Personality Characteristics Associated With Aerobic Exercise in Adult Females

Using an index of aerobic conditioning 27 adult female joggers and 25 nonexercisers were identified. During individual interviews with each subject basic demographic data were obtained and blood pressure, vital capacity, resting pulse rate, and body fat were meaSured. All subjects completed Form A of the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF). Statistically significant differences occurred on two primary factors, and one secondary dimension of the 16PF. The probability of three marginally significant differences out of 24 comparisons is well within the range of expected chance fluctuation. Thus, the study provided no evidence that personality characteristics are predisposing factors in the adoption of an aerobic jogging program by young adult females. The only statistically significant training effect was lower pulse rate; blood pressure, vital Capacity, and body fat were similar for the two groups. Finally, the results of this study of females were compared to those of a previous investigation of male joggers.     

Personality Factors Associated With Psychological Distress in Testicular Cancer Survivors

The aim of this study was to investigate symptoms of anxiety and depression in testicular cancer survivors (TCSs) and to identify personality traits associated with psychological distress in these patients by means of the MMPI (Hathaway &; McKinley, 1943 Hathaway, S. R. and McKinley, J. C. 1943. The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.  [Google Scholar]). A total of 50 TCSs and 50 age-adjusted healthy men participated in the study, and we used the following self-report instruments: Montgomery–Asberg Depression Rating Scale (Montgomery &; Asberg, 1979 Montgomery, S. and Åsberg, M. 1979. A new depression scale designed to be sensitive to change. British Journal of Psychiatry, 134: 382–389. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (Hamilton, 1959 Hamilton, M. 1959. The assessment of anxiety states by rating. British Journal of Medical Psychology, 32: 50–55. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 1969 Hamilton, M. 1969. Diagnosis and rating of anxiety. British Journal of Psychiatry, 3: 76–79.  [Google Scholar]), Spielberger's State–Trait Anxiety Inventory (Spielberger, 1970 Spielberger, C. D. 1970. “Anxiety as an emotional state”. In Anxiety: Current trends in theory and research, Edited by: Spielberger, C. New York: Academic.  [Google Scholar], 2005 Spielberger, C. D. 2005. State–Trait Anxiety Inventory for adults, Redwood City, CA: Mind Garden.  [Google Scholar]), and the MMPI. TCSs displayed higher rates on all psychopathology scales studied compared to controls, but the majority of the patients' scores were within the “normal range,” indicating rather mild psychological distress. TCSs' MMPI profiles showed higher rates on Scales 1, 3, 6, and 9 compared to controls; and within the TCSs sample, symptoms of depression were most closely associated with Scales 3 and 5. Similarly, anxiety symptoms were mainly associated with Scale 3. These findings indicate that TCSs present mild symptoms of psychological distress, mainly anxiety and depressive symptoms, suggesting that careful assessment and consultation in TC patients is essential to help them deal with distress after treatment and to minimize possible risk factors.     

Informational Bases of Behavioral Intentions and Behavioral Expectations or Self-Predictions

Ninety subjects were randomly assigned to respond to a list of intention or expectation (self-prediction) questions regarding the performance of social, academic, and health-related behaviors. After responding to these questions, subjects were asked to describe the information they drew on when responding to the questionnaire items. A content analysis conducted on these responses revealed that subjects who completed the intention questionnaire relied more heavily on information regarding behavioral beliefs, and that subjects who completed the expectation (self-prediction) questionnaire focused more on their past behavior and circumstance information. The manna in which the results of the content analysis data support Fishbein and Ajzen's (1975) theory of reasoned action and the way in which these findings are related to the enhanced predictive validity obtained in previous research that employed an expectation question (self-prediction) format are discussed.     

Behavioral Genetics and Personality Change

Although research on personality and behavioral genetics has focused on the continuity of traits, both fields and their interface will profit from the consideration of trait change. In this article we review personality research on age differences in heritability and propose the counterintuitive hypothesis that, when developmental changes in heritability are found, heritability tends to increase. We also focus on behavioral genetic analyses of long-term developmental change. Research to date suggests that genetic involvement in adult personality change is slight whereas personality change in childhood is governed substantially be genetic factors. Finally, we consider a new topic, genetic influence on short-term change in personality.     

Identifying Personality Pathology Associated With Major Depressive Episodes: Incremental Validity of Informant Reports

Major limitations are associated with the use of a single source of information to assess personality pathology. The construct validity of standardized interviews and informant reports on personality pathology has been established relative to other measures of personality pathology, but it is also important to consider these measures in relation to other constructs that should be related to personality pathology. One example is major depression. In this study, we evaluated whether less common clinical methods of assessment for measuring the same personality pathology constructs, including semistructured interviews and informant reports, demonstrate unique validity, using major depressive episode (MDE) as the external criterion. This analysis focuses on a representative, community-based sample of 1,437 participants and informants. We conducted a hierarchical logistic regression analysis and determined the order of entering the predictor variables based on likelihood of being used in a clinical setting as well as empirical recommendations. Each step of our regression model significantly increased our ability to predict lifetime MDE, including self, interviewer, and informant reports of personality pathology. Overall, these findings indicate that multiple sources of personality assessment provide unique information about the relationship between maladaptive personality traits and a history of MDE. Thus, semistructured diagnostic interviews and informant reports can be used as a resource to improve the validity of personality assessments.     

Reducing the Effects of Performance Expectations on Behavioral Ratings

In this study, we develop and test two strategies for reducing the effects of performance expectations on behavioral ratings. A 3 × 3 experimental design (N = 169), manipulating preobservation performance cues (positive, negative, or none) and the type of intervention (halo error training, structured recall memory, or none), was conducted. The results of this study indicate that both interventions reduced the effects of performance expectations on behavioral ratings. However, analyses of rating accuracy and measures from both recognition memory and recall memory tests suggest that the structured recall memory intervention has distinct advantages. These analyses indicate that the structured recall intervention can reduce raters' reliance on heuristics and increase the correspondence between raters' memory and their subsequent ratings.     

Gender-Typed Behavioral Examples of Histrionic Personality Disorder

Findings that clinicians diagnose Histrionic Personality Disorder more frequently in women may be due to the feminine gender weighting of the criteria or because the diagnostic label elicits a feminine stereotype. Using a method derived from the act-frequency approach, undergraduates generated behavioral examples of the DSM-IIIR and DSM-IV Histrionic criteria without regard to sex or according to sex role instructions that elicited masculine or feminine sex roles. A national sample of psychologists and psychiatrists rated the representativeness of the symptoms for the Histrionic criteria or for Histrionic Personality Disorder. Feminine behaviors were rated more representative of Histrionic Personality Disorder and somewhat more representative of the Histrionic criteria than masculine behaviors suggesting that the feminine sex role is more strongly associated with the label than the criteria. Masculine behaviors were also rated less representative than sex-unspecified examples. Results provide a possible explanation for the higher rates of diagnosis of Histrionic Personality Disorder in women.     

Personality and Health Outcomes: Making Positive Expectations a Reality

Trait optimism is associated with better health, but the reason for this association is unclear. The present investigation focused on specific goals and negative emotions as potential pathways through which optimism can lead to better health. College students (n = 336) in the U.S. reported their mental and physical health at the start of an academic term and during finals. Over the course of the term, they reported three daily events and rated the extent to which they were motivated to attain positive outcomes (approach goals) or avoid negative outcomes (avoidance goals). Greater optimism predicted fewer mental and physical health symptoms at the end of the term, controlling for initial symptoms. This association between optimism and symptoms was mediated by the intensity of avoidance goals and negative emotion during the term. These findings suggest that positive expectations do predict better health and this relationship is partially due to the goals people set in their daily lives.     

Targets' Awareness of Expectations and Behavioral Confirmation in Ongoing Interactions

Participants engaged in a getting-acquainted interaction over an intercom after one participant (the perceiver) was provided with a positive (extraverted) or relatively negative (introverted) expectation about the other participant (the target). After completing evaluations of each other and the interaction, participants interacted for a second time. Prior to this second interaction, however, targets were made aware of the perceivers' initial expectation, told that it had been confirmed by their own behavior, and given a randomly assigned attribution (either dispositional or situational) about the perceived cause of their confirmatory behavior. Results demonstrated that targets made aware of dispositionally attributed and relatively negative expectations were more likely to increase in expectation-disconfirming behavior, compared to targets made aware of situationally attributed and relatively negative expectations, who were themselves more likely to continue to confirm the expectations. Implications for the study of behavioral confirmation of expectations and other interpersonal processes are discussed.     

周易人格模型与麦氏人格模型的比较

该文介绍了基于中国传统文化建立起来的本土化人格类型理论———周易人格模型;分析了该模型与麦氏人格模型在理论建构的指导思想、人格要素、人格类型的测定方法以及人格模型的演变规则等方面的区别和联系;指出了两者在方法上同源同根,在内容上各有特色。     

Associated Personality Differences in Delinquents and Non-Delinquents

Sex associated personality differences were examined in delinquent and non-delinquent adolescents using the EPPS. Greater similarity was found between EPPS needs of male and female delinquents than between male and female non-delinquents. In particular, delinquent males do not show the normal sex differences of males having greater need for Achievement, Autonomy, and Heterosexuality and females having greater Intraceptive, Abasement, and Endurance needs.     

The Reliability And Consistency Of Complex Personality Judgements

Two separate tasks were used to investigate the ability of subjects to make reliable and consistent judgments of similarities among personalities. Ten social categories for which each subject specified persons known to him- self were used as concepts. Test-retest reliabilities were obtained for an 8 point similarity-dissimilarity scale and inconsistency was measured by the intransitive relations appearing in a triadic judgment test. Reliabilities and consistencies were judged sufficiently adequate for use of these types of judgments in a multidimensional scaling approach t o individual differences in social perception.     

Socioeconomic Status and Perceived Expectations As Measures of Family Influence

This is a study of changes in the educational plans of a longitudinal group of 255 males over grades 8, 9, 10, and 11. Subjected to testing and confirmed is the hypothesis that the student's perceived interaction with parents, regardless of socioeconomic status, is more directly associated with his educational plans than is socioeconomic status itself. The results also suggest that peers do not exceed parents in their influence upon adolescent plans when both sources of possible influence are measured by the same method.     

Comparison Of Oblique And Orthogonal Simple Structure Solutions For Personality And Interest Factors

The study was directed to the need to structure in a few variables the domain measured by personality and interest measures commonly employed in educational counseling: Strong, Kuder, EPPS and the Study of Values. Despite initial uncertainty regarding number of factors to be employed, effects of ipsative scores and of mixing test formats, both an oblique and orthogonal rotation yielded nearly identical results. Of the twenty factors identified by both the biquartimin and varimax solutions, Seven linked vocational interest clusters with personality. Two of the remaining factors had only interest loadings, while of the eleven personality factors, only four were scale specific. Definition of the 16 common factors required that extraction proceed beyond the unit latent root criterion. The results offer evidence that over- extracting factors does not confuse the results of rotation. Further, psycho- metric differences between tests had essentially no effect on the factors found. Of three oblimin rotations attempted, only the biquartimin was successful, yielding results essentially like those of the varimax solution. Because of the vast difference in computation time for these two solutions (computer time 20 times greater for biquartimin), however, the orthogonal varimax remains the method of choice.     

Personality Characteristics Associated with Persistent ADHD in Late Adolescence

This study focused on the personality characteristics associated with Attention-deficit/Hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in a longitudinal sample of youth, with a particular focus on differences between those with and without persisting ADHD symptoms. Participants with ADHD (n = 90) were initially evaluated when they were 7–11 years old, and re-assessed at 16–22 years of age. Matched control subjects (n = 80) were recruited at the time of the follow-up evaluation. At follow-up, the Kiddie-SADS-PL, a semi-structured psychiatric interview, and the NEO-PI, a self-report personality inventory, were administered. Data were analyzed using multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVA). Results indicate that childhood ADHD is associated with lower scores on the NEO Conscientiousness subscale in adolescents/young adults—irrespective of the degree of ADHD persistence. In contrast, ratings of Neuroticism and Agreeableness appear to be more closely linked to adolescent status; those with persisting symptoms only exhibited increased Neuroticism and decreased Agreeableness. These results suggest that ADHD, and the degree to which symptoms persist into adolescence, may be closely linked to personality structure.     

Figural Creativity,Intelligence, And Personality In Children

To study relationships among figural creativity, intelligence, and personality, 30 measures hypothesized to be relevant were obtained for 196 children in grades 4, 5, and 6. Principal components extracted from the intercorrelations were rotated to the normalized varimax criterion. Nine factors were interpreted: A, chronological age and general information; B, personal adjustment; C, sex-typing; D, school achievement and mental ability; E, divergent production of figural implications; F, intolerance of ambiguity; G, production of figural systems; H, preference for complexity; and I, self-confidence. It was concluded that, even in children this young, separable orthogonal traits of figural divergent thinking could be delineated, and that "creativity" is not a unitary ability.