Factor Structure of the Beck Depression Inventory—II in a Medical Outpatient Sample

This study examined the factor structure of the Beck Depression Inventory—II (BDI-II) in a sample of 127 individuals referred by their primary care physicians. Using exploratory factor analysis with oblique rotation, a 2-factor model appeared to be the most parsimonious representation of the data. The rotated factors accounted for approximately 53% of the variance. Consistent with previous research, the first factor was interpreted as a somatic–affective dimension and the second factor reflected a cognitive dimension. The correlation between these 2 factors was .79. It appears possible to divide the BDI-II into subscales to facilitate interpretation in medical patients.     

The IIS–32: A Brief Inventory of Interpersonal Strengths

It is shown that Rorer's exoneration of the F scale from acquiescent response style contamination is dependent on the finding-that various acquiescence measures fail to intercorrelate. When acquiescence is measured as the total score on adequate balanced scales scored without reversals, significant internal reliability is found. It is found, in fact, even with scales that are not particularly ambiguous.     

Psychometric Properties of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory–Adolescent (MMPI–A) Clinical,Content, and Supplementary Scales in a Forensic Sample

In this study, we evaluated the internal psychometric properties and external correlates of scores on the Clinical, Content, and Supplementary scales in a forensic sample of 496 adolescents (315 boys and 181 girls) who were court-ordered to receive psychological evaluations. We examined Cronbach's alpha coefficients, scale intercorrelation matrices, and frequencies of scale elevations. Further, we found varying degrees of support for the convergent and discriminant validity of scores on the MMPI–A (Butcher et al., 1992 Butcher, J. N., Williams, C. L., Graham, J. R., Archer, R. P., Tellegen, A., Ben-Porath, Y. S. and Kaemmer, B. 1992. MMPI–A (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory–Adolescent): Manual for administration, scoring, and interpretation, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.  [Google Scholar]) Clinical, Content, and Supplementary scales. This study adds to the body of literature establishing the utility of the MMPI–A in forensic evaluations.     

MMPI–2 Profiles of Women With Eating Disorders in a Dutch Day Treatment Sample

This study tested two hypotheses concerning productivity and emotional tone as a function of chromatic TAT cards. Two groups of 13 males and 13 females were presented with achromatic and chromatic slides of cards 2, 3BM, 4, 6BM, and 7BM, in counterbalanced order. The main effects of sex membership, order of presentation of stimuli, and color were evaluated. Color did not have a measurable effect. However, a conceptual and aesthetic effect may occur. Males and females differed with respect to emotional tone and response productivity.     

Measuring Mental Toughness in Sport: A Psychometric Examination of the Psychological Performance Inventory–A and Its Predecessor

The Rorschach Inkblot Method (RIM) is a performance-based personality assessment instrument used in both clinical and research settings worldwide. This investigation examines response-level, interrater reliability of U.S. graduate students enrolled in the same doctoral program and divided into two unique participant groups: 20 of those with previous Comprehensive System (CS) training background who are now trained in Rorschach Performance Assessment System (R-PAS; initial coders N = 11, blind coders N = 9), and 19 of those trained solely with R-PAS (initial coders N = 10, blind coders N = 9). Trainees’ coding was analyzed based on a sample of 50 protocols (half per group) representing a total of 1,189 responses. Blind coding was used among trainees and coding between the two investigated training groups was analyzed for each variable at the response level and expressed as percent agreement, Gwet's AC, and kappa values. Rates of agreement between the trainees were similar across both groups, and most of the concordance rates can be characterized as excellent. Overall, these results suggest that trainees may learn how to code R-PAS variables with similar reliability levels whether or not they had prior CS knowledge.     

Psychometrics and Validity of the Dutch Experiences in Close Relationships–Revised (ECR–r) in an Outpatient Mental Health Sample

The Experiences in Close Relationships–Revised (ECR–r) is a self-report instrument to assess adult attachment style that seems to have appropriate psychometric qualities. The ECR–r has been most widely studied in student and community samples. In this study we report factor structure, reliability, and construct validity of the Dutch translation of the ECR–r in an outpatient mental health sample (N = 262). The original factor structure could satisfactorily be replicated, the reliability of the ECR–r was also stable over time, and there was good evidence for its construct validity.     

The Patient–Doctor Relationship Questionnaire (PDRQ-9) in Primary Care: A Validity Study

This study assessed the validity of the Patient–Doctor Relationship Questionnaire-9 (PDRQ-9) in a primary care sample (N = 180). Convergent validity was assessed through a correlation between the patient-rated PDRQ-9 and the physician-rated Difficult Doctor Patient Relationship Questionnaire-10 (DDPRQ-10). Discriminant validity was assessed through correlations between the PDRQ-9 and patient age, patient- and physician-reported health and psychological distress. To determine if the PDRQ-9 could discriminate between groups, patient PDRQ-9 ratings were compared between patients who were treated by faculty physicians versus those who were treated by residents. An exploratory factor analysis confirmed that the PDRQ-9 was made up of a single factor. The PDRQ-9 scale was internally consistent (α = .96) and significantly and negatively correlated with the DDPRQ-10 (r = ?.22, p = .003) and was not significantly correlated with patient age, health, or psychological distress. PDRQ-9 ratings were statistically greater in patients who were treated by faculty physicians than those who were treated by residents (p = .01). This study provides additional support for the reliability and validity of the PDRQ-9 as a measure of the doctor–patient relationship in a primary care sample.     

The Beck Anxiety Inventory–Trait (BAIT): A Measure of Dispositional Anxiety Not Contaminated by Dispositional Depression

If aesthetic aspects of art are objective and reside in the art. as Arnheim (1954) argues. then perceiving them may be akin to any other kind of reality testing. Further, if neurosis impairs reality testing, it would also impair aesthetic judgment, especially if aesthetic cues are vital and relevant to the human experience as Arnheim maintains. This hypothesis was investigated by administration of personality tests to measure neuroticism, especially Cattell's Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF), and art judgment tasks, especially Child's slide comparisons, to 105 University of Michigan undergraduates, The hypothesis was supported by a high negative correlation between the 16PF's neuroticism scale and art judgment, r = -.48; t (103) = -5.61 ,p < .0001. The results are discussed in terms of growth versus adjustment models of mental health, and the possible inhibiting role of verbalization over visualization in aesthetic perception.     

The Anxiety Depression Distress Inventory–27 (ADDI–27): New Evidence of Factor Structure,Item-Level Measurement Invariance,and Validity

Three studies examining the factor structure and psychometric properties of the Anxiety Depression Distress Inventory–27 (ADDI–27) extended the initial instrument development studies for this recently introduced inventory. The ADDI–27 is an empirically derived short form of the Mood and Anxiety Questionaire–90 (MASQ–90) comprising three scales: Positive Affect, Somatic Anxiety, and General Distress. The main objectives of Study 1 (N = 700) were to examine the factor structure of the ADDI–27 and its measurement invariance across gender at the item level. The objective of Study 2 (N = 538) was to examine evidence for the convergent and discriminant validity of scores on the ADDI–27. The objective of Study 3 (N = 240) was to assess further evidence for the nomological network and convergent and discriminant validity of the ADDI–27 scores. Results of exploratory structural equation modeling yielded strong support for a 3-factor model, with approximate fit indexes meeting or exceeding the conventional cutoffs. With p ≤ .001 as the criterion for detecting noninvariance, results of measurement invariance analysis suggested that all of the ADDI–27 items were invariant across gender. Results of multivariate validity analyses across 2 studies provided support for the convergent and discriminant validity of scores on the ADDI–27 scales.     

The Differential Assessment of State–Trait Anxiety and Depression in a Clinically Anxious Sample

Empirical investigation into anxiety and depression has led some researchers to question the conceptual distinctness of these constructs. N. S. Endler, B. J. Cox, J. D. A. Parker, and R. M. Bagby (1992) provided empirical evidence that state and trait anxiety (using the Endler Multidimensional Anxiety Scales; N. S. Endler, J. M. Edwards, and R. Vitelli, 1991) may be differentiated from depression (using the Beck Depression Inventory; A. T. Beck, 1978) in a student sample. The present study extended this research by employing a different sample, a clinical sample of panic disorder patients (N = 189). Further support for the conceptual distinctness of anxiety and depression is presented herein. The concept of a general distress factor that encompasses both constructs is also discussed.     

Innocence Lost: A Gender-Based Study of Parricide Offender,Victim, and Incident Characteristics in a National Sample, 1976–2003

ABSTRACT

The act of parricide is one of the least understood and most underresearched acts of family violence. Work to date suggests adolescent parricide is often an extreme response to intolerable abuse. Drawing on Supplementary Homicide Reports (SHR) from 1976 to 2003, this work examines a large national sample of reported parricide incidents (N?=?2,599) with an offender 21 years of age or younger. A gender-based study of offender, victim, and incident characteristics was undertaken using bivariate and multivariate techniques. Results suggest that incidents of parricide are decreasing over time. Offenses are predominantly intraracial with white male offenders peaking in late adolescence and white females peaking in mid-adolescence. White biological fathers are at greatest risk of victimization with girls significantly more likely than boys to kill a stepfather. Results both corroborate and contrast extant works, providing new baseline data and insight into this complex and dynamic crime.     

The origins of hope in adolescence: A test of a social–cognitive model

We investigated the origins of individual differences in hope in adolescents based on a social–cognitive model. Specifically, we examined a mediating role for self-esteem and optimism in the relation between social support and hope. One thousand six hundred fifty four adolescents (781 boys and 873 girls) from Mainland China completed the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS), the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES), the revised Life Orientation Test (LOT-R) and the Children's Hope Scale (CHS). Social support was associated positively with self-esteem, optimism and hope, and hope was associated positively with self-esteem and optimism. Structural equation modeling analyses revealed that self-esteem and optimism partially mediated the relation between social support and hope, accounting for 62.7% of the effect of social support on hope. The significance and limitations of the results are discussed.     

The Experiences of Guilt and Shame: A Phenomenological–Psychological Study

This study aims at discovering the essential constituents involved in the experiences of guilt and shame. Guilt concerns a subject’s action or omission of action and has a clear temporal unfolding entailing a moment in which the subject lives in a care-free way. Afterwards, this moment undergoes a reconstruction, in the moment of guilt, which constitutes the moment of negligence. The reconstruction is a comprehensive transformation of one’s attitude with respect to one’s ego; one’s action; the object of guilt and the temporal-existential experience. The main constituents concerning shame are its anchorage in the situation to which it refers; its public side involving the experience of being perceptually objectified; the exclusion of social community; the bodily experience; the revelation of an undesired self; and the genesis of shame in terms of a history of frozen now-ness. The article ends with a comparison between guilt and shame.     

The Changing Composition of “Intelligence”: A Study in T-Technique

Abstract

(Kantor, J. R. Problems of Physiological Psychology. Bloomington. Ind.: Principia Press, 1947. Pp. 398.) Reviewed by John Bucklew

(Dunlap, K. Religion; Its Functions in Human Life. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1946. Pp. 362.) Reviewed by Sidney Kosofsky     

The Ontological Roots of Human Science: the Message of Evolution—The Physics of Freedom (Choice)

The original proposal of H. H. Pattee (1971) Pattee, H. H. 1971. “Can life explain quantum mechanics?”. In Quantum theory and beyond, Edited by: Bastin, T. 307–319. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.  [Google Scholar] of basing quantum theoretical measurement theory on the theory of the origin of life, and its far reaching consequences, is discussed in the light of a recently emerging biological paradigm of internal measurement. It is established that the “measurement problem” of quantum physics can, in principle, be traced back to the internal material constraints of the biological organisms, where choice is a fundamental attribute of the self-measurement of matter. In this light, which is shown to be a consequence of Pattee's original suggestion, it is proposed that biological evolution is a gradual liberation from the inert unity of “subject” and “object” of inanimate matter (as “natural law” and “initial conditions”), to a split biological existence of them and, as a consequence, the “message of evolution” is freedom, rather than complexity in itself. Some classical philosophical systems are brought into context to show that the epistemologies of several strictly philosophical systems of the social sciences are well acquainted with the problem and their solutions support our conclusions.