Fear Conditioning with Normals, Neurotics and Schizophrenics

In the last thirty years, many psychologists have given intensive attention to experimental studies of anxiety and conditioning and to interpathological explorations of conditioning. After Bender and Shilder(1) in 1930 had shown that for schizophrenic patients the conditioned reaction to pain could be established, Mays(6) in 1934 showed two or more times perseveration of catatonics compared with that of normals, and Shipley(12), in the same year, found that in the indices of resistance to adaptation, the degree of conditioning and the degree of generalization to the non-reinforced stimulus pattern, the schizophrenics, the manic-depressives, the psychoneurotics and the normals were ranked in the descending order of perseveration. However, two recent studies(13,15) have reported data and deductions for psychotics with the conclusion that these subjects were conditioned more readily than both neurotics and normal subjects.