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Social Norms, Entitlement, and Deservingness: Differential Reactions to Aggressive Behavior of Schizophrenic and Personality Disorder Patients

The Flinders University of South Australia, norman.feather{at}flinders.edu.au

Charlotte Johnstone

The Flinders University of South Australia

This study investigated conflicts between beliefs about deservingness and beliefs about entitlement. Eighty-nine nurses in a psychiatric hospital rated schizophrenic and personality disorder patients on 28 bipolar adjective scales and then responded to scenarios in which an aggressive action by these patients was followed by either a positive or negative response from a nurse. Results showed that participants’ ratings of deservingness and positive affect about the nurse’s response favored the schizophrenic patient over the personality disorder patient when each patient was treated positively. These differences were smaller and in the reverse direction when each patient was treated negatively by the nurse. These results imply that differences in these variables were more likely to occur when basic entitlements concerning care and support were met. Further multivariate analyses showed that deservingness mediated the effects of anger and sympathy on reported positive affect about the nurse’s response and significantly enhanced prediction beyond patients’ perceived responsibility for the aggressive episode.

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