Accurate diagnosis of personality disorders: Some critical factors

Issues pertaining to the accurate diagnosis of personality disorders are discussed from a scientist-practitioner perspective. An attempt is made to distinguish state (Axis I) from trait (Axis II) disorders, and personality (“normal”) from personality disorders (“abnormal”). The reliability and validity of personality disorder diagnoses are explored, and the four criteria for all personality disorder diagnoses are clarified: These criteria are: 1) presence of psychological symptomology, 2) stability over time, 3) consistency across situations, and 4) under-responsiveness to currently available treatments. Also, a distinction is made between categorical and dimensional diagnostic criteria, similar to the distinction between personality type and trait approaches. Recommendations are provided for improving the clinical and empirical work in this area, and implications for treatment are discussed.     

Critics and dissenters: reflections on "anti-psychiatry" in the United States

During the 1970s various professionals and social activists adopted an explicitly anti-psychiatry position which was perceived by many as a new phenomenon. Hostility to psychiatry actually predates the establishment of psychiatry as a profession in 1844, and organized opposition to psychiatric practices appeared in the late nineteenth century. The deinstitutionalization of the 1970s, which was aided by development within psychiatry, had a strong anti-psychiatry component, but the novel aspect was the organization of ex-mental patients themselves. By the 1980s the decline of psychiatric power, dissension among ex-patients, and new social trends vitiated the anti-psychiatry movement.     

Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due: A Case of No Sex Bias in Attribution1

This study examines the effects of informational cues on the attribution of success in a masculine task. Israeli managers (subjects) first evaluated the performance of a fictitious male/female manager and then attributed a cause to his/her success in attaining the managerial position. As predicted, performance evaluation affected the attribution and manager sex did not. An unexpected association between leadership style and attribution was found. Implications of these findings for female managers and for further research are considered.     

Effects of Job Conditions on Worker Perceptions: Ambient Stimuli vs. Group Influence1

This study identifies the direct effects of objective job conditions on individual perceptions of job conditions. The assumptions that (1) group perceptions mediate the relationship between objective job conditions and individual perceptions of job conditions, and (2) group consensus enhances the relationship be-between group perceptions and individual perceptions were tested. Respondents were white, male, blue collar workers (N= 1240) in a tire and rubber manufacturing plant. Work groups (N= 156), consisting of four or more men on the same shift, in the same department, and who had the same supervisor, were identified. Objective job conditions included work group size, pay style, shift, and job technology. Group and individual perceptions of amount of work-load, role conflict, responsibility pressure, and intrinsic rewards were measured. The findings indicated that objective job conditions have important effects on individual perceptions of stressful and rewarding job conditions. Smaller work groups, and jobs that pay on an hourly rather than a piece-work basis, allow for some control over the pace of work, and allow for interaction among fellow workers resulted in higher levels of intrinsic rewards and lower levels of workload, role conflict, and responsibility pressures. An intriguing pattern appeared where, in perceptions involving interpersonal relations, work group influence was relatively more important than objective job conditions. When assessing task oriented aspects of work, objective job conditions were more important than group perceptions.     

Intraview©: Career Development Through Business Communication

The authors offer the Intraview©: Communication Intervention Strategy as a means of reducing high Communication Apprehension (CA). This intervention strategy, based on helping individuals to know more about themselves and their interactions with others, was implemented in a pretest, posttest, and control design, and CA was reduced at a statistically significant level (.01).     

The Depressive Experiences Questionnaire: revision and validation

The present study presents a new, unit-weight scoring system for the Depressive Experiences Questionnaire (DEQ). One hundred thirty-one college students completed the DEQ, the Bem Sex-Role Inventory (BSRI), and the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). The revised DEQ scales were shown to have substantial levels of internal consistency. The three subscales of the revised DEQ were significantly correlated with the BSRI masculinity and femininity scales but not with gender. Significant correlations were also obtained between DEQ anaclitic, DEQ introjective scales and the BDI.