The Defense Mechanism Test in clinical and personality research.

Different research strategies are used for the application of the Defense Mechanism Test in clinical and personality research. It is argued that the harvest of useful information would be greater if the effort of different research groups could be coordinated.     

A study of schizophrenic outpatients with the Defense Mechanism Test.

Intrapsychic defensive strategies are allegedly expressed on the Defense Mechanism Test through the presentation, at increasing tachistoscopic exposure times, of a picture in which a central figure is threatened by a peripheral person. Several types of perceptual alterations of the stimulus configuration are coded as defenses in the subjective reports. A number of test variables have already been shown to differentiate significantly between nonclinical controls and nonpsychotic psychiatric patients. In the present study, after a review of the pertinent percept-genetic literature, nonpsychotic patients (n = 57) were compared with a group of schizophrenic outpatients in the active phase (n = 21). As predicted, significantly more schizophrenics than controls were coded for projection and regression and for certain variants of these signs. Four subcodings of repression, three of isolation, the sign of reaction formation, and several variants of identification differentiated in the same direction. Reports in which the central figure was too old and changed from a correct to an incorrect sex attribution were highly characteristic of the schizophrenic sample. No defensive variable was significantly linked with nonpsychotic pathology. Two variants, one of regression and one of identification, allowed a correct diagnostic placement for all schizophrenics and for 82.4% of the nonpsychotic patients. The findings, besides being a further clinical validation of the Defense Mechanism Test, provide a preliminary distinction between high- and low-level defenses. It is suggested that they are congruent with an hierarchical model which implies inclusive nonreflexive relationships between classes of mental disorders.     

Decision-related action orientation predicts police officers' shooting performance under pressure

Background and Objectives: We aimed to test whether police officers’ trait self-control strength decreases negative effects of high pressure (HP) on state anxiety, shooting behavior, and shooting performance. Design and Methods: Forty-two officers performed a shooting test under both high and low-pressure (LP) conditions. Self-control strength was assessed with the decision-related action orientation (AOD) scale of the Action Control Scale (ACS-90). Effects of AOD on perceived anxiety, heart rate, shooting time, and shot accuracy were estimated and controlled for those of other individual difference measures (i.e. age, police working experience, trait anxiety, and threat-related action orientation). Results: After controlling for baseline values in the LP condition as well as the other individual difference measures, AOD significantly predicted shot accuracy in the HP condition. Conclusions: Results suggest that trait self-control strength in the form of AOD helps officers cope with anxiety and maintain perceptual-motor performance under HP.     

The relationship between aerobic activity and cognitive performance under stress

This study examined the relationship between regular aerobic activity and cognitive performance under stress when personality and inherent aptitude were statistically controlled. Aerobically conditioned subjects have been shown to mediate the physiological response to stress under physical challenge. Would aerobically conditioned subjects also respond more efficiently to psychological stress under cognitive challenge? Forty volunteers completed a battery of personality and aptitude measures and then completed two cognitive tasks (written tests of logic), one under a condition of no stress, the other while being verbally pressured by a test monitor. Heart rate and blood pressure were measured during and after each cognitive task. Contrary to the experimental hypothesis, aerobic activity was related to inferior cognitive performance and to elevated blood pressure under stress. Inherent cognitive aptitude and personality traits emerged as far more important correlates of cognitive performance under stress than did the level of exercise.     

The temporal contiguity effect predicts episodic memory performance

One way to study the associative processes at work during episodic memory is to examine the order of participant responses, which reveal the strong tendency to transition between temporally contiguous or semantically proximal items on the study list. Here, we assessed the correlation between participants’ recall performance and their use of semantic and temporal associations to guide retrieval across nine delayed free recall studies. The size of the participants’ temporal contiguity effects predicted their recall performance. When interpreted in terms of two models of episodic memory, these results suggest that participants who more effectively form and retrieve associations between items that occur nearby in time perform better on episodic recall tasks. Sample code may be downloaded as a supplement for this article from http://mc.psychonomic-journals.org/content/ supplemental.     

When bad stress goes good: increased threat reactivity predicts improved category learning performance

The way in which we respond to everyday stressors can have a profound impact on cognitive functioning. Maladaptive stress responses in particular are generally associated with impaired cognitive performance. We argue, however, that the cognitive system mediating task performance is also a critical determinant of the stress-cognition relationship. Consistent with this prediction, we observed that stress reactivity consistent with a maladaptive, threat response differentially predicted performance on two categorization tasks. Increased threat reactivity predicted enhanced performance on an information-integration task (i.e., learning is thought to depend upon a procedural-based memory system), and a (nonsignificant) trend for impaired performance on a rule-based task (i.e., learning is thought to depend upon a hypothesis-testing system). These data suggest that it is critical to consider both variability in the stress response and variability in the cognitive system mediating task performance in order to fully understand the stress-cognition relationship.     

Error-monitoring ability predicts daily stress regulation

ABSTRACT— This study examined whether individual differences in error-related self-regulation predict emotion regulation in daily life, as suggested by a common-systems view of cognitive and emotional self-regulation. Participants ( N = 47) completed a Stroop task, from which error-related brain potentials and behavioral measures of error correction were computed. Participants subsequently reported on daily stressors and anxiety over a 2-week period. As predicted by the common-systems view, a physiological marker of error monitoring and a behavioral measure of error correction predicted emotion regulation in daily life. Specifically, participants higher in cognitive control, as assessed neurally and behaviorally, were less reactive to stress in daily life. The results support the notion that cognitive control and emotion regulation depend on common or interacting systems.     

An empirical look at the Defense Mechanism Test (DMT): reliability and construct validity

Although the Defense Mechanism Test (DMT) has been in use for almost half a century, there are still quite contradictory views about whether it is a reliable instrument, and if so, what it really measures. Thus, based on data from 39 female students, we first examined DMT inter-coder reliability by analyzing the agreement among trained judges in their coding of the same DMT protocols. Second, we constructed a "parallel" photographic picture that retained all structural characteristic of the original and analyzed DMT parallel-test reliability. Third, we examined the construct validity of the DMT by (a) employing three self-report defense-mechanism inventories and analyzing the intercorrelations between DMT defense scores and corresponding defenses in these instruments, (b) studying the relationships between DMT responses and scores on trait and state anxiety, and (c) relating DMT-defense scores to measures of self-esteem. The main results showed that the DMT can be coded with high reliability by trained coders, that the parallel-test reliability is unsatisfactory compared to traditional psychometric standards, that there is a certain generalizability in the number of perceptual distortions that people display from one picture to another, and that the construct validation provided meager empirical evidence for the conclusion that the DMT measures what it purports to measure, that is, psychological defense mechanisms.     

Seven Pillars of Defense Mechanism Theory

Defense mechanisms are cognitive processes that function to protect the individual from excessive anxiety or other negative emotions. They also protect the person from loss of self‐esteem and, in the extreme, the loss of self‐integration. Although past critics questioned the existence of defense mechanisms, recent research has supported seven basic tenets regarding defenses. These include: (1) defenses function outside of awareness; (2) there is a chronology of defense development; (3) defenses are present in the normal personality; (4) defense use increases under conditions of stress; (5) defense use reduces the conscious experience of negative emotions; (6) defense function is connected to the autonomic nervous system; (7) excessive use of defenses is associated with psychopathology. Research supporting the seven pillars of defense mechanism theory is described in this essay.     

Working memory capacity predicts conflict-task performance

The relationship between the ability to maintain task goals and working memory capacity (WMC) is firmly established, but evidence for WMC-related differences in conflict processing is mixed. We investigated whether WMC (measured using two complex-span tasks) mediates differences in adjustments of cognitive control in response to conflict. Participants performed a Simon task in which congruent and incongruent trials were equiprobable, but in which the proportion of congruency repetitions (congruent trials followed by congruent trials or incongruent trials followed by incongruent trials) and thus the need for trial-by-trial adjustments in cognitive control varied by block. The overall Simon effect did not depend on WMC capacity. However, for the low-WMC participants the Simon effect decreased as the proportion of congruency repetitions decreased, whereas for the high- and average-WMC participants it was relatively constant across conditions. Distribution analysis of the Simon effect showed more evidence for the inhibition of stimulus location in the low- than in the high-WMC participants, especially when the proportion of congruency repetitions was low. We hypothesize that low-WMC individuals exhibit more interference from task-irrelevant information due to weaker preparatory control prior to stimulus presentation and, thus, stronger reliance on reactive recruitment of cognitive control.     

Motor performance under three levels of trait anxiety and stress

In general, the interactive effects of trait anxiety and stress on motor performance have been neglected in assessing the viability of the inverted-U hypothesis. The present investigation tested the inverted-U hypothesis using three levels of trait anxiety and psychological stress. Performance results produced an inverted-U curve for the three levels of stress, with subjects in the moderate-stress condition displaying the highest performance. In addition, a significant trait anxiety x stress interaction indicated that high trait-anxious subjects performed best in the low-stress condition, while low trait-anxious subjects performed best in the high-stressed condition. The discussion concerns theories attempting to explain the relationship between anxiety and motor performance.     

Multivariate modelling and personality organization: A comparative study of the Defense Mechanism Test and linguistic expressions

The main aim of the study is to establish an empirical connection between perceptual defences as measured by the Defense Mechanism Test (DMT)–a projective percept-genetic method–and manifest linguistic expressions based on word pattern analyses. The subjects were 25 psychiatric patients with the diagnoses neurotic personality organization (NPO), borderline personality organization (BPO) and psychotic personality organization (PPO) in accordance with Kernberg's theory. A set of 130 DMT variables and 40 linguistic variables were analyzed by means of partial least squares (PLS) discriminant analysis separately and then pooled together. The overall hypothesis was that it would be possible to define the personality organization of the patients in terms of an amalgam of perceptual defences and word patterns, and that these two kinds of data would confirm each other. The result of the combined PLS analysis revealed a very good separation between the diagnostic groups as measured by the pooled variable sets. Among other things, it was shown that NPO patients are principally characterized by linguistic variables, whereas BPO and PPO patients are better defined by perceptual defences as measured by the DMT method.     

Defense mechanisms and physiological reactivity to stress

The relation between the use of defense mechanisms and autonomic nervous system reactivity, under conditions of laboratory stress, was studied in 78 men and women. Both diastolic blood pressure (DBP) and skin conductance level (SCL) were monitored during exposure to ten stress tasks; concurrently, the use of three defense mechanisms was assessed by coding Thematic Apperception Test stories. Autonomic reactivity was found to be related to defenses; the nature of that relation differed across the defenses. DBP, typically found to be associated with cognitive work, was higher in those individuals who used more Identification, a defense that requires greater cognitive activity. The use of Projection, on the other hand, was associated with lower DBP. In addition, the use of Identification showed a tendency to be associated with lower SCL.     

Defense Mechanism Card Pull in TAT Stories

This study investigates the question of whether different Thematic Apperception Test (TAT; Murray, 1943 Murray, H. (1943). Thematic Apperception Test manual. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. [Google Scholar]) cards are likely to prompt stories that are characterized by different defense mechanisms. This condition is known as card pull and refers to the probability that different TAT cards elicit different personality scores for the same variable. If so, the assessment of defense use would be importantly influenced by the TAT cards used in an assessment. TAT stories from 3 different community samples were examined (Ns = 91, 98, 121), using a statistical method developed by Stein et al (2014 Stein, M. B., Slavin-Mulford, J., Siefert, C. J., Sinclair, S. J., Renna, M., Malone, J., … Blais, M. A. (2014). SCORS–G stimulus characteristics of select Thematic Apperception Test cards. Journal of Personality Assessment, 96, 339–349.[Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). The results indicated that different TAT cards pull for different defenses, as assessed by the Defense Mechanism Manual (DMM: Cramer, 1991b Cramer, P. (1991b). The development of defense mechanisms: Theory, research and assessment. New York, NY: Springer-Verlag.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). However, the nature of card pull was not always consistent across samples. These dissimilarities could be due to group differences, or to the presence of different TAT cards used in the test battery, indicating that card pull is importantly determined by context.     

Defense Mechanism Test (DMT) and Kernberg's theory of personality organization related to adolescents in psychiatric care

75 adolescent psychiatric patients were diagnosed with the perceptual projective test the Defense Mechanism Test (DMT) and also according to Kernberg's theory of personality organization (PO). The test protocols were scored in respect of 130DMT variables and analyzed by means of partial least squares (PLS) discriminant analysis. The objective was to try to separate the three types of PO, psychotic (PPO), borderline (BPO) and neurotic (NPO) by means of the DMT and also to compare the results with a similar study on adult psychiatric patients. The results showed that it is possible to separate significantly the three groups of PO. The BPO group seemed to be heterogeneous. The results were fairly similar to those obtained with adult psychiatric patients. The overall results supported the concurrent validity of Kernberg's theory of PO and for the DMT as well. The DMT seems to be a useful diagnostic method in respect of adolescent psychiatric patients.