Dominance hierarchy, initiation of interaction and estimates of present state in psychiatric inpatients.

In a natural experiment two female observers were masked as inpatients on two psychiatric wards. The task of the observers was to ascertain the source distribution hierarchy structure and to register interaction activities in a predefined area of the ward. It was found that in a group of inpatients there appears a relatively stable dominance hierarchy which is related to the rate of interaction initiations among the members of the group. The dominance hierarchy has a predictive value for the selfestimate of present psychic state.