The Decades of Life: Relocating Erikson's Stages

Erik H. Erikson's life cycle schema consists of eight stages. Three are located in infancy and early childhood (ages 1–5), one in childhood (5–12), one in adolescence, and three in adulthood. This essay proposes a relocation of the stages in terms of decades. The eight psychosocial crises in Erikson's model are retained, but each crisis and its resolution is the central theme of a decade of life. This relocation of Erikson's stages orients the life cycle schema more toward adulthood than to early childhood, as six of the stages now occur in the adult years. It also reflects Erikson's theoretical shift in emphasis from the ego to the sense of I in his later writings. A proposal for how the ninth and tenth decades fit into the schema is also offered.     

Laboratory measured behavioral impulsivity relates to suicide attempt history

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between laboratory behavioral measured impulsivity (using the Immediate and Delayed Memory Tasks) and suicidal attempt histories. Three groups of adults were recruited, those with either: no previous suicide attempts (Control, n = 20), only a single suicide attempt (Single, n = 20), or multiple suicidal attempts (Multiple, n = 10). As hypothesized, impulsive responses increased with the number of suicide attempts (Control < Single < Multiple). This study helps to demonstrate how laboratory behavioral measures of impulsivity can be used to discriminate groups based on suicidal histories among samples not currently exhibiting significant suicidal behaviors.     

Adult attachment and patterns of extradyadic involvement

Relationships between patterns of extradyadic involvement (EDI) and adult attachment were examined separately with undergraduates and community adults reporting prior EDI. Those with fearful or preoccupied styles reported more intimacy motivations for EDI, and undergraduates with these styles also reported more self-esteem motivations. Conversely, those with a dismissive style reported more autonomy motivations for EDI. Those with a fearful attachment style reported ambivalence about intimacy in the EDI. Fearful and preoccupied undergraduates and community males reported a more obsessive extradyadic relationship. However, dismissive individuals did not report more casual EDI. Gender effects also emerged, with females reporting more intimacy motivations than males, and undergraduate males reporting more casual EDI than undergraduate females. In the undergraduate sample, dismissive males had the most extradyadic partners over the prior 2 years relative to all other groups, and preoccupied females reported more partners than secure females. Clinical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Personality, psychopathology, and demographic correlates of medical vs behavioral reasons for referral in alcoholic men

The personality, psychopathological, and demographic differences between 330 alcoholic men referred for behavioral problems and 104 alcoholic men referred for medical problems were examined. The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 indicated that those referred for behavioral problems showed more antisocial characteristics, while those referred for medical reasons had more subjective distress, were more highly introverted, and showed greater somatic preoccupation. Hispanic alcoholic men had a significantly higher proportion of medical referrals than Caucasian and African-American alcoholic men.     

Transforming psychological practice and society. Policies that reflect the new paradigm

As people with disabilities challenge psychology to acknowledge the sociopolitical foundations of their marginalization, they urge psychologists to help improve disability policy within and beyond the borders of the discipline. Understanding disability through a social paradigm offers opportunities to reframe the way psychologists define problems related to disability, to develop more collaborative relationships between psychologists and people with disabilities, and to adopt new professional responsibilities with respect to the disability community. The authors address the impact of the social paradigm on policies within psychology that guide consulting, advocacy, and training. The impact of national policy decisions, such as those associated with reimbursement, on practice and training is also discussed. Highlighted throughout are points of controversy prompted by new disability frameworks that remain open to illumination from the field.     

A field study of frame-of-reference effects on personality test validity

As part of a test validation study at a major U.S.-based airline, the authors tested the effects of providing an "at work" frame-of-reference on the validity of the NEO Five-Factor Inventory among a sample of customer service supervisors (N = 206). Frame-of-reference moderated the validity of the Extraversion and Openness to Experience subscales after controlling for cognitive ability. In addition, the frame-of-reference personality test showed incremental validity over cognitive ability (deltaR2 = .16), but the standard personality test did not (deltaR2 = .05). The authors' discussion focuses on implications for personality theory and research and on implications for increasing the validity of personality tests in organizational settings.     

Refinements in the Rorschach Ego Impairment Index incorporating the human representational variable

The Ego Impairment Index (EII; Perry & Viglione, 1991) is a composite measure of psychological impairment and thought disturbance developed from the empirical and theoretical literature on the Rorschach. In this article, we summarize reliability and validity data regarding the EII. Our major goal was to present the rationale and empirical basis for recent refinements in the EII. Among the subcomponents of the original EII was the Human Experience variable (HEV), which has recently been revised and replaced with the Human Representational variable (HRV; Viglione, Perry, Jansak, Meyer, & Exner, 2003). In this study, we replaced the HEV with the HRV to create the EII-2. This was accomplished by recalculating the factor coefficients with a sample of 363 Rorschach protocols. We present additional validity data for the new EII-2. Research recommendations and interpretive guidelines are also presented.     

Communicator image and Myers-Briggs Type Indicator extraversion-introversion

This study is an examination of the relationship between communicator image and Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) dimensions of extraversion-introversion. The authors found that individuals who prefer extraversion tend to have a more positive communicator image than those who prefer introversion. The results of this study support other research results showing that personality preferences differ in communication behaviors and traits, which could have implications for the individual's comfort and success in society. Results of this research also support the contention that communication behavior has biological aspects.     

Comparison of two creativity style measures

The purpose of this study was to examine the relation between two measures of creativity style for a sample of beginning teachers. 116 student teachers enrolled in an undergraduate teacher-education program in a medium-sized, metropolitan university completed the Kirton Adaption-Innovation Inventory and Basadur Creative Problem Solving Profile measures. A preference for an Innovator style (higher scores on Kirton's inventory) was correlated with the Generator profile on the Basadur profile (r=.36, p<.01). The KAI Efficiency scores, suggesting a preference for broad, global ideas as opposed to narrow, specific ones, was correlated with the Basadur Conceptualizer scores (r=.26, p<.01). Implications are discussed for teachers who must adapt to newer instructional and assessment methods designed to foster students' higher-level thinking skills.