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DISTINCTIVENESS OF MATERNAL CONTROL: A Further Link in a Theory of Schizophrenic Development

The adaptive-style theory of schizophrenic development proposes that schizophreniform behaviors evolve from the perceptual-social coping patterns adopted by the child in response to sustained aversive maternal control. The theory postulates that as the child experiences high control and low nurturance (HC-LN) from the mother, he may try to reduce the aversiveness by avoidance-withdrawal behaviors (closed adaptive style) or by social approach strategies which seek to alter the mother's evaluative posture (open adaptive style). The application of these two patterns of developmental dynamics to the premorbid adjustment styles of process and reactive schizophrenics has instigated a series of experiments which have demonstrated a consistent parallelism between the differences in closed-style and open-style adolescent behavior, respectively, and the differences which distinguish process and reactive schizophrenics. The present paper raised the question of why some children learn a closed style of adapting to aversive maternal control while others engage in an open style of adaptation. The specific proposal was that the control-rejection cues provided by some mothers were more salient and mediated defensive tactics (closed style) in reducing aversiveness, whereas other mothers presented more subtle cues which maintained the orientation of the child toward the mother (open style) to clarify her communication and to modify it. Reanalysis of previously reported data in study 1 indicated that process schizophrenics tended to experience their mothers as openly fostering dependency in their children, as assuming the ascendant role in the family, and as denying the child opportunity to communicate his feelings to her. In contrast, reactive schizophrenics tended to experience a maternal control based upon more subtle and devious tactics of self-sacrifice, martyrdom, and, inferentially, guilt induction. These mothers were seen as facilitating the child's self-disclosure. Study 2 sought to establish whether these perceived differences would be found in parallel form between closed- and open-style HC-LN late adolescents. Closed-style males depicted their mothers as more obvious in their control and defended against their son's communication of feelings as had process schizophrenics. Open-style males perceived their mothers as more subtle and manipulative in their control and as facilitating their self-disclosure in line with reactive schizophrenics. Study 3 introduced a communication task in which late-adolescent males constructed mother-son dialogues in situations calling for maternal control. The maternal speech produced by closed-style males was judged to include more obvious control cues than reference males. The internal consistency of the three studies and the predicted nature of the results were noted.