Journal of Consulting Psychology

Holzberg, Jules D.

doi: 10.1037/h0039749pmid: 13715601

It may be possible to reconceptualize the problem of how one trains the intern to perform a research role effectively. In a sense, we may say that the individual learns to do research most effectively when he is globally involved in this process of learning. That is, he learns first by feeling that research is an activity personally and professionally rewarding and by feeling comfortable in performing this research role because it does not conflict with other roles or with his own self-concept; he learns by thinking research, by being involved in activities that will permit him to extend his intellectual horizons with regard to research and particularly clinical research; and finally, he learns by doing research, by actually becoming involved in research activity. Our emphasis here is that the internship's responsibility with regard to developing the research role of the clinician must be to permit the intern to begin to feel like a research person, to provide experiences that will extend his thinking about clinical problems and methods for dealing with them, and to provide an experience of doing in which he may practice the skills of a research worker.

Fisher, Gary M.; Kilman, Beverly A.; Shotwell, Anna M.

doi: 10.1037/h0038345pmid: 13699959

This study sought to determine the effect of age and level of retardation on the comparability of IQs from the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale and the 1960 revision of the Stanford-Binet. In addition, a measure of social competency was related to the IQs from the two scales. The sample consisted of 180 mentally retarded subjects in three California state hospitals who were 18 years or older and who had a diagnosis of familial or undifferentiated mental retardation. It was determined that age, but not level of retardation, was significant in determining the magnitude of the difference between WAIS and S-B IQs. WAIS IQs averaged 15 and 23 points higher than S-B IQs for subjects 18-54 years and 55-73 years, respectively. Regression equations were calculated to translate the IQ from one test to the other test. The WAIS and S-B IQs correlated equally well with Social Ages from the Vineland Scale of Social Maturity.

Leibowitz, H. W.; Pishkin, Vladimir

doi: 10.1037/h0038805pmid: 13760531

The ability to judge correctly the sizes of objects despite variation in viewing distance, i.e., size constancy, represents an important biological achievement of living organisms and has been studied in relation to the underlying mechanisms as well as to psychopathology. This ability to judge object size was determined for a group composed of chronic, undifferentiated schizophrenics, aged 24-56 yrs, as well as a control group of psychiatric aides (aged 25-54 yrs). There were no significant differences in the matches produced by the two groups. Both judged correctly the sizes of the test objects at all distances. It is suggested that the absence of any differences is due to the fact that size matching requires abilities which are fully developed prior to the onset of schizophrenia and which are unaffected by the characteristic withdrawal observed in this pathology.

Heilbrun, Alfred B.; Goodstein, Leonard D.

doi: 10.1037/h0039546pmid: 13712830

This study investigated three issues relative to performance on the Edwards Personal Preference Schedule (EPPS): (a) the relationship between the social desirability of statement alternatives on the questionnaire and the endorsement of statements as self-characteristic when the individual's own desirability values are used as predictors, (b) the prediction of statement endorsement using the individual's social desirability values for the statements as opposed to prediction using group-defined values for the statements, (c) the differential relationships between the individual's social desirability values and performances on the separate scales of the EPPS. The 58 subjects used in this study were obtained from a large undergraduate psychology course at the State University of Iowa. This sample included 29 males and 29 females. The results indicated that the individual's social desirability set is an important source of variance in EPPS performance, since college subjects endorsed as self-characteristic the more highly valued statement at least two out of every three occasions when the statement alternatives were assigned different individual social desirability values. It was also found that individual social desirability values were more highly related to EPPS performance than were group desirability values, a finding which differs from that reported by J. B. Taylor (1959) who used the MMPI as the performance variable. Finally, analysis by separate scales suggested that individual social desirability set is related to most but not all of the EPPS variables.

Peterson, Donald R.

doi: 10.1037/h0038994pmid: 13734828

This study was designed to improve structural definition of children's behavior problems and to examine changes in those problems over the years of middle childhood. Teacher ratings of 58 clinically frequent problems were obtained for 831 kindergarten and elementary school children, and four separate factor analyses were conducted, one for the kindergarten subjects and one each for children in grades 1-2, 3-4, and 5-6. Two factors emerged with remarkable invariance in all four analyses. The first implied a tendency to express impulses against society, and was labeled "conduct problem." The second contained a variety of elements suggesting low self-esteem, social withdrawal, and dysphoric mood. It was called "personality problem." Comparisons over age showed that boys displayed more severe conduct problems than girls at all age levels examined. Kindergarten and primary school boys also showed more severe personality problems than girls, but at the two highest age levels this trend was reversed, and girls displayed more personality problems than boys.

Spanner, Marvin

doi: 10.1037/h0038651pmid: N/A

Many unsystematized explanations have been offered concerning the manner in which judges predict the personality characteristics of others. This paper will focus on two theories currently popular. The first, based on an interpersonal theory of personality, has been most extensively represented by Harry Stack Sullivan. Sullivan suggests that interpersonal prediction is based primarily on an attributive mechanism in which the state of the individual's self-concept determines the quality of the interpersonal appraisal. The second group of explanations of predictive ability involves the mental health of the individual. One hundred military officers were presented with sound movies of stress interviews with four interviewees (social objects) and asked to predict the responses of the social objects on an adjective check-list, as well as to describe themselves on the same instrument. From these basic data measures of accuracy of prediction and similarity of judge and social object were obtained. Measures of the self-acceptance (self/ideal-self correlation) and "soundness" of the judges were also obtained. Contrary to expectations, accuracy was found to be unrelated to similarity of judge and social object, to self-acceptance, and to the rated soundness of the judge. Accuracy scores were related, however, to a combination of similarity and self-acceptance variables. The concepts of disowning and assimilative projection were utilized as a post hoc explanation of accuracy.

Swickard, Don L.; Spilka, Bernard

doi: 10.1037/h0038538pmid: 13774295

This study investigated the relation of hostility to a combination of low socioeconomic status (SES) and minority group membership. The frustration-aggression hypothesis was employed as a theoretical referent, and it was hypothesized that the increased frustration of minority group membership in addition to low SES, would produce more manifestations of hostility than would be observed in majority group members of similar class levels. It was further hypothesized that tendencies to give a "good impression" would relate negatively to manifest hostility and extrapunitive tendencies while relating positively to intropunitiveness and impunitive expressions. 81 Spanish-American and non-Spanish White delinquents on probation served as subjects. All subjects were administered the Siegel Manifest Hostility scale, the Social Desirability scale derived by Edwards, the Rosenzweig Picture-Frustration Study, and the Lie scale from the MMPI. Significant negative correlations were found between the Social Desirability scale and the Siegel Manifest Hostility scale, and the extrapunitive scores from the Rosenzweig Picture-Frustration Study. Significant positive correlations were obtained between the Social Desirability scale and the measures of intropunitiveness and impunitiveness. Once the hostility means were adjusted to remove the effects of social desirability, significance was obtained between the groups on the Manifest Hostility scale. The Spanish-American male group was shown to manifest significantly greater hostility on this measure than any other group, thus partially supporting the main hypothesis.

Rosenberg, B. G.; Sutton-Smith, B.; Morgan, E.

doi: 10.1037/h0039589pmid: 13743382

The present study sought to examine the relative effectiveness of like-sex and opposite-sex scales in discriminating sex role identification. A group of 337 children in the fourth, fifth, and sixth grades in two elementary schools in Northwest Ohio and Southeast Michigan comprised the sample. Each subject received scores on like as well as opposite-sex scales, and three independent measures of emotional stability. Apparently, children scoring high or low on a like-sex scale do not differ significantly on measures of emotional stability. Children scoring high on opposite-sex scales tend to be more anxious, impulsive, and neurotic than children low on opposite-sex scales. Explanations of the differing symptoms of such sex deviant boys and girls are offered. From the results of the present study, there is some doubt that like-sex scales, as they are traditionally used, are as effective as heretofore suspected in discriminating sex role identification.

Sperber, Zanwil

doi: 10.1037/h0038320pmid: N/A

There has been much interest in the effects of anxiety on performance in recent years. In a series of studies Taylor, Spence, and others at Iowa showed that subjects (Ss) with a high anxiety level performed better on a variety of simple tasks than Ss low in anxiety. With more complex tasks, anxiety level tended to have the opposite effect, low anxiety Ss performing better. The purpose of the present study was to determine whether there is any difference in performance between: (a) high test anxiety Ss under high vs. low stress, (b) low test anxiety Ss under high vs. low stress, (c) high test anxiety Ss vs. low test anxiety Ss under high stress, and (d) high test anxiety Ss vs. low test anxiety Ss under low stress. A further purpose was to bring additional evidence to bear on the different theoretical approaches to the problem of anxiety and performance. Ss were new Air Force recruits, scoring in the highest and lowest quartiles on a measure of test anxiety. The significant performance differences were as follows: (1) Under high stress, HTA Ss performed better than LTA Ss on Number Matching tests. (2) Under low stress, LTA Ss performed better than HTA Ss on Letter Substitution and Number Matching tests. (3) Performance of HTA Ss under high stress was superior to that of a group matched on test anxiety but subject to low stress on two of three Number Matching tests. (4) Performance of LTA Ss under low stress was superior to that of a group matched on test anxiety but subject to high stress on the two Letter Series tests. The results are discussed in relation to the findings of Taylor and Spence, and others, and a theoretical formulation is advanced which emphasizes the complex interaction of anxiety, motive, defense, and task variables.

Crookes, T. G.

doi: 10.1037/h0039548pmid: 13696577

A modified form of Wechsler's Deterioration Ratio was calculated retrospectively for 261 male mental hospital inpatients who had been tested routinely over a period of 6 years. The scores were compared with the eventual diagnoses, and it was found that the ratio distinguished organic and nonorganic cases fairly well. In the nonorganic group, there was no variation corresponding to diagnosis, but there was confirmation of previous findings that psychiatric patients give larger ratios than normals. This, however, applied only to the younger group (under-50).