ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to outline a comparative-developmental approach to schizophrenia. It attempts to indicate the comprehensiveness and heuristic value of the approach without, however, attempting to present an exhaustive review of the large body of relevant research. A formal similarity obtains between the organization and structure of processes in young children, in organisms low on the phylogenetic scale, in human adults of technologically backward societies, and in certain states of lowered consciousness in educated normal adults of technologically advanced societies. The heuristic value of such an approach has already been demonstrated by the considerable number of investigations that have been provoked by or conducted under the purview of development theory. In accordance with the regression hypothesis, the increase in susceptibility to conditioning in schizophrenia should be accompanied by a decrement in performance of complex tasks. The expectation would be that in schizophrenia stimulus generalization would be higher than in normals of comparable intelligence.
