An MMPI-based empirical model of malingering and deception

The empirically-based model of malingering and deception described by Rogers (1984b) was operationalized using MMPI and clinical interview data. Subjects (N = 159) were patients committed to an inpatient forensic hospital as ‘Incompetent to Stand Trial’ or ‘Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity’. Inter-rater reliability was acceptable for the 11 criteria used to define response styles. Each subject was categorized into one of five response style groups: ‘Reliable’, ‘Malingering’, ‘Defensive’, ‘Irrelevant’, or ‘Unclassifiable’. Factor analysis of the rating criteria yielded four factors, three of which are comparable to the assigned groups, providing some validation for the constructs underlying these groups.     

Mentally retarded persons as parents: Prevalence and the situation of their children

This paper describes a research program on mentally retarded parents and their children. For this nation-wide study, two structured questionnaires were sent to all municipalities in Norway. Both questionnaires were sent to public health nurses and were followed-up by a structured telephone interview based on the questionnaires. The primary aim of the study was to survey the number of children born to mentally retarded parents. In addition, the children's needs and functional abilities were to be assessed. Twenty-three mentally retarded persons had given birth in the course of the past twelve months. A total of 126 children with mentally retarded parents were identified, with an incidence of 27 children per year, and a prevalence of approximately 430 children under 16 years of age in a population of 4 mill. People with a mean of 1.05 child per family. About 43% of the children of mentally retarded parents appeared to have learning difficulties. Forty percent of the children suffered from failures of care. Between 25% and 68% of the children with learning problems had poorly developed motor or language abilities, sense modalities or psycho-social status.     

Stress and Social Support in Parents whose Children are Hepatitis B Virus (HBV) Carriers: A Comparison of Three Groups in Guangzhou

The present study compared the moderating effect of social support on parental stress variables and mental health among three groups of parents: parents of HBV (Hepatitis B Virus) children who attended the special health kindergarten, parents of HBV children who stayed at home, and parents of healthy children who attended the ordinary kindergarten. These families resided in the city of Guangzhou. A set of questionnaires measuring parental stress and social support were given to the mothers after a one-hour interview. Results showed that parents of HBV children were significantly more stressed and psychologically at risk than parents of healthy children. They also sought help from social resources more often than the parents of healthy children. Parents of healthy children who attended the ordinary kindergarten reported the highest levels of overall social support, i.e. the number of very close friends and relatives with whom they could form close emotional attachments. Although they reported a lower number of acquaintances available, they also reported the most satisfactory relationships with the support provided by their acquaintances, lower levels of stress, fewer somatic problems, more adequate general health, and more perceived meaning in life than did parents of HBV children, and social support is one of the main influences on stress or parental health. The findings call for further research to focus on parents' well-being and social support that is helpful in addressing the needs of the family.     

A Russian adaptation of the child behavior checklist: Psychometric properties and associations with child and maternal affective symptomatology and family functioning

The Child Behavior Checklist's (CBCL) applicability to a sample of 105 Russian 9- and 10-year-old children was evaluated by examining the internal consistency of Russian adaptations of parent and teacher report forms. In addition, child behavior scores were correlated with child reports of internalizing symptoms and maternal reports of their own internalizing symptoms and general family functioning. Finally, rates of child behavior problems and patterns of interrater agreement were compared with U.S. normative data. The psychometric properties of the adaptations demonstrate the adequacy of these instruments for use in Russia. Internal consistency and interrater agreement were generally comparable to estimates obtained in U.S. normative samples. Further, an exploration of the construct validity of the Russian versions of the CBCL and Teacher Report Form (TRF) lends additional support to the adequacy of these instruments.This work was supported in part by grants from the International Research Exchanges Board (IREX) (with funds provided by the Andrew Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the U.S. Department of State) and the National Institute of Mental Health (MH-00508, an RSDA to D. Pauls). None of these organizations is responsible for the views expressed. In addition, the authors wish to thank Thomas Achenbach for his helpful comments and suggestions.     

SEMANTIC NETWORKS IN THE DIVIDED CEREBRAL HEMISPHERES

Abstract— Hemispheric differences in the recognition and manipulation of meaning may be based on distinctions in size, composition, or organization of the right and left semantic networks. The present study describes these features of pictorially based semantic networks in 3 subjects with complete forebrain commissurotomy. Stimuli were presented for prolonged viewing to the left and right visual hemifields. For each trial, the subjects chose from a 20-choice array all pictures that were associated with a target, then indicated the member of each pair of chosen associates that was more closely related to the target. The hemispheres' networks were found to be of similar size and composition, but were organized differently. The right hemisphere more often produced linear rankings of semantic associates to a target than did the left, and rankings by the two hemispheres were not strongly correlated. Hemispheric differences in semantic organization mirror differences in perceptual organization, with the right hemisphere specialized for conventional meaning and the left hemisphere specialized for detecting and processing deviations from standard meaning.     

Letter detection: A window to unitization and other cognitive processes in reading text

Experiments are reviewed that use the letter-detection task, in which subjects read text and circle target letters. Evidence is provided that the letter-detection task reveals the processing units used in reading text and is influenced as well by visual, phonetic, and a combination of semantic and syntactic factors. Specifically, it is shown that circling a target letter in a word depends on the familiarity of the word’s visual configuration, the location of the word in the reader’s visual field, the phonetic representation of the letter in the word, and a combination of the word’s meaning and its grammatical function.     

Paradoxical experiential therapy: A description of the technique and rationale of a nonbehavioral therapy for an unselected patient population

Paradoxical Experiential Therapy, a new technique of psychotherapy, is a nonbehavioral, short-term, experiential form of individual psychotherapy which produces long-lasting changes in ego strength, anxiety, depression, guilt, anger, and other common psychiatric symptoms, in an unselected patient population, in approximately 40 to 60 hours of therapy. This is accomplished by the use of structured fantasies accompanied by feelings which are instantly paradoxical to the content and nature of the fantasies themselves, and by other structured fantasies with paradoxical input from the therapist.