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Characteristics of expressed emotion: Its relationship to speech and looking in schizophrenic patients and their relatives
Author(s) -
Kuipers Liz,
Sturgeon David,
Berkowitz Ruth,
Leff Julian
Publication year - 1983
Publication title -
british journal of clinical psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.479
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 2044-8260
pISSN - 0144-6657
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8260.1983.tb00612.x
Subject(s) - psychology , expressed emotion , schizophrenia (object oriented programming) , psychosis , construct (python library) , developmental psychology , construct validity , clinical psychology , psychiatry , psychometrics , computer science , programming language
The measure expressed emotion (EE) is an established indicator of characteristics in the relatives of schizophrenic patients which predict relapse. Despite this, little is known of its construct validity except that schizophrenic patients are less calm in the presence of high EE than low EE relatives. There is also tentative evidence that schizophrenic patients show heightened avoidance responses to aversive social stimuli. It was therefore hypothesized that acutely ill schizophrenic patients would show social behaviours characteristic of avoidance in interaction with high but not low EE relatives. This hypothesis was not confirmed as no patient difference was found, but there were differences in the behaviour of high and low EE relatives. High EE relatives spend more interview time talking and less in looking at the patients. Low EE relatives were more prepared to be silent. This is consistent with the general tendency of high EE relatives to be socially intrusive and low EE relatives to be supportive to schizophrenic patients.