The Roles of Risk Perception and Borderline and Antisocial Personality Characteristics in College Alcohol Use and Abuse1

This study examined the relationships among risk perceptions, alcohol use and abuse, and borderline and antisocial personality characteristics in college students. College students who perceived themselves less able to avoid negative consequences reported drinking more and having more substance abuse symptoms than those who perceived themselves as more able to avoid negative consequences. College students who scored higher on borderline or antisocial personality tended to rate personal avoidability of negative consequences lower than those who scored lower on these personality characteristics. A multiple regression model accounted for 50% of the variance in self‐reported substance abuse symptoms. Low perceived personal avoidability of negative drinking consequences and high borderline or antisocial personality characteristics are risk factors for substance abuse problems.     

The Token Activity: Generating Awareness of Power in Counseling Relationships

The authors present an experiential activity, the token activity, that increases student awareness of power and privilege dynamics. Student feedback is incorporated to offer perceptions and knowledge gained from their experience. Los autores presentan una actividad experiencial, la actividad simbólica, que incrementa la conciencia los estudiantes sobre poder y dinámica de privilegios. Se incluyen las reacciones de los estudiantes para ofrecer las percepciones y el conocimiento que adquirieron durante su experiencia.     

Interrater reliability of the DSM-III-R with preschool children

Little attention has been paid to evaluating the use of DSM-III-R with preschool children. Children (N = 510) ages 2 to 5 years who were screened at the time of a pediatric visit were selected to participate in an evaluation which included questionnaires, a semistructured interview, developmental testing, and a play observation. Following the evaluation, two clinical child psychologists independently assigned DSM-III-R diagnoses. For each diagnostic category, kappa and Ycoefficients were calculated; Ycoefficients are less sensitive to base rates of disorders. For overall agreement, the weighted mean kappa (.61), and mean Y(.66) were moderately high. Overall agreement that the child had at least one of the disruptive disorders was substantial (kappa =.64; Y =.65);agreement that there was at least one of the emotional disorders was moderate for kappa (.54), but substantial for Y(.70). Kappa coefficients were higher for major categories of disorder than for specific disorders; however, Ycoefficients did not show a decline for specific disorders. Interrater reliability of DSM-III-R appears to be similar for preschoolers and older children.This study was supported by grant MH46089 from the National Institute of Mental Health.A preliminary report was presented at the Fifth Annual NIMH International Research Conference on the Classification and Treatment of Mental Disorders in General Medical Settings, Bethesda, Maryland, September 1991. We gratefully acknowledge the members of the Pediatric Practice Research Group who participated in this study.     

Characterizing the intuitive representation in problem solving: Evidence from evaluating mathematical strategies

Two experiments were conducted to investigate the nature of the intuitive problem representation used in evaluating mathematical strategies. The first experiment tested between two representations: a representation composed of principles and an integrated representation. Subjects judged the correctness of unseen math strategies based only on the answers they produced for a set of temperature mixture problems. The distance of the given answers from the correct answers and whether the answers violated one of the principles of temperature mixture were manipulated. The results supported the principle representation hypothesis. In the second experiment we manipulated subjects’ understanding of an acid mixture task with a brief paragraph of instruction on one of the principles. Subjects then completed an estimation task intended to measure their understanding of the problem domain. The evaluation task from the first experiment was then presented, but with acid mixture instead of temperature mixture. The results showed that intuitive understanding of the domain mediates the effect of instruction on evaluating problems. Additionally, the results supported the hypothesis that subjects perform a mapping process between their intuitive understanding and math strategies.     

Component Integrity of Teacher Intervention Management Behavior Using a Student Self-Monitoring Treatment: An Experimental Analysis

This investigation was undertaken to determine the effects of differing levels of treatment integrity resulting from implementation of varying numbers of intervention components. The self-monitoring program was conducted over 4 weeks and targeted positive and negative classroom behaviors. The independent variable included three levels: 100% integrity, that included reward and graphing of behavior; 83.3% integrity, that included the reward component; and 66.7% integrity, that employed self-monitoring with recording only. Participants included 49 elementary school students, mean age of 10.4 years, 36.7% female, 93.9% Anglo. Results of treatment on teacher and student ratings from the Social Skills Rating System, teacher ratings from the Abbreviated Symptom Questionnaire, ratings of the child-specific target behaviors, and student frequency counts of target behaviors were analyzed using Multivariate Analyses of Variance. The changes in rating measures from pre-test to post-test did not significantly differ between groups. Students in the two more inclusive treatment programs recorded more positive behaviors.     

Disulfiram maintenance employee alcoholism treatment: A three-phase evaluation

Absenteeism rates of industrial employees (N = 21) referred by their employers to alcoholism treatment were evaluated during three phases: pre-treatment (the 24 months immediately prior to treatment); treatment (the period of continuous treatment enrolment, averaging 10.6 months); and post-treatment (the period immediately following treatment, averaging 4.4 months). Treatment consisted of disulfiram maintenance—routine supervised ingestion of disulfiram—without scheduled counseling. The median per cent of scheduled work days absent for each phase was: pre-treatment, 9.8%; treatment, 1.7%; post-treatment, 6.7%. Absenteeism during the treatment phase was significantly less (p < 0.01) than that during pre-treatment and post-treatment, which did not differ significantly from one another. The five-fold reduction in absenteeism was specifically related to treatment delivery, and appears superior to the two-fold reduction reported for traditional employee alcoholism treatment via counseling.     

The depression proneness rating scale: Reliability, validity, and factor structure

This study describes the development of the Depression Proneness Rating Scale (DPRS), a brief, self-administered measure of the tendency to experience frequent, long-lasting, and severe depressions, and three investigations into the scale’s reliability, validity, and factor structure. Study 1, using 100 university students, found a stability coefficient of .82 for the DPRS over a test-retest interval of nine weeks. Further, Time 1 (T1) DPRS scores predicted Time 2 (T2) symptoms of depression, even after adjusting for Time 1 symptoms (R² Change=.03). Study 2, using 440 university students, found the DPRS to be a better predictor of past depressive episodes (r=.41 to .47) than was the Beck Depression Inventory (r=.32). Study 3, using 1101 university students, found that all 13 items of the DPRS loaded .40 or greater on a single factor for both males and females. Overall, results provide substantial evidence for the DPRS as a valid, unidimensional, and practical measure of depression proneness.     

The depression proneness rating scale: Reliability,validity, and factor structure

This study describes the development of the Depression Proneness Rating Scale (DPRS), a brief, self-administered measure of the tendency to experience frequent, long-lasting, and severe depressions, and three investigations into the scale’s reliability, validity, and factor structure. Study 1, using 100 university students, found a stability coefficient of .82 for the DPRS over a test-retest interval of nine weeks. Further, Time 1 (T1) DPRS scores predicted Time 2 (T2) symptoms of depression, even after adjusting for Time 1 symptoms (R² Change=.03). Study 2, using 440 university students, found the DPRS to be a better predictor of past depressive episodes (r=.41 to .47) than was the Beck Depression Inventory (r=.32). Study 3, using 1101 university students, found that all 13 items of the DPRS loaded .40 or greater on a single factor for both males and females. Overall, results provide substantial evidence for the DPRS as a valid, unidimensional, and practical measure of depression proneness.