Cross-cultural second order factor structures of the 16PF

Cross-cultural personality research has generated a great amount of data on individual difference patterns in diverse cultures. One of the major instruments used in this research has been Cattell's 16PF. A major question in this research is whether the underlying personality structure is equivalent for different cultures. The present study evaluated the second order factor structure of the 16PF in 101 subjects of European ancestry and 117 subjects of Japanese ancestry. The factor structure for the Japanese was significantly different from that of the caucasian group. The caucasian results did not differ from those reported by Cattell and his associates. The implications of these results for personality theory and for cross-cultural evaluation were briefly discussed.     

A naturalistic longitudinal evaluation of counselling in primary care

This study evaluated the effectiveness of generic counselling in a primary healthcare setting during three months of counselling and followed up the patients' progress after counselling had finished for the next twenty-one months. Questionnaires were completed by patients within the Dorset Primary Care counselling service on referral to counselling and at set points afterwards. A naturally occurring waiting-list group was compared with patients receiving counselling at baseline and three months. Measurements were taken of patients' psychiatric symptomatology, quality of life (QOL) and self-esteem. Patients who received counselling made highly significant improvements compared with those on the waiting list. These improvements were maintained throughout the long-term follow-up. This would indicate that generic counselling has positive effects that can be maintained for a long period of time after counselling has been completed.     

Levels of specificity of autobiographical memories and of biographical memories of the deceased in bereaved individuals with and without complicated grief

Traumatized individuals experiencing posttraumatic stress have difficulty retrieving specific autobiographical memories to cue words on the Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT; J. M. G. Williams & K. Broadbent, 1986). This may represent a generalized, functional avoidance of the personal past. However, such individuals also often report specific intrusive memories of their trauma in the day-to-day. This raises the possibility that memories tied to the source of the person's distress are immune to this putative avoidance process. This was investigated in bereaved individuals with complicated grief (CG) who reported intrusive, specific memories from the life of their deceased loved one, and matched bereaved controls without CG. Participants performed the AMT and two Biographical Memory Tests (BMTs), cueing memories from the life of the deceased (BMT-Deceased) and from a living significant other (BMT-Living). To negative word cues, the CG group showed reduced specificity for the AMT and BMT-Living, relative to controls, but this effect was reversed on the BMT-Deceased. These data support the proposal that memories tied to the source of an individual's distress are immune to the processes that underlie the standard reduced specificity effect.     

Neuropsychological evaluation in the assessment of personal injury

Neuropsychological evaluation offers unique potentials in the assessment of personal injury claims. Strengths and limitations of major approaches to testing are reviewed, and special attention is given to applications in the particular forensic areas of head injury, toxic environments, physical disease, and malpractice. The varieties of cognitive, emotional, and interpersonal damages which may occur with brain injury are described. Suggestions are provided for forensically appropriate neuropsychological assessment, as well as guidelines offered for discerning inappropriate practices. Issues of neurological malingering, credentialing of the expert, and forensic roles of the neuropsychologist in rehabilitation are discussed.     

Test-retest reliability of the Advanced Psychodiagnostic Interpretation (API) scoring system for the Bender Gestalt in chronic schizophrenics

This study assesses the test-retest reliability of the revised Advanced Psychodiagnostic Interpretation (API) scoring system for the Bender Gestalt Test (BGT). The API system identifies 207 possible distortions in a BGT protocol. Test-retest reliability for 40 schizophrenic patients tested twice with a mean interval of 6.4 years (SD=3.8 years) was good, ranging from .71 to .80. Further reliability and validity studies are needed to further demonstrate the effectiveness of the system.