Coactor's behavior and imitative aggression

After being exposed to either an aggressive or a nonaggressive filmed model, four- and five-year-old boys were tested for imitation while either alone or with a confederate who had also seen the film. The confederate's behavior was either inactive, the same as that in the film, the same as that in the film the child had not seen, novel but of the same category (aggressive or nonaggressive) as that in the film seen, or novel but in the category of the film not seen. These conditions conformed to the dimensions of a 2 × 6 factoral design. According to prediction, the imitation of subjects exposed to the aggressive model was greatest when the confederate's behavior was similar to the model's. No difference in imitation was produced by the confederate's actions if the boy had watched the nonaggressive model. The results were interpreted within the context of social comparison theory.This project was facilitated by the senior author's Margaret Bosshardt Pace and Paul David Pace Research Fellowship.     

MMPI screening scales for somatization disorder

44 items on the MMPI were identified which appear to correspond to some of the symptoms in nine of the 10 groups on the Perley-Guze checklist for somatization disorder (hysteria). This list was organized into two scales, one reflecting the total number of symptoms endorsed and the other the number of organ systems with at least one endorsed symptom. Full MMPIs were then obtained from 29 women with primary affective disorder and 37 women with somatization disorder as part of a follow-up study of a consecutive series of 500 psychiatric clinic patients seen at Washington University. Women with the diagnosis of somatization disorder scored significantly higher on the somatization disorder scales created from the 44 items than did women with only major depression. These new scales appeared to be slightly more effective in identifying somatization disorder than the use of the standard MMPI scales for hypochondriasis and hysteria. Further development is needed.     

Diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder with the MMPI: PK scale scores in somatization disorder

Clinic patients with diagnoses of either major depression or somatization disorder were given the MMPI. Women with somatization disorder had high scores on Keane's MMPI scale (PK) for posttraumatic stress disorder. Following the procedure for the MMPI-2 (46 of the 49 PK items and MMPI-2 norms), 59% of the women with somatization disorder and 21% of the women with major depression would have T scores > or = 65 on the MMPI-2 scale although none of them were known to have developed psychiatric disorder after exposure to a life threatening event. The PK scale has little use in the differential diagnosis of women patients with somatization disorder.     

Psychometric properties of the temperament and character inventory-revised (TCI-R) in a Belgian sample

The Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI; Cloninger, Przybeck, Svrakic, & Wetzel, 1994) is a self-questionnaire developed to assess the 7 dimensions of personality described by Cloninger et al. (1994) with a total of 29 subscales. In 1999, a revised version was proposed by Cloninger (TCI-R). In this study, we present psychometric properties of the TCI-R from 958 French-speaking participants of Belgium. Women exhibited higher scores for harm avoidance, reward dependence, and cooperativeness dimensions. The proposed factorial structure of 4 temperament dimensions and 3 character dimensions was confirmed. The TCI-R inventory had good test-retest reliabilities as well as good alpha coefficients. The addition of 3 new subscales to the original scale for Persistence has produced a very reliable dimension in the TCI-R.     

Quantitative depictions of threatening phenomena in news reports. The scary world of frequency data

Two experiments addressed the question of whether news reports depicting base‐rate data indicative of increasing population size over time would assuage the apprehension and victimization risk associated with another news story depicting frequency increases in a threatening phenomenon during the same time period. Men exposed to the population data manifested lower levels of apprehension and victimization risk than men not exposed to such data, but women showed no reduction in either apprehension and victimization risk than men not exposed to such data, but women showed no reduction in either apprehension or victimization risk after exposure to population data. This interaction was replicated in both experiments. Experiment 2 demonstrated that the same interaction can be produced using base‐rate data other than that depicting population increases over time and that the effects of the base‐rate stories are not merely a product of distraction from the threatening story. Differences in apprehension levels, information processing styles, mathematical problems solving skill, and sex role response sets were considered as alternative explanations for the interaction.     

The genetic and environmental relationship between Cloninger's dimensions of temperament and character

The purpose of this study was to determine whether Cloninger's revised 7-factor model of personality showed incremental validity over his four dimensions of temperament. A sample of 2517 Australian twins aged over 50 between 1993 and 1995 returned completed self-reported measures of Self-directedness, Cooperativeness, and Self-transcendence from Cloninger's Temperament and Character Inventory. Many of these twins had participated in a 1988 study containing Cloninger's temperament measures of Harm Avoidance, Novelty Seeking, Reward Dependence and Persistence. Contrary to theoretical expectations, univariate analyses revealed that familial aggregation for the character dimensions could be entirely explained by additive gene action alone. Although temperament explained 26, 37 and 10% of additive genetic variance in Self-directedness, Cooperativeness and Self-transcendence, respectively, seven genetic factors were required to explain the genetic variance among the TPQ dimensions, and almost all of the non-shared environmental variance was unique to each dimension of character. Our results indicate that the inclusion of all seven dimensions in a taxonomy of personality is warranted.     

The psychobiological theory of temperament and character: comment on Farmer and Goldberg (2008)

The revised Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI-R) is the third stage of development of a widely used multiscale personality inventory that began with the Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire (TPQ) and then the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI). The author describes the third stage of the psychobiological theory of temperament and character; empirical tests of its predictions from genetics, neurobiology, psychosocial development, and clinical studies; and empirical findings that stimulated incremental changes in theory and test construction. Linear factor analysis is an inadequate method for evaluating the nonlinear and dynamical nature of the intrapsychic processes that influence human personality. Traits derived by factor analysis under the doubtful assumption of linearity are actually heterogeneous composites of rational and emotional processes that differ fundamentally in their underlying brain processes. The predictions of the psychobiological theory are strongly validated by extensive data from genetics, neurobiology, longitudinal studies of development, and clinical assessment. The distinction between temperament and character allows the TCI and TCI-R to outperform other popular personality inventories in distinguishing individuals with personality disorders from others and in describing the developmental path to well-being in terms of dynamical processes within the individual that are useful for both research and clinical practice.     

Social support and work–family conflict: A test of an indirect effects model

Most work–family research on social support is based on matching domain relationships, that is, social support in the work domain is related to work interfering with family conflict (WIF) and social support in the family domain is related to family interfering with work conflict (FIW). In this research, based on the conservation of resources (COR) model, we examined the cross domain indirect relationship between social support in the work domain and FIW and the cross domain indirect relationship between social support in the family domain and WIF. We tested this model across three samples in two studies. In Study 1, we examined the cross domain influence of supervisory and spouse support on work–family conflict using two large random samples (N = 1130; N = 2769). In Study 2, we tested an expanded model of social support to include both generic and work–family specific support, and examined the cross domain indirect relationships between these two types of support on work–family conflict using a sample of 435 employees. Specifically, we proposed that social support systems in the work domain such as family friendly organizational policies, family supportive organizational climate, perceived organizational support, and perceived supervisory support will be indirectly and negatively related to FIW via WIF and that spouse/partner support will be indirectly and negatively related to WIF via FIW. Results for Study 1 provided support for the cross domain indirect effects model and results for Study 2 provided support for the cross domain indirect effects for work–family specific social support systems. We discuss implications of these results for the theory and practice of managing work–family conflict.     

A practical way to diagnosis personality disorder: a proposal

General criteria for the diagnosis of personality disorder are provided based on rating a few items describing four core features of personality disorder: (a) low Self-directedness, (b) low Cooperativeness, (c) low Affective Stability, and (d) low Self-transcendence. These core features correspond closely with the basic concept of personality disorder in DSM-IV and are based on specific items easy for clinicians to rate in a short time. Criteria are also provided for rating severity of personality disorganization and for subtyping based on a profile of three additional dimensions corresponding to core features of DSM-IV clusters A, B, and C. This approach should facilitate efficient screening in clinical practice, encourage an understanding of the development of comorbidity as a self-organizing process, and provide a theory-driven basis for therapeutic planning with drugs and psychotherapy.