title: Re-examining Kohlberg's conception of morality in schizophrenia.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Early clinical descriptions of and research with people with schizophrenia described apparent difficulties in moral judgement and sensitivity. However, this research failed to take into account the effect of cognitive deficits and symptoms on task performance.
  
  
  METHODS
  We assessed people with schizophrenia on the Moral Judgement Interview, a task used in the earlier literature, alongside a battery of neuro- and social-cognitive tasks.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Whereas people with schizophrenia perform more poorly on this task than controls, this is mediated by memory and declarative theory of mind, and also impacted by negative symptoms.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These results indicate that performance deficits on moral judgement tasks are not a universal feature of schizophrenia, but rather due to associated difficulties such as those in social cognition.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Cognitive Science and ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders , Macquarie University , Sydney , NSW , Australia.
authors.forename: Jonathan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: McGuire
authors.affiliation: a Department of Cognitive Science and ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders , Macquarie University , Sydney , NSW , Australia.
authors.forename: Linda
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Barbanel
authors.affiliation: b Division of Cognitive Neuropsychiatry and Psychiatric Preventive Medicine , LWL University Hospital Bochum, Ruhr-University Bochum , Bochum , Germany.
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Brüne
authors.affiliation: a Department of Cognitive Science and ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders , Macquarie University , Sydney , NSW , Australia.
authors.forename: Robyn
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Langdon
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002908:Chronic Disease; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D003220:Conflict, Psychological; D004645:Empathy; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D007600:Judgment; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009014:Morals; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology
keywords: moral cognition; moral judgement interview; schizophrenia