Influence of parental figures on schizophrenic patients.

All theories viewing family interactions as etiologically relevant to schizophrenia are concerned with parental influences upon family members. In this study the Good versus Poor premorbid adequacy dichotomization of a male schizophrenic population is compared with the paranoid versus nonparanoid dichotomization of the same population in terms of their relative utility in predicting the sex of the most influential parent. For comparison, normal Goods and Poors were also tested for parental influence. Results support the greater utility of the paranoid versus nonparanoid dichotomy. In conclusion it is hypothesized that the terms paranoid, nonparanoid, Good, and Poor are attributes but not essences of the schizophrenic process. They may apply equally descriptively to other groups of males.