Understanding Poor Adjustment in Schizotypy: A Prospective Study of the Role of Self During Late Adolescence and Early Adulthood

Abstract

Our aims were to (a) examine whether emerging adults on the schizophrenia spectrum (schizotypy) differed from non-spectrum peers in social, emotional, and academic adjustment to university; and (b) determine the role of the basic and narrative selves in adjustment. Schizotypy (n = 30) and non-schizotypy comparison (n = 29) participants, who were selected from a larger pool of undergraduates (n = 310) screened in a baseline assessment, completed measures of adjustment and of basic and narrative selves. The schizotypy group had lower academic and emotional adjustment scores but did not differ in social adjustment. The basic sense of self explained the differences in levels of social and emotional adjustment for cognitive–perceptual but not for disorganized and interpersonal schizotypy. That is, poor adjustment is explained via basic self in positive but not negative components of schizotypy. Narrative self did not explain any of the adjustment scores associated with schizotypy.