Reliability and validity of the Coolidge Axis II Inventory: a new inventory for the assessment of personality disorders.

This group of studies describes the development of a 200 item, self-report, 4-point true-false inventory (Coolidge Axis II Inventory [CATI]) to assess personality disorders according to the criteria established in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (3rd ed., rev. [DSM-III-R]; American Psychiatric Association, 1987). The 13 personality disorder scales of the CATI had a mean test-retest reliability of .90 and a median internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha) of .76. There was a 50% concordance rate with clinician's diagnosis for 24 personality disordered patients. The median concurrent validity (raw score sums) between the CATI and the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-II for the 13 personality disorder scales was .58. Preliminary studies also support the reliability and validity of Depression, Anxiety, and Brain Dysfunction scales.     

Classification of adult attachment: an integrative taxonomy from attachment and psychoanalytic theories.

Developmental and psychoanalytic theorists have focused increasingly on empirically determined early childhood antecedents of adult attachments, with several resulting taxonomic models. This article suggests a theoretically based and clinically based model of attachment consistent with both psychoanalytic and attachment theories, resulting in an integrative taxonomy of four adult attachment styles: dependent, avoidant, hostile, and resistant-ambivalent. These styles reflect behavioral manifestations of dependence and anger, as derived from the interaction of primitive relational drives, defenses, and interpersonal experience. In addition to theoretical construction, brief clinical examples are presented to facilitate discussion of the model.     

Marital processes predictive of later dissolution: behavior, physiology, and health.

Seventy-three married couples were studied in 1983 and 1987. To identify marital processes associated with dissolution, a balance theory of marriage was used to generate 1 variable for dividing couples into regulated and nonregulated groups. For studying the precursors of divorce, a "cascade" model of marital dissolution, which forms a Guttman-like scale, received preliminary support. Compared with regulated couples, nonregulated couples had (a) marital problems rated as more severe (Time 1); (b) lower marital satisfaction (Time 1 and Time 2); (c) poorer health (Time 2); (d) smaller finger pulse amplitudes (wives); (e) more negative ratings for interactions; (f) more negative emotional expression; (g) less positive emotional expression; (h) more stubbornness and withdrawal from interaction; (i) greater defensiveness; and (j) greater risk for marital dissolution (lower marital satisfaction and higher incidence of consideration of dissolution and of actual separation).     

Job experiences over time, multiple roles, and women's mental health: a longitudinal study.

Are changes over time in the quality of a woman's job associated with changes in her psychological distress? Do family roles moderate these relationships? We addressed these questions using longitudinal data from a 2-year 3-wave study of a stratified random sample of 403 employed women who varied in occupation, race, partnership, and parental status. After estimating individual rates of change for each woman on each of the predictors and the outcome, we modeled the relationships between family role occupancy and change in job-role quality on the one hand, and change in psychological distress on the other. Among single women and women without children, as job-role quality declined, levels of psychological distress increased. Among partnered women and women with children, change in job-role quality was unrelated to change in psychological distress.     

The effect of hypnotically elicited testimony on jurors' judgments of guilt and innocence.

Survey data from several countries indicate that many people believe that hypnosis may increase the accuracy of an eyewitness's memory; most experimental research, however, suggests that this belief is inaccurate. This study examined whether the belief could influence judgments of guilt and innocence in a simulated criminal trial. The results indicated that British undergraduates were more likely to find a male defendant guilty when told that the testimony against him had been elicited under hypnosis. Results concerning a nonhypnotic memory facilitation technique were found to be inconclusive, and the salience of hypnotically elicited testimony was ruled out as a contributory element.     

The development of reactions of the public to warning and emergency situations in France, Greece, and the Netherlands.

This article describes the different reactions to emergency warning messages among residents living within a 3-km radius of a hazardous chemical complex and by people living at least 10 km from an industrial site in France, Greece, and the Netherlands. Belief in warning, primary and secondary appraisal, emotional response, and adherence to normal routine were assessed by conducting face-to-face interviews in which a four-phase scenario simulating a credible industrial accident was presented. The results showed that respondents who did not reside in the neighborhood of the hazardous site were, in general, more inclined to trust the warning messages than respondents who resided in the neighborhood were. With the exception of primary appraisal, the warning phases evoked very distinct reactions in the respondents from all three countries with regard to warning belief, secondary appraisal, emotional response, and adherence to normal routine.     

Effects of response requirement and alcohol on human aggressive responding.

Nine men participated in two experiments to determine the effects of increased response requirement and alcohol administration on free-operant aggressive responding. Two response buttons (A and B) were available. Pressing Button A was maintained by a fixed-ratio 100 schedule of point presentation. Subjects were instructed that completion of each fixed-ratio 10 on Button B resulted in the subtraction of a point from a fictitious second subject. Button B presses were defined as aggressive because they ostensibly resulted in the presentation of an aversive stimulus to another person. Aggressive responses were engendered by a random-time schedule of point loss and were maintained by initiation of intervals free of point loss. Instructions attributed these point losses to Button B presses of the fictitious other subject. In Experiment 1, increasing the ratio requirement on Button B decreased the number of ratios completed in 4 of 5 subjects. In Experiment 2, the effects of placebo and three alcohol doses (0.125, 0.25, and 0.375 g/kg) were determined when Button B presses were maintained at ratio values of 20, 40 and 80. Three subjects who reduced aggressive responding with increasing fixed-ratio values reduced aggressive responding further at higher alcohol doses. One subject who did not reduce aggressive responding with increasing fixed-ratio values increased aggressive responding at the highest alcohol dose. The results of this study support suggestions that alcohol alters aggressive behavior by reducing the control of competing contingencies.     

Molecular contingencies in schedules of intermittent punishment

In two experiments, key pecking of pigeons was maintained by a variable-interval 180-s schedule of food presentation. Conjointly, a second schedule delivered response-dependent electric shock. In the first experiment, shocks were presented according to either a variable-interval or a nondifferential interval-percentile schedule. The variable-interval shock schedule differentially delivered shocks following long interresponse times. Although the nondifferential shock schedules delivered shocks less differentially with respect to interresponse times, the two shock schedules equally reduced the relative frequency of long interresponse times. The second experiment differentially shocked long or short interresponse times in different conditions, with resulting decreases in the relative frequency of the targeted interresponse times. These experiments highlight the importance of selecting the appropriate level of analysis for the interaction of behavior and environment. Orderly relations present at one level of analysis (e.g., interresponse times) may not be revealed at other levels of analysis (e.g., overall response rate).     

Choice between repleting/depleting patches: A concurrent-schedule procedure

Six pigeons responded on two concurrently available keys that defined patches with the following characteristics. Reinforcer stores repleted on a patch as a linear function of time when the bird had last responded to the other patch, or else did not replete. Repletion schedules thus timed only when the bird was absent from the patch. Reinforcer stores on a patch could be depleted and reinforcers obtained, again as a linear function of time, when the bird responded on a key. Depletion schedules thus timed only when the birds were present at a patch. Experiment 1 investigated changing relative depletion rates when repletion rates were constant and equal (Part 1) and changing relative repletion rates when the depletion rates were constant and equal (Part 2). Response- and time-allocation ratios conformed to a generalized matching relation with obtained reinforcer ratios, and there appeared to be no control by the size of the reinforcer stores. In Experiment 2, absolute depletion rates were varied with a pair of unequal repletion rates (Part 3), and absolute repletion rates were varied with a pair of unequal depletion rates (Part 4). Dwell times in the patches were not affected by either variation. Melioration theory predicted the results of Experiment 1 quite closely but erroneously predicted changing dwell times in Experiment 2. Molar maximization theory did not accurately predict the results of either experiment.