UC Berkeley

The outcomes of decisions we make are integral for guiding our behavior. In this study, we investigated if and how people with and without schizophrenia use positive and negative social outcomes and social partners’ emotional displays to inform decisions to trust as well as whether they could detect reversals in behavior even as emotion displays remained unchanged. Thirty-two people with schizophrenia and 29 control participants completed a task where they decided how much trust to place in social partners showing either a dynamic emotional (smiling, scowling) or neutral display. Interactions were designed to result in either positive (trust reciprocated) or negative (trust abused) outcomes, allowing us to model changes in decisions to trust over the course of repeated interactions. Compared to controls, people with schizophrenia were less sensitive to positive social outcomes as evidence by their placing less trust in trustworthy social partners during initial interactions. On the other hand, people with schizophrenia were more sensitive to negative social outcomes during initial interactions with untrustworthy social partners, placing less trust in these partners compared to controls. Interestingly, people with schizophrenia were just as able as controls to detect reversals in social partners’ behavior as it changed from trustworthy to untrustworthy, but were less able to detect changes in the untrustworthy to trustworthy direction. Importantly, decisions to trust were associated with real-world social functioning. We discuss the implications of these findings for understanding social engagement among people with schizophrenia and the development of psychosocial interventions for social functioning.