Take this fascinating test (schizophrenia vs. autism)

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Several days ago I posted a topic asking whether autism was the opposite of schizophrenia and whether the former was extreme male brain and the latter was extreme female brain. My questions were inspired by articles like this:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the ... le-brain-w

Many people rejected this theory, often providing empirical studies and anecdotes to debunk the idea. I however remain attracted to the elegance, simplicity and symmetry of this theory. The goal of science is to come up with simple parsimonious explanations for complex phenomena and to fit new observations into existing frameworks so simply expanding the neurological spectrum that differentiates men and women, to include autistics and schizophrenics is a good place to start.

But one problem is that autism and schizophrenia are both vaguely defined elusive traits. As others here have asserted, schizophrenia may actually not be a single disorder (and the same may be said for autism) so perhaps only one form of autism is the opposite of one form of schizophrenia, while other forms of schizophrenia may be better categorized as autism.

I think it would be fascinating and potentially informative if everyone here who has been diagnosed with autism/aspergers took the following personality test and reported their results here and then we could all pool are brain power to look for patterns in the data and ways of interpreting them:

http://www.4degreez.com/misc/personalit ... er_test.mv

Here are my results:

Paranoid: LOW
Schizoid: HIGH
Schizotypal: MODERATE
Antisocial: MODERATE
Borderline: LOW
Histrionic: MODERATE
Narcissistic: HIGH
Avoidant: MODERATE
Dependent: LOW
Obsessive-compulsive: MODERATE (I disagree with the test results on that one. I'm extremely obsessive-compulsive)

Since I've been diagnosed with aspergers, my profile may have theoretical implications (despite being a sample size of one on a test of unknown validity). The fact that I'm low on paranoid is consistent autism being extreme male brain because men being physically stronger have less to fear than women, so evolution may have predisposed more male brains to be less paranoid than female brains. This also fits with paranoid schizophrenia being extreme female brain. It also explains why many autistics are so gullible. We are not paranoid enough and thus at risk for trusting anyone.

The fact that I'm also low on the Borderline trait also fits with autism being the opposite of schizophrenia since Borderline was originally meant to describe borderline psychotic, so being low on borderline makes me the opposite of psychotic/schizophrenic

Apparently I am also very narcissistic. This fits the extreme male brain theory because men are more egotistical than women, so this theory would predict that autistics would be especially egotistical.

On the other hand I am high on the schizoid trait which contradicts the idea that autism is the opposite of schizophrenia, or may suggest that certain schizophrenic traits have been misclassified and are actually autism.

That quiz is meaningless.

i got



Disorder | Rating
Paranoid: Low
Schizoid: Low
Schizotypal: High
Antisocial: Low
Borderline: Low
Histrionic: Low
Narcissistic: Low
Avoidant: High
Dependent: Low
Obsessive-Compulsive: Moderate

URL of the test: http://www.4degreez.com/misc/personalit ... er_test.mv
URL for more info: http://www.4degreez.com/disorder/index.html

Paranoid: Low
Schizoid: Moderate
Schizotypal: High
Antisocial: Low
Borderline: Very High
Histrionic: Moderate
Narcissistic: High
Avoidant: High
Dependent: Moderate
Obsessive-Compulsive: High

I'm not convinced the quiz is long enough or intricate enough to give proper results. It would appear that your personalitty in each category is weighted by a grand total of two or three questions each.

Simply not enough.

Merely to amuse you I'll include my results.
But to be honest, I have read the descriptors and though some of them suit me (hey, even a coin has a 50 chance of turning tail!) I highly challenge anything that suggests I willfully and joyfully take advantage of others.

Oh and, I still disagree that the two are male/female or opposite ends of a single diagnosis.

Para: L
Schitzoid: M
Schitzotypal: H
Antisocial: L
Borderline:L
Hystrionic:L
Narcissistic:M
Avoidant:M
Dependant:L
Obsessive: H

For what it is worth my result:

Disorder | Rating
Paranoid: Low
Schizoid: Very High
Schizotypal: High
Antisocial: Low
Borderline: Low
Histrionic: Moderate
Narcissistic: Moderate
Avoidant: Moderate
Dependent: Low
Obsessive-Compulsive: Moderate

I'm starting to see a pattern. Every single one of us is low on paranoid (coincedence?), which as I said in my original post, is consistent with autism being the opposite of at least paranoid schizophrenia. This test needs to be posted in a schizophrenia forum too to see if they report opposite results on these traits.

One of the questions asks about ESP. I answered that I have it, but I'm interpreting the question as "do you sense anything through some means other than vision, hearing, smell, taste, feeling heat, cold, deep pressure, light pressure, pain, vestibular or proprioception?" If the question were instead "do you have magic powers of perception?" I would answer no.

Also, the question about being accused of cruelty does not speak to my character. It's a question about what the people around me say, not even what they think, which is still not the same as what I do, which might still not be my intent.

And asking if I have ever done something is not going to get a good answer; at some point, everyone has exaggerated weakness to some degree, and with a question like this you're testing a combination of memory and honesty.

Disorder | Rating
Paranoid: Moderate
Schizoid: Moderate
Schizotypal: High
Antisocial: Low
Borderline: Low
Histrionic: Low
Narcissistic: Low
Avoidant: Low
Dependent: Low
Obsessive-Compulsive: Moderate

It said I'm a basket case.

Disorder | Rating
Paranoid: High
Schizoid: High
Schizotypal: Moderate
Antisocial: Moderate
Borderline: Low
Histrionic: High
Narcissistic: Moderate
Avoidant: High
Dependent: Moderate
Obsessive-Compulsive: Moderate

URL of the test: http://www.4degreez.com/misc/personalit ... er_test.mv
URL for more info: http://www.4degreez.com/disorder/index.html

I don't think that a psychiatric diagnosis can be made on a few questions. I think a lot of aspies are going to be falsely accused of being schizoid because both disorders are similar in many ways. I scored high on paranoid, but that is probably because I have zero trust for anyone else. I would say I should have scored Moderate for Histrionic.

No, really?

Paranoid: Moderate
Schizoid: High
Schizotypal: High
Antisocial: Low
Borderline: Low
Histrionic: Low
Narcissistic: Moderate
Avoidant: High
Dependent: Low
Obsessive-Compulsive: High

When I originally submitted the questions, I had checked "Yes" on the question about whether I was suspicious of people's motives, and received a "Moderate" score for paranoia. I went back and changed that answer to "No" to see what I would have received if I had answered that way, and received a score of "Low".

If I had taken this test when I was young, I would not have answered Yes to that question, but after being repeatedly tricked as a child and finding out that people were pretending to be friendly but were really making fun of me or were planning to beat me up, I started being suspicious of people.

I am suspicious of people's motives, but I believe that any negative treatment of me is only because some people are cruel and because of my own naiveté. Not all people are cruel, but some are, and I am not good at identifying those who are.

Results, I just had fun taking the test really:

Disorder | Rating

Paranoid: High
Schizoid: High
Schizotypal: Moderate
Antisocial: Low
Borderline: Low
Histrionic: Low
Narcissistic: Moderate
Avoidant: High
Dependent: Low
Obsessive-Compulsive: High

URL of the test: http://www.4degreez.com/misc/personalit ... er_test.mv
URL for more info: http://www.4degreez.com/disorder/index.html

Or perhaps autism is the opposite of ... Paranoid Personality Disorder!

And makes some sense - the negative symptoms of schizophrenia are largely identical (at least, at external observation) to the "social" part of autism, but the positive symptoms (delusions, halucinations, etc.) are very different.

And, in many ways, PPD has (in a mild version) the positive symptoms of schizophrenia (the ones that could be the opposite of autism) without the negative symptoms (the ones that resemble autism); contrat with schizoid PD, who has the negative symptoms but not the positive.

Paranoid: High
Schizoid: Very High
Schizotypal: Very High
Antisocial: High
Borderline: Low
Histrionic: Moderate
Narcissistic: High
Avoidant: High
Dependent: Moderate
Obsessive-Compulsive: High


I was embarassed to post my results since I scored "High" in the Antisocial category

"Very High" in schizoid/schizotypal doesn't surprised me since i've been officially dx-ed with both. In fact....I was dx-ed with schizotypal on four out of the six neuropsych evals i've had. I was dx-ed with schizoid (with schizotypal and avoidant features) on the most recent eval I had. I was also dx-ed with borderline pd on the first eval I ever had, but I think that was a misdiagnosis. I have never been diagnosed with anti-social pd, but one psychologist I used to see believed I had narcissistic personality disorder.

The thought that I would score high in the antisocial category is quite disturbing. It's bad enough that I share a personality disorder (schizoid) with some of the worst serial killers in history. I believe Leonard Lake, Roy Norris and Edmund Kemper were all dx-ed with schizoid personality disorder.

Disorder | Rating
Paranoid: Low
Schizoid: Moderate
Schizotypal: Moderate
Antisocial: Low
Borderline: Very High
Histrionic: Moderate
Narcissistic: Moderate
Avoidant: High
Dependent: High
Obsessive-Compulsive: High

I've lost count of the number of times I've taken this. It seems like they've added a couple questions as there were some I don't remember from before.

I must have more of a female brain because it seems I'm actually more emotional than most men, at least on the inside.

Last edited by marshall on 04 Sep 2010, 10:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.