Assessment: what role the assessor?

The advent of automated assessment contains the seeds of both threat and promise for professional assessors. Placing the problem in the historical and sociological contexts, this article examines computer-based test interpretation (CBTI) and the frequently misunderstood role of actuarial data in relation to it. I argue that sound clinicianship is central not only to the development of adequate CBTI systems, but also to the systems' appropriate and skillful use in practice. When properly utilized by otherwise well-qualified clinicians, CBTI can substantially enhance practice.     

Using the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory's Scale B and the MacAndrew Alcoholism Scale to identify alcoholics with concurrent psychiatric diagnoses

The ability of the MacAndrew Alcoholism Scale (MAC) and Scale B of the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (MCMI) to discriminate independently defined alcoholics with psychiatric diagnoses from other psychiatric patients was examined for males and all alcoholics, using three different criteria of alcoholism. The MAC identified from 80% to 87% of male alcoholics and 76% to 82% of all alcoholics, and from 25% to 52% of male nonalcoholics and 55% to 75% of all nonalcoholics, resulting in a large number of false positives. Scale B identified from 31% to 60% of male alcoholics and 33% to 43% of all alcoholics, and from 73% to 85% of male nonalcoholics and 85% to 94% of all nonalcoholics. The operating characteristics of Scale B showed that it was not as efficient in identifying alcoholics as previous work had indicated. We suggest that Scale B should not be used and the MAC should be used cautiously to discriminate alcoholics with psychiatric disorders from patients without alcoholism.     

A Rorschach investigation of narcissism and hysteria in antisocial personality

We investigated Rorschach responses associated with narcissism and hysteria in a group of antisocial personality disordered offenders. The Rorschach protocols of 42 subjects who met the criteria from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (3rd ed., rev. [DSM-III-R]; American Psychiatric Association, 1987) for antisocial personality disorder were analyzed using Exner's (1986) criteria for pairs, reflections, and personal responses, and Gacono's (1988) criteria for the impressionistic response. Severe, or primary psychopaths (n = 21), scoring greater than or equal to 30 on the Hare (1980) Psychopathy Checklist (PCL), were compared to moderate, or secondary pscyhopaths (n = 21), scoring less than 30 on the PCL. The mean number of pair and impressionistic responses did not significantly differ for the two antisocial groups. The highly psychopathic group, however, did exhibit a significantly greater mean number of reflection and personal responses. We discuss pair and reflection responses and their relationship to narcissism in psychopathic disturbance. We recommend interpreting the personal response within the context of the psychopathic character and view personal responses as expressions of narcissism and omnipotence in highly psychopathic subjects. We also hypothesize that the impressionistic responses are indicative of primitive dissociative processes and hysteria in psychopathic subjects, and that their presence provides construct validity for the work of Guze (1976) and others who suggested an underlying histrionic dimension to psychopathy.     

Religious self and secular self: Clinical transitions

Clerical people, returning to secular life, may undergo shifts in self-experience, including alterations in internal object relations. Self-psychology, positing the importance to health of cohesion of all aspects of self, provides a theoretical model for exploring such shifts and their facilitation through psychoanalytic psychotherapy. A case of a released Roman Catholic priest is discussed to illustrate dynamic processes. Emphasis is on a clinical approach that does not require conversion of religious and spiritual self-experience into drive derivative formulations     

Ritual and vulnerability

Crises are viewed as direct challenges to one's communal patterns of living. The individual response to crisis(-es) is mediated by the grand rituals of the culture. Ritual behaviors are adaptive behaviors. For the religious community, ritual becomes liturgy. Rite-as-liturgy is a profound statement about the meeting of the human and the divine. Ritual behaviors are understood as liturgical and/or sacramental responses to those crises that bring one to the brink of chaos.     

Assertiveness and social anxiety in Chinese-American women

The notion that Chinese Americans, compared to Caucasian Americans, are passive and nonassertive was examined with self-report and behavioral measures. Chinese-Americans (n = 36) and Caucasian (n = 19) female college students were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: role-playing a series of 13 situations requiring assertion with an Asian experimenter or role-playing the same situations with a Caucasian experimenter. The Chinese-American students were as assertive as the Caucasian subjects on all behavioral measures. Only one self-report measure, the Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale (Watson & Friend, 1968), revealed a significant difference between the two groups; Chinese-American students were more apprehensive about social situations than Caucasian students.     

Choice between delayed reinforcers and fixed-ratio schedules requiring forceful responding.

This experiment measured pigeons' choices between delayed reinforcers and fixed-ratio schedules in which a force of approximately 0.48 N was needed to operate the response key. In ratio-delay conditions, subjects chose between a fixed-ratio schedule and an adjusting delay. The delay was increased or decreased several times a session in order to estimate an indifference point--a delay duration at which the two alternatives were chosen about equally often. Each ratio-delay condition was followed by a delay-delay condition in which subjects chose between the adjusting delay and a variable-time schedule, with the components of this schedule selected to match the ratio completion times of the preceding ratio-delay condition. The adjusting delays at the indifference point were longer when the alternative was a fixed-ratio schedule than when it was a matched variable-time schedule, which indicated a preference for the matched variable-time schedules over the fixed-ratio schedules. This preference increased in a nonlinear manner with increasing ratio size. This nonlinearity was inconsistent with a theory that states that indifference points for both time and ratio schedules can be predicted by multiplying the choice response-reinforcer intervals of the two types of schedules by different multiplicative constants. Two other theories, which predict nonlinear increases in preference for the matched variable-time schedules, are discussed.     

Timeout from concurrent schedules.

Response-contingent timeouts of equal duration and frequency were added to both alternatives of unequal concurrent schedules of reinforcement. For each of 4 pigeons in Experiment 1, relative response rates generally became less extreme as the frequency of timeout increased. In Experiment 2, relative response rates consistently approached indifference as the duration of timeout was increased. Variation in time allocation was less consistent in both experiments. Absolute response rates did not vary with the timeout contingency in either experiment. In a third experiment, neither measure of choice varied systematically when the duration of a postreinforcement blackout was varied. In contrast to the present results, preference has been shown to vary directly with the parameters of shock delivery in related procedures. The pattern of results in the first two experiments follows that obtained with other manipulations of the overall rate of reinforcement in concurrent schedules. The results of the third experiment suggest that an intertrial interval following reinforcement is not a critical feature of the overall rate of reinforcement.     

Letter identification declines with increasing retinal eccentricity at the same rate for normal and dyslexic readers

It has recently been claimed (Geiger & Lettvin, 1987; Perry, Dember, Warm, & Sacks, 1989) that the acuity/eccentricity function is flatter in dyslexics than in normal subjects, with dyslexics showing better performance in the periphery and worse performance at fixation. In these studies, all target letters were presented to the right of fixation, a procedural flaw inviting subjects to optimize performance by directing attention and/or gaze to the right of the designated fixation point. It is suggested that dyslexic and normal readers may differ in the degree to which they might adopt the optimal strategy in this situation. To overcome this problem, target letters were briefly presented at 16 randomly intermixed locations derived from the orthogonal combination of four eccentricities and four directions from fixation (above, below, right, left). The accuracy of letter identification declined with increasing eccentricity at the same rate for good and poor adult readers and dyslexic teenagers. This finding provides no support for the view that the acuity/eccentricity function might vary with and possibly cause differences in reading level.