Performance Errors on Ravens Progressive Matrices (1938) by Sociopathic and Schizotypic Personality Types

Abstract

In an attempt to identify the existence of reasoning errors in psychiatric patients, the performance of male narcotic users defined as sociopathic ( N = 36) and schizotypic ( N = 34) by MMPI profile patterns was analyzed for avoidable errors on the Ravens Progressive Matrices (RPM). An avoidable error was defined as a failure to solve an item whose difficulty level was within the testee's range of ability as measured by his performance. Construct validity was defined in terms of the intercorrelations of Ravens centile and item difficulty levels. Parametric and non-parametric tests of significance indicated that the schizotypic group commit significantly more identifiable reasoning errors than the sociopathic group.