizophrenia. The analysis of the study further revealed that impairments in social cognition are usually linked with the ability of an individual to detect the emotions of others, to have a correct appraisal of their feelings, to understand their intentions, and to understand the social rules. The implications of the study further emphasized the need to have patients that have schizophrenia undergo training that should help them improve their social cognition.
Social Cognition, Social Competence and Social Outcomes
The symptoms of schizophrenia have also been found to interact with other topics such as negative symptoms, social competence, and social cognition to result in increased schizophrenia symptoms. Kalin et al. (2015) analyzed these different social deficits among people with schizophrenia. The study involved 179 patients how undertook 8 different social cognition tests. The study revealed that social cognition and social competence accounted for 32% in the social outcomes. Negative symptoms such as social withdrawal and poor interpretation of other’s social emotions were found to have a direct impact on social competence and social outcomes. The study established that social cognition variable that had the biggest impact on social outcomes was one’s emotion recognition. Additionally, the study further established that the social cognition variables that had the impact on one’s social competence were social cues and emotion recognition. The study emphasized the need to have improvement in one’s social cues and emotion recognition in order to improve one’s social outcomes and social competence.
In conclusion, schizophrenia is a condition associated with psychotic and non-psychotic impairments and one of the critical factors that can enhance schizophrenia is social cognition. In order to improve symptoms associated with schizophrenia, it was identified that there is a need to have patients be trained on social cues, empathy, and emotion recognition. The improvements on these specific factors can result in an improvement in one’s social cognition ability and an overall reduction in schizophrenia symptoms.
References
Charernboon, T., & Patumanond, J. (2017). Social cognition in schizophrenia. Mental illness, 9(1).
Green, M. F., Horan, W. P., & Lee, J. (2015). Social cognition in schizophrenia. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 16(10), 620-631.
Kalin, M., Kaplan, S., Gould, F., Pinkham, A. E., Penn, D. L., & Harvey, P. D. (2015). Social cognition, social competence, negative symptoms and social outcomes: inter-relationships in people with schizophrenia. Journal of psychiatric research, 68, 254-260.
