Schizophrenia and communication efficiency. A modified replication taking ecological variation into consideration

An earlier study (Sølvberg & Blakar (1975)) testified to subtle differences in communication efficiency over different communication situations by parental couples with and without schizophrenic offspring. The present study is offered as a replication of this study, but whereas the participating couples in the original study were recruited from a big city (Oslo), the parental couples in the present replication come from a typical rural district. The main findings of the original study are reproduced, but the very same method which was sensitive with respect to the "normality-schizophrenia" variable, also proved to be highly sensitive with regard to the cultural variation represented by the rural-urban dimension. Therefore, the present study is used as basis for discussing more general methodological problems involved in communication-oriented studies on psychopathology. In particular the underlying (often implicit) model of "normal communication", from which pathological communication deviates, is seriously questioned.