The Spanish version of the Wisconsin Personality Disorders Inventory-IV (WISPI-IV): tests of validity and reliability

Personality disorders (PD) are a prevalent class of mental disorders that interfere with functioning and cause subjective distress while increasing the intensity and duration of Axis I clinical syndromes, and therefore assessing PD is important even when PDs are not the focus of treatment. The purpose of these studies was to develop and test a new Spanish version of a self-report measure of PD, the Wisconsin Personality Inventory-IV (WISPI-IV) that would be psychometrically equivalent to the English version while also maintaining the same interpersonal content, which is based on Benjamin's analysis of the PD criteria using her Structural Analysis of Social Behavior (SASB) model (1974). Study 1 participants completed the WISPI-IV twice over a two-week interval. For Study 2, participants from two sites in Spain and one site in Argentina completed Spanish versions of the WISPI-IV and other personality measures. SASB-analysis of the translated items showed high correspondence between the interpersonal content of the English version and the Spanish version demonstrating theoretical validation in relation to other PD measures. The Spanish WISPI-IV showed satisfactory reliability based on test-retest correlations and alphas for internal consistency. Study 2 showed the Spanish WISPI-IV had good convergent validity with the Spanish versions of the IIP and SCID-II and performed similarly to the English versions of these measures. Our goal in translating the WISPI-IV was to extend this measure to Spanish-speakers in language that would be understood by different Hispanic sub-groups, however research team members and subjects had a variety of suggestions for changes in item wording. This reflects the difficulty with creating a "neutral" Spanish version of any assessment given regional differences.     

Moderators of informant agreement in the assessment of adolescent psychopathology: extension to a forensic sample

A well-documented finding in developmental psychopathology research is that different informants often provide discrepant ratings of a youth's internalizing and externalizing problems. The current study examines youth- and parent-based moderators (i.e., youth age, gender, and IQ; type of psychopathology; offense category; psychopathic traits; parental education, income, and stress) of informant discrepancies in a sample of young offenders and compares the utility of youth and caregiver reports against relevant clinical outcomes. Results indicate that gender moderated the discrepancy between informant reports of somatic complaints, while parenting stress moderated the discrepancies across reports of internalizing and externalizing psychopathology. Variables unique to the forensic context (e.g., offense category) were found to moderate cross-informant discrepancies in reports of internalizing and externalizing psychopathology. Further, youth self-reports of internalizing symptoms predicted a clinician-generated diagnosis of a mood disorder, while caregiver reports of aggressive behaviors predicted the presence of an externalizing diagnosis. Results highlight the importance of assessing informant agreement in the context of forensic assessment and raise questions surrounding the optimal use of informant data in this setting.     

An enhanced examination of Holland's consistency and differentiation hypotheses

The research support for Holland's concepts of consistency and differentiation has been equivocal (Nauta, 2010). To provide a reexamination of these concepts, a new method of operationalizing Holland's constructs of consistency and differentiation using the cosine fit function to the RIASEC score profile is proposed. The relation of these new indices to career certainty, congruence and the moderation of the congruence–certainty relation were examined in a sample of 118 college students (study 1). Support was found for the superiority of the cosine fit definitions of consistency and differentiation over the traditional representations. The cosine fit indices were further examined in a second study on 167 adults examining interest stability over 15 years. The cosine fit indices of consistency and differentiation were related to both occupational stability over 15 years and career satisfaction. The results suggest that the concepts of differentiation and consistency may still have merit but only with more exact methods of specification.     

Technology and Early Literacy: The Impact of an Integrated Learning System on High-Risk Kindergartners'Achievement

Two hundred sixty-five kindergarten children from a high-risk community participated in an 10-month evaluation of the effectiveness of the Waterford Early Reading Program, a software program designed to facilitate early literacy development. One hundred fifty-one students in eight experimental classrooms used the program for approximately 15 minutes per day. One hundred fourteen students in seven nonintervention classrooms had varying amounts of access to older hardware and software that was not systematically utilized by their teachers. Students were individually pre-and posttested using the TERA-2, the Lindamood Auditory Conceptualization Test, and the Waterford Inventory. Results indicated that students in the experimental classrooms performed significantly better than nonintervention students on the TERA-2 and the Waterford Inventory. Students in the experimental classrooms also showed a trend to outperform nonintervention students on the Lindamood, although not to a significant degree.     

Between Subjugation and Survival: Women, Borderline Personality Disorder and High Security Mental Hospitals

Women in high security mental health care are frequently diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. Such women commonly report histories of child abuse, in particular child sexual abuse, and the vast majority also self-harm. In this paper, we draw on social constructionist theory to develop a framework for understanding these women, the effects of abuse and the reasons they self-harm. We demonstrate how a social model of intervention provides a comprehensive framework for identifying and exploring relevant factors within therapy. We argue that diagnostic categorisation has limited utility in directing therapeutic work with this particular group of women, because it directs attention away from the social world to internal pathology. We demonstrate that it is with reference to women's past and current relationships that borderline behaviour can be understood to be meaningful and partially adaptive. We conclude that treatment is more usefully organised around and directed towards those factors, such as abuse and self-harm, that are implicated in women's ongoing relationship difficulties.     

Acute stress impairs trace eye blink conditioning in females without altering the unconditioned response

Exposure to an acute stressor of inescapable swimming or intermittent tail shocks impairs classical eye blink conditioning 24h later in female rats. This effect is often attributed to a deficit in "learning," but since stress has been shown to induce analgesia, an alternative explanation is that stressor exposure reduces conditioning by lessening the perceived intensity of the unconditioned stimulus (US). To address this possibility we examined the amplitude of the unconditioned response (UR) during training and found that although exposure to the stressor impaired trace conditioning, there was no difference in the UR amplitude. We also found that eye blink responses to different US intensities (4-12 V) in the absence of training were unaffected by stressor exposure. Taken together, these experiments indicate that the stress-induced impairment of conditioning in females is not due to a decreased perception of US strength.     

The impact of high- and low-preference stimuli on vocational and academic performances of youths with severe disabilities

Pictorial and tangible paired-stimulus preference assessments were compared with 4 adolescents with developmental disabilities. In the tangible assessment, two stimuli were placed in front of the participant on each trial; in the pictorial assessment, two line drawings were placed in front of the participant on each trial. Approach responses were recorded for each assessment. The assessments generated similar preference hierarchies for all participants. Reinforcer assessments confirmed that response rates were higher when access to high-preference items was available than when low-preference items were available. Implications for assessing preferences and selecting items to be used in training programs are discussed.     

Significant life events and the shape of memories to come: a hypothesis

Much has been said about how significant life events modulate our response to stimuli that are integral to those events. However, we know less about the more general consequences of these events, that is, how they affect subsequent learning abilities that are seemingly irrelevant to the initial event. Here, it is proposed that significant life events, most often stressful in nature, alter future learned responses by inducing nonspecific and persistent changes in neuroanatomical structures. These changes are induced in the presence of sex and stress hormones, which are released either in response to the event itself or as a consequence of stages of life. To illustrate, the effects of acute stressful experience on learning processes and their regulation by the release of hormones are reviewed. I discuss how these events and their hormonal consequences alter anatomical substrates such as those involved in neurogenesis and synaptogenesis. It is proposed that these modulatory processes allow past experiences to change the shape of memories to come. In this way, memorable life events become less about the past and more about the future.     

Distress and help-seeking as a function of person-environment fit and self-efficacy: A causal model

Self-efficacy, indicators of distress (state anxiety and frequency of physical symptoms), help-seeking (visits to the campus health center, an outside physician, and a counselor), and two measures of person-environment (P-E) fit were assessed on 152 college students and examined in a LISREL model. The two P-E fit measures were perceived discrepancy, the profile difference score between how each student would like their residence floor and how each viewed it as being, and actual discrepancy, the profile difference score between how each would like the floor to be and the mean rating for how floor residents viewed the floor. It was found that self-efficacy and perceived discrepancy had independent and moderate effects on distress but not on help-seeking, whereas actual discrepancy was found to have a strong effect on help-seeking and no direct effect on distress. Help-seeking was found to have a strong negative effect on distress.     

Vulnerability to economic stress

A stress vulnerability model was applied to the relationship between economic stress and mental health. Longitudinal data were obtained by reinterviewing 291 respondents from a prior community survey of economic change and health (Catalano & Dooley, 1983). The follow-up survey was conducted at the height of the last recession, approximately 1 year after the first. As predicted, increases in self-reported economic stress adversely affected psychological health, controlling for prior mental health status. However, individuals with poor prior mental health status were more vulnerable to economic stress: They were more likely to experience it during this economic contraction and were somewhat less likely to recover from it. Economic stress and mental health appear to have reciprocal effects, suggesting a spiral model of adaptation. Implications for interventions concerning economic change and mental health are discussed.