A sexual and a marital defensiveness scale for each sex

Abstract

A scale to measure defensiveness about the marital relationship and another to measure defensiveness about the sexual relationship of couples were developed for each sex. Defensiveness was defined as the tendency to endorse socially desirable items which are unlikely to occur and deny socially undesirable items which characterize most honest responders. The social desirability scale value of the items was empirically determined, and a traditional cross-validation design with two independent groups was used in the item analyses. Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficient ranged between. 75 and 93 for the male and female versions of the scales. The scales correlated higher with another defensiveness scale than with a social desirability scale. Clinicians' ratings of the items in the scales suggested that the scales were not diagnostic of sexual or marital psychopa-thology. Evidence is presented to support that these content specific scales surpass a global defensiveness scale as a measure of defensiveness regarding the sexual or marital relationship of couples.     

Relations between the family environment scale (FES) and the MMPI

This study investigated the relations between FES scales and MMPI scales and the relation of social desirability and endorsement of FES items in a sample of 185 college students. FES scales were found generally not to be highly redundant with MMPI variables although MMPI Scale K (defensiveness) was significantly related to several FES scales. The social desirability and the endorsement rates of FES items were found to correlate approximately .80. Implications of these findings for the research and clinical use of the FES are discussed.     

The Effect of Age and Socio-Cultural Factors on Self-Rated Well-Being and Metacognitive and Mnestic Efficiency Among Healthy Elderly People

The aim of the present research was to investigate the effect of cross-cultural and age-related factors on self-referent metacognitive efficiency, psychological well-being, and mnestic performance in late adulthood. Ninety-three healthy adults recruited in individualistic northwest Italian and collectivistic Sardinian contexts were respectively assigned to the Old (i.e., 65–74 years) and Very Old (i.e., ≥ 75 years) groups and were individually administered a battery of well-being and metacognitive measures and working memory tasks. A series of MANOVAs was carried out on well-being and metacognitive measures and working memory tasks. Sardinians showed greater levels of perceived well-being, less marked psychological distress, and more preserved mnestic functions than the controls from the northwest Italian context. Moreover, participants from the Old group self-referred more coping strategies, emotional competencies, and personal satisfaction, and less depressive symptoms. Then, a hierarchical linear regressions where different socio-demographic, working memory metacognitive and social desirability measures were used as predictors of general psychological well-being shows that socio cultural context, social desirability, visuo-spatial sequential working memory and metamemory measures predict perceived well-being. Socio-cultural contexts emphasizing the positive social role of the elderly seem to promote psychological well-being, that is, life quality in late adulthood.     

Social Support,Reciprocity, and Weil-Being

Abstract

Systematic random-sampling procedures were used to gather a sample of 191 community residents in Kaohsiung city, Taiwan, and survey them regarding (a) amount of social support given and received; (b) perceived reciprocity of support in relationships with family members, friends, and colleagues; (c) negative affect; and (d) psychological symptoms. Extraversion and social desirability were also measured. Both receiving and giving support were related to negative affect after controlling for the effects of extraversion and social desirability. These two personality factors also substantially masked the negative impact of support on psychological symptoms. Reciprocity of support within the family domain was related to well-being. Individual differences in support exchanges were noted, and women received more support than men.     

Look at me, I'm happy and creative: The effect of impression management on behavior in social presence

The present research tested competing approaches to individual differences in impression management (as measured with social desirability scales) and their implication for behavior in social contexts. A defensiveness approach argues that impression management is a source of defensive self-presentation, which causes performance impairment in public social settings. The competing adjustment approach argues that impression management measures friendliness and self-control, which should bring about performance facilitation in public social settings. To decide between these approaches, two experiments utilized a social facilitation paradigm, whereby task performance was compared between an alone and a public condition. The results supported the predictions of the adjustment approach. Across different tasks, a high impression management score was associated with performance facilitation in social presence, expressed in greater creativity, positive implicit affect, and high self-control. The results reveal previously unnoticed constructive effects of impression management, supporting the reframing of the trait as reflecting interpersonally oriented self-control.     

Are normal narcissists psychologically healthy?: self-esteem matters

Five studies established that normal narcissism is correlated with good psychological health. Specifically, narcissism is (a) inversely related to daily sadness and dispositional depression, (b) inversely related to daily and dispositional loneliness, (c) positively related to daily and dispositional subjective well-being as well as couple well-being, (d) inversely related to daily anxiety, and (e) inversely related to dispositional neuroticism. More important, self-esteem fully accounted for the relation between narcissism and psychological health. Thus, narcissism is beneficial for psychological health only insofar as it is associated with high self-esteem. Explanations of the main and mediational findings in terms of response or social desirability biases (e.g., defensiveness, repression, impression management) were ruled out. Supplementary analysis showed that the links among narcissism, self-esteem, and psychological health were preponderantly linear.     

Low-end specificity of childhood measures of emotional distress: consistent effects for anxiety and depressive symptoms in a nonclinical population

Previous research regarding the low-end specificity of self-report measures of affective distress in children suggests that defensiveness acts differentially to lower scores on self-report measures of depressive symptoms, but not on self-report measures of anxiety. This investigation examined this issue in a nonclinical sample of 442 children, ages 7 to 16. Participants completed measures of depressive symptoms (Children's Depression Inventory), anxiety symptoms (State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children) and defensiveness (Children's Social Desirability Scale). In contrast to previous research, the results in this study indicated similar effects of defensiveness on measures of depressive symptoms and anxiety. Low-end depression participants obtained significantly higher defensiveness scores, as did low-end anxious participants. In an attempt to circumvent the effects of defensiveness, we measured anhedonia (Pleasure Scale for Children, or PSC) as a proxy of depressive symptoms. We also found the PSC to be subject to the effects of defensiveness at approximately the same magnitude as the measures of anxiety and depressive symptoms.     

Masculinity, Femininity, and Androgyny: Relations to Self-Esteem and Social Desirability

ABSTRACT The present investigation is a reanalysis of data from Antill and Cunningham (1979,1980) consisting of responses to five Masculinity-Femininity (MF) instruments, two self-esteem instruments, and two social desirability instruments The present study examined recently developed models of the MF/ esteem relation and the influence of social desirability on this relation The unique contribution of Masculinity (M) to esteem was consistently more positive than that of Femininity (F) which was either ml or negative, did not vary with sex as posited by sex-typed models, and did not interact with F as posited by interactive androgyny models Partialing out the effects of social desirability failed to alter the general pattern of results In contrast to esteem, social desirability was more correlated with F than M, and these findings were consistent with the observation that esteem items may reflect stereotypically masculine characteristics whereas social desirability items reflect stereotypically feminine characteristics The findings of the present study, and those of previous research, were examined in relation to important methodological issues that have been largely ignored by previous research in this area     

Intensive Mindfulness Training and the Reduction of Psychological Distress: A Preliminary Study

There is increasing evidence for the utility of mindfulness training as a clinical intervention. Most of this research has examined secular-based mindfulness instruction. The current study examined the effects of a 10-day Buddhist mindfulness meditation course on the psychological symptoms of 53 participants. A repeated-measures analysis of variance indicated reductions in overall psychological distress from the pre-course baseline to a 3-month follow-up. Correlation analyses indicated that the reported reduction in psychological distress was not influenced by social desirability bias and that the effect was not dependent on daily meditation between course completion and follow-up. Issues regarding modality of mindfulness training (secular versus Buddhist) are discussed.     

A Study of Belief in the Accuracy of Newspaper Reports

An examination of the relationship of scores on Siegel's Manifest Hostility Scale (MHS) to Verbal Hostility, Fantasy Hostility, and Hostile Feeling responses to cartoon situations was undertaken, while controlling for sex of subject, sex of experimenter, and the social desirability (So-R) and ego strength/defensiveness (K) scales of the MMPI. MHS scores were significantly related to the three modes of hostility response, while sex of subject and sex of experimenter were not. Adjustment of the dependent variable means for So-R did not cancel MHS effects on Verbal or Fantasy Hostility, but adjustment for K cancelled the significant relationship between MHS scores and Fantasy Hostility and Hostile Feeling responses. Covariation of both K and So-R out of Verbal Hostility cancelled its relationship to MHS scores. Ego strength/defensiveness thus may be more significantly related to hostile responding than social desirability.     

Response biases and the relation between negative life events and psychological symptoms

This research was an investigation of whether reporting biases can account for the correlation between negative life events (as measured via life events questionnaires) and subclinical psychological symptoms. Subjects completed two life events scales, a measure of psychological symptoms, a measure of depression, and a measure of social desirability. Friends were asked to report about life events experienced by the subjects. No evidence was found for a subject reporting bias associated with social desirability, depression, or symptoms. In fact, for one of the life events scales, depression was significantly associated with a higher rate of agreement between subjects and friends as to which negative events occurred to subjects. Moreover, there were significant correlations between symptom and depression measures and life events measures that were free of subject-reporting biases (subjects' negative life events reported by both subjects and their significant others, as well as subjects' negative life events as reported by significant others alone). These data suggest that response biases may not be able to account for the relation between negative events and psychological symptoms. Thus the hypothesis that negative life events play a significant role in symptom development remains plausible.     

Repression and effective coping styles

This study investigated the relationship between repressive coping style as defined by Weinberger (1990)—low reported anxiety and high reported defensiveness—and several individual difference measures related to general coping styles. Twenty‐nine studies looking at cognitive, behavioural, and individual difference factors associated with repressive coping were tabulated and reviewed. In the current study 116 women and 32 men were administered a questionnaire including measures of personality, ways of coping, self‐monitoring, interpersonal influence, and locus of control to further explore the repressor coping style. Two measures, as opposed to the usual one, were used to categorize repressors: the use of anxiety and social desirability measures of Weinberger, Schwartz and Davidson (1979) and the Gudjonsson (1981) method using Neuroticism and Lie scales from the EPQ(R). Analysis of variance showed that repressors reported using more positive/healthy and less negative/unhealthy coping styles. The results did not change substantially when more extreme scoring groups were used. Factor analysis of the scales revealed six clear factors relating to ways of coping; again, repressors scored highly on the factor denoting positive coping. It was also found that the Lie and Neuroticism scales of the revised EPQ personality questionnaire of Eysenck, Eysenck and Barrett (1985) could be used as a substitute for anxiety and defensiveness to predict repression with considerable success. However results from both one‐ and two‐way analysis of variance indicated that the two different ways of classifying repressors was not totally inter‐changeable as the overlap in results occurred only with highly significant effects. The results are discussed in the light of previous investigations into repression which suggested that repressors report an overly optimistic way of coping in order to avoid negative affect. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The effects of social desirability bias on applied measures of goal orientation

This research examined the extent to which social desirability responding influences two measures of goal orientation tailored to work (VandeWalle, 1997) and academic (Midgley et al., 1998) domains. Method bias analyses indicated a significant negative influence of social desirability on responses to learning goal items, and a significant positive influence of social desirability responding on performance-avoid goal items, with the VandeWalle scale showing larger effects than the Midgley et al. scale. Performance-approach goal items showed minimal effects of social desirability responding. Results are discussed with respect to the use of these measures in larger models of motivation and performance.     

Protective Factors for Depression Among African American Children of Predominantly Low-Income Mothers with Depression

Maternal depression has a deleterious impact on child psychological outcomes, including depression symptoms. However, there is limited research on the protective factors for these children and even less for African Americans. The purpose of the study is to examine the effects of positive parenting skills on child depression and the potential protective effects of social skills and kinship support among African American children whose mothers are depressed and low-income. African American mothers (n = 77) with a past year diagnosis of a depressive disorder and one of their children (ages 8–14) completed self-report measures of positive parenting skills, social skills, kinship support, and depression in a cross-sectional design. Regression analyses demonstrated that there was a significant interaction effect of positive parenting skills and child social skills on child depression symptoms. Specifically, parent report of child social skills was negatively associated with child depression symptoms for children exposed to poorer parenting skills; however, this association was not significant for children exposed to more positive and involved parenting. Kinship support did not show a moderating effect, although greater maternal depression severity was correlated with more child-reported kinship support. The study findings have implications for developing interventions for families with maternal depression. In particular, parenting and child social skills are potential areas for intervention to prevent depression among African American youth.     

Evaluation of a Measure of Self-Esteem Based on the Concept of Unconditional Self-Regard

A measure of unconditional self-regard (USR) derived from Rogerian (client-centered) theory was evaluated in four studies. Results indicated that USR was highly reliable and was strongly related to other measures of self-esteem and negatively related to depression, anxiety, and symptoms of psychological distress. The measure was significantly related to the control and commitment dimensions of psychological hardiness but not to its challenge dimension. Evidence for discriminant validity was provided by findings that USR was unrelated to social desirability or private self-consciousness. Finally, female students'self-regard was significantly related to the unconditional positive regard they reported receiving from their mothers. Other correlations between self-regard and perceived regard from others, although nonsignificant, were often large in absolute value. Implications for counseling interventions are discussed.     

Validation of the Dutch version of the aggression questionnaire in adolescent male offenders

This study examined the construct validity of the Dutch version of Buss and Perry’s Aggression Questionnaire (AQ) in 73 adolescent male offenders aged 12 to 18 years who were participating in a residential rehabilitation program. There was a strong positive association between the Hostility subscale of the AQ and psychological and physical symptoms. The nature of this connection was discussed. It was argued that the Hostility subscale measures some unique aspect of aggression that is not incorporated by the Physical Aggression, Verbal Aggression, or Anger subscales of the AQ. As expected, the AQ scales correlated significantly with trait anger, social desirability, and age. Furthermore, staff ratings of physical violence, verbal aggression, anger, and negative attitude were obtained for each subject. Correlations between the AQ scales and these ratings were low. Possible explanations for this unexpected finding are discussed. Finally, normative and internal structure data are presented. Aggr. Behav. 28:87–96, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

An evaluation of the incremental validity of the MMPI-2 Superlative (S) scale in an inpatient psychiatric sample

The MMPI-2 Superlative (S) scale was developed by Butcher and Han (1995) to assess individuals' tendencies to present themselves in an unrealistically positive light. The current study examined the performance of the L, K, and S scales in accurately distinguishing the MMPI-2 profiles of 379 psychiatric inpatients who produced one or more elevations on the basic scale profiles, from 82 psychiatric inpatients who produced no clinical range elevation on any of the eight basic clinical scales (excluding scales 5 and 0). The findings from the present study indicate that the S scale appears to be effective in the identification of defensiveness among psychiatric inpatients, with mean effect sizes in the moderate to large range. The optimal T-score cutoff for identifying defensive responders was 70 for both men and women. Further, results of hierarchical regression analyses showed that the S scale added incrementally to the prediction levels achieved by the optimal combination of the L and K scales.     

Trait anxiety, defensiveness and selective processing of threat: an investigation using two measures of attentional bias

Attentional biases for threat were examined in a non-clinical sample (N=60), with each participant tested on both the modified Stroop colour-naming and dot probe tasks. Three groups were selected on the basis of trait anxiety and social desirability scale (SDS) scores: “low anxiety” (LA: low trait, low SDS), “repressor” (REP: low trait, high SDS) and “high anxiety” (HA: high trait, low SDS). Results from the colour-naming task suggested that high levels of defensiveness (in combination with low trait anxiety) were associated with greater avoidance of threat. The REP group showed less interference in colour-naming threat than neutral words; whereas the HA group showed increased interference due to threat words. On the dot probe task, there was a general tendency for this non-clinical sample as a whole to show avoidance of social threat relative to neutral words, but there was no bias for physical threat words. Avoidance of social threat was significant only within the REP group. No relationships were found between the measures of cognitive bias from the two tasks, suggesting different underlying mechanisms. Results are discussed in relation to previous findings and theoretical views of the effects of anxiety and defensiveness on the processing of threat.     

A Life Domains Perspective on Acculturation and Psychological Adjustment: A Study of Refugees from the Former Soviet Union

The study articulates a contextual approach to research on acculturation of immigrants, suggesting that the relationship between acculturation and adjustment is dependent on the cultural demands of the life domains considered. Specifically, the study investigated the mediating effects of adjustment in occupational and social life domains on the relationship between acculturation and psychological adjustment for 391 refugees from the former Soviet Union. The study used bilinear measures of acculturation to the host (American) and heritage (Russian) cultures. Using Structural Equation Modeling, the study confirmed the hypothesized relationships, such that the positive effects of American acculturation on psychological adjustment were mediated by occupational adjustment, and the effects of Russian acculturation on psychological adjustment were mediated by satisfaction with co-ethnic social support. Psychological adjustment was measured in two ways, as psychological well-being, using a measure of life satisfaction, and as symptoms of depression and anxiety, using the Hopkins symptom checklist (HSCL). Life satisfaction served as a mediator between adjustment in occupational and social domains and HSCL, suggesting that it may be an intervening variable through which environmental stress associated with immigration contributes to the development of symptoms of mental disorder.     

Measurement of adolescents' life events: The junior high life experiences survey

The first of these two studies examined the relationship between adolescents' scores on a social desirability questionnaire and scores of negative, positive, and total life events. Only number of positive events was significantly related to social desirability. The second study compared various scoring strategies with respect to their intercorrelation and their ability to predict adolescents' maladjustment (depression, anxiety, and number of missed school days). The results demonstrated that (a) total number of events and readjustment-weighted life change scores were equally predictive of the maladjustment criteria; (b) negative events, but not positive events, however scored, were significantly related to the maladjustment criteria; (c) indices based on psychologist-judges' ratings of event desirability were not more predictive of the maladjustment criteria than were indices based on the adolescents' self-reports; and (d) uncontrollable negative events and controllable negative events were equally predictive of the maladjustment criteria.