Emotion regulation and social knowledge in youth at clinical high‐risk for psychosis and outpatients with chronic schizophrenia: Associations with functional outcome and negative symptoms

AIM: Previous studies indicate that several aspects of social cognition are associated with poor social and vocational outcome in the chronic phase of psychosis. However, it is less clear whether specific aspects of social cognition are impaired in those at clinical high‐risk (CHR) for psychosis and associated with functioning. The current study evaluated two understudied components of social cognition, emotion regulation knowledge and social knowledge, to determine whether CHR and chronic schizophrenia (SZ) samples demonstrated comparable magnitudes of impairment and associations with functioning. METHODS: Two studies were conducted. Study 1 included n = 98 outpatients with chronic SZ and n = 88 demographically matched healthy controls (CN). Study 2 included 30 CHR and 30 matched CN participants. In both studies, participants completed the emotion management and social management subtests of the Mayer‐Salovey‐Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test to assess emotion regulation knowledge and social knowledge, respectively. A battery of clinical interviews was also administered, including measures of: role and social functioning, positive symptoms, negative symptoms, disorganization and general symptoms. RESULTS: Individuals with SZ demonstrated lower emotion management and social management scores than CN participants. CHR demonstrated lower scores in social management than CN but did not display deficits in emotion management. In both studies, reduced social knowledge was associated with worse functioning and negative symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: Findings indicate that deficits in social knowledge are transphasic across the SZ spectrum, and are associated with clinical functioning. Social knowledge may be a novel treatment target for psychosocial interventions.