Young people's theories of anorexia nervosa and obesity

One hundred and forty-seven participants completed a 108-item questionnaire, based on that used by Fumham and Hume-Wright in 1992 aournal of Clinical Psychology, 48, 20-36) that looked at their beliefs about the causes and cures of anorexia neruosa and obesity. The four parts of the questionnaire were individually factor analysed and an intevretable factor structure emerged for each. while age and knowing someone with anorexia neruosa or obesity did not correlate with the factors obtained, sex, actual body size, estimated body size and having experience of an eating disorder were found to correlate significantly with a number of factors. Factors of cause and cure were not correlated regarding anorexia neruosa, but were for obesity. Several correlations within cause and cure, across both disorders, were also significant. The implications of these jindings and how they relate to the theories described in the Introduction are considered in the Discussion.     

VALUE SYSTEMS AND ANOMIE IN THREE CULTURES

The Rokeach Value Survey was administrated to three equivalent groups of South Africans - Africans (Blacks), Indians (Browns), and Europeans (Whites) - along with the Srole Anomie Scale. It was hypothesized that a number of differences would occur between these groups based on socio-economic structure of the country, their respective affluence, and traditional cultural differences. Values assigned relatively high importance by the Africans concerned equality and peace, while the Europeans place higher value on friendship and love. Although there were large significant differences between the Black and White groups on anomie, these scores did not correlate very highly with the instrumental or terminal values. These results were interpreted in terms of the history and culture of the three groups and the socio-political structure of the society in which they live. Limitations of research of this kind are also noted.     

Learned helplessness and IQ differences

Two groups of adult Ss differing in verbal IQ were compared in a learned helplessness experiment involving cognitive tasks and non-contingent rewards. The mean IQs for the two groups were 131 and 117. As predicted, the higher IQ Ss performed better overall and showed greater awareness of the response-outcome contingency. Their test-task performance was also more affected by the contingency manipulation although this occured only with success feedback. Implications of the results for cognitive accounts of human helplessness are discussed.     

Personality and the perception of TV violence

An experiment was carried out to investigate relationships between individuals' personality characteristics and their perceptions of violent TV portrayals. A panel of 40 viewers rated brief violent episodes from five categories of programming, contemporary British crime-detective series, American police series, westerns, science-fiction series and cartoons on eight scales. These responses were then related to viewers' scores on the N, E and P dimensions of the EPQ. Results showed that violent scores from contemporary settings were rated as more serious than scores from non-contemporary and fantastic settings. In addition, viewers exhibited individual differences in ratings of TV violence which were related to certain of their EPQ scores. In particular, high N scorers tended to perceive violence generally, but especially that from contemporary British drama, as more serious than did low N scorers. This study indicates the need to include personality measures in the analysis of audience reactions to TV violence.     

Social comparison and depression

It has been suggested that a central factor in depression is the experience of feeling different from others. This study set out to examine the relationship between pre-attributional consensus judgments, perceived trait discrepancy from others, and depression. As predicted, low consensus judgments concerning hypothetical events and negative self-evaluations relative to others were associated with depression. These results are discussed in terms of related work on attribution theory and social comparison processes.     

Accepting personality test feedback: A review of the Barnum effect

This article attempts a comprehensive and critical review of the by-now fairly extensive literature on the Barnum effect—the approval/acceptance by subjects of bogus personality interpretations supposedly derived from standard tests. Since the last major review eight years ago various methodological extensions have occurred and various rival hypotheses for established findings have been proposed. The present review is divided into three major sections: client and clinician characteristics; feedback statements and test format; and implications for personality assessment and measurement. Nearly 50 studies on the acceptance of personality interpretations are systematically reviewed and criticized.     

Locus of control and socialization

On the basis of classical association theory, it was predicted that an external locus of control would characterize undersocialization. This hypothesis was tested on a random sample of secondary school children, using a battery of self-report “socialization-delinquent personality” measures to assess degree of socialization. Factorial validity for the use of these measures was obtained from a factor analysis which uncovered a general factor of socialization, while evidence for convergent validity was derived from the relationship between these scales and teacher ratings of refractory behavior. Scores from the Child Nowicki-Strickland Internal-External Scale were found to predict undersocialization in the expected direction. Several possible interpretations of this relationship were suggested and a biosocial explanation was advanced to account for the possible simultaneous development of both externality and undersocialization.     

Explanations for unemployment in Britain

Psychological studies on unemployment in the 1930's and the 1970's and 1980's have concentrated on the psychological impact of unemployment on such things as people's health, self-esteem and social interaction. Furthermore studies have, not unnaturally, concentrated almost exclusively on the unemployed neglecting the employed altogether. Very few studies have concerned the range and determinants of lay explanations or attributions about the causes of unemployment. This study set out to examine differences in the explanations for unemployment as a function of whether people were employed or unemployed, as well as their age, sex, education and voting pattern, The results showed a predictable pattern of differences between the employed and unemployed, the former believing more in individualistic explanations and less in societal explanations than the latter. Whereas there were few sex and age differences, education and vote revealed numerous differences in explanations for unemployment. As in the case with explanations for poverty, Conservatives found individualistic explanations for unemployment more important than Labour voters who in turn found societal explanations more important than Conservative voters. Results were discussed in terms of the psychology of explanations, political socialization and the experience of unemployment. Problems in this study as well as the limitations and difficulties in research of the kind were also discussed.     

The goal structure of situations

An empirical method for analysing the goal structure within and between persons in different social situations is described. The method involves establishing the main goals of occupants of situational roles and then finding out how the different goals inter-relate in terms of degree and type/direction of conflict and compatibility. Principal components analyses were carried out on ratings of importance of goals of those in different situational roles. Criteria of high factor loadings combined with high mean importance ratings were used to produce the main higher order goals for each of the roles. The goals for the six roles studied were, in each case except one: social acceptance/developing relationships, own well being and achieving a specific situational task goal. However, the precise nature of these goals is rather different in the different situations. Inter-relationship of goals was studied using ratings of conflict or compatibility between pairs of goals within and across roles of each situation. The results were used to describe the goal structures of the different situations. The situation with the most conflict between goals was, as expected, the complaint. Ways were suggested in which knowledge of the goal structure, particularly the points of conflict, could help with skilful handling of potentially difficult social situations.