Social control and expressed emotion

Abstract

Research shows a higher risk of relapse among schizophrenics in high "expressed emotion" families. In this paper, the measure called "expressed emotion" is conceptualized as an indicator of family attempts to socially control the schizophrenic person's behavior in a particular way. This social control conceptualization is supported by a review of the type of information in the measure. Hypotheses following from this view are examined to assess the construct validity of the measure conceptualized as a type of social control. First, attempts at control are hypothesized to be ways anxious and fearful families try to cope. Second, the family's recognition of the schizophrenic's problem as mental illness is hypothesized to reduce the fearful and anxious family's likelihood of an intense interpersonal social control coping response. This type of social control of involuntary illness behaviors would be abandoned as unjust and unlikely to be effective. Data from the pioneering 1972 study by Brown, Birley, and Wing (Br. J. Psychiatry 121:241-258) provide support for these hypotheses and thus provide support for this social control conceptualization.