Twenty-four psychiatric staff, 24 clinically depressed inpatients, and 24 nondepresssed schizophrenic patients at a state psychiatric facility completed five tasks under either reward or punishment conditions. Each task consisted of 30 trials of pressing or not pressing a button to make a light appear. Monetary reinforcement was contingent on light onset for the final ten trials of each task. Cash incentives for judgment of control accuracy were added for Tasks 3, 4, and 5. Cognitive functioning was evaluated on each task by measuring expectancy, judgment of control, evaluation of performance, and attribution. Mood and self- esteem were measured before and after the procedure. No significant differences were observed across mood groups for expectancy of control or judgment of control accuracy. Subject groups also did not differ in the attributions they made or in how successful they judged their performances to be. They set realistic, attainable criteria for success which were consistent with relevant conditional probabilities. Subjects in reward gave themselves more credit for task performance than subjects in punishment gave themselves blame for comparable performances. Punishment subjects demonstrated more stable, external attributions than those in reward. Across tasks, subjects overestimated when actual control was low and underestimated when actual control …

A number of clinicians have reported that narcissists show grandiosity in self-concept, and rage after receiving disconfirming feedback. This is the first empirical study to test these claims. Subjects with differing levels of narcissism and self-esteem were compared on distortion in self-perception and emotional reaction to negative feedback. Ninety-six college students predicted their levels of intelligence, attractiveness, and interpersonal understanding (empathy) as compared to their peers. Objective measures of these characteristics were obtained, and subjects' predictions, with their actual scores held constant, provided measures of reality distortion in selfperception. Subjects were given feedback comparing their predictions to objective measures at the end of the experiment, and reaction to feedback was assessed by comparing subjects' pre- and post-feedback scores on the Multiple Affect Adjective Checklist-Revised (Zuckerman & Lubin, 1985). Narcissists were expected to react to negative feedback with greater hostility than nonnarcissists. Narcissists evidenced significant distortion in perceptions of their own intelligence, attractiveness, and interpersonal understanding. This finding provided empirical evidence supporting the clinical phenomenon of grandiosity. Narcissists did not react with greater hostility after negative feedback, but as compared to nonnarcissists, they did react with less depression following negative feedback. This supported Kernberg's (1980) assertion that narcissists do not react …

Attitudes toward mental illness and the willingness to seek psychological treatment for their children among ethnic minority group parents were investigated. Participants consisted of black, Hispanic, Native American and Asian parents. All parents were given the Terrell and Terrell Cultural Mistrust Inventory, Cohen and Struening Opinions About Mental Illness Scale, Reid-Gundlach Social Services Satisfaction Scale, Fischer-Turner Attitudes Toward Seeking Professional Help Scale, and Ahluwalia Parents' Psychological Help-Seeking Inventory. A multiple regression model was used to explore the purpose of this study. Parental mistrust level, ethnicity, education, income level, and opinions about mental illness served as predictor variables. The criterion variables consisted of scores on the Social Services Satisfaction Scale and Attitudes Toward Seeking Professional Psychological Help Scale. The results indicated that the most significant predictor of psychological help-seeking was parental cultural mistrust level. Parents with higher cultural mistrust levels were less likely to seek help. Education was also predictive of black and Native American parents' help-seeking attitude and willingness to seek psychological help for their children. Black and Native Americans with lower levels of education were less willing to seek treatment for their children than members of those ethnic groups with higher levels of education. Ethnicity was also related to …

The purpose of this study was to compare the performance of children on the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence-Revised (WPPSI-R) with their performance on the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale: Fourth Edition (SB:FE). One hundred and four children between 3 and 7 years of age were administered both tests. A moderate correlation was found between the WPPSI-R Full Scale IQ and the SB:FE Composite Score with a Pearson product-moment correlation of .46. This correlation suggests that the two tests are not interchangeable measures of children's intelligence. They may measure different, equally important aspects of intelligence. As both tests used are relatively new, the current findings should be considered one step in the accumulation of knowledge about the usefulness of the WPPSI-R.

This study assessed how Constructivist theory accounts for verbal dominance. Conversations of rotating dyads were tape recorded, then coded for measures of dominance. Subjects completed a trait dominance scale and a constructivist personality test. Interpersonal rankings of dominance were found to be more consistent with observed behavior than trait dominance scores. Extreme trait dominance scores were associated with a constructivist measure indicating maladjustment. Dyads identified as more resistant to change were found to use fewer verbal control strategies; male/male dyads were characterized by direct, functional interactions. Dyads that were highly comfortable with one another utilized fewer verbal control methods. Lastly, interactions in which participants reported unfamiliar self-experiencing utilized higher levels of verbal control. Implications for group processing, assessment of dominance and sex differences are discussed.

The Aronson Cognitive Residual Evaluation Scale (ACRES), designed to assess residual cognitive functioning with potential loss due to age or CNS disorder, was examined with a male subject group. The five ACRES subtests were administered to 45 elderly males. Results were compared with a previously reported subject group of 48 elderly females. Measures of the subjects' levels of independent functioning and their performances on selected Wechsler Memory Scale Revised (WMS-R) subtests were related to ACRES scores. Intercorrelations among ACRES subtests suggest that more than one cognitive factor is assessed. WMS-R subtests showed moderately significant correlations with ACRES for verbal tasks and for nonverbal tasks. Findings were discussed within a framework of lateralization of CNS functions.

Raters' response toward victim and perpetrators in the context of rape is examined. More blame is attributed to a female than a male victim by all raters, particularly if the female victim is described only as being raped. Detailed description of different forms of injury resulting from the rape tends to act as a mediating factor in the amount of blame assigned to victims. Whereas the delineation of injury tends to decrease the amount of blame assigned to the female victim, this pattern is reversed for the male. Raters also claim a physically injured rape victim would require a substantially longer recuperation time than one whose injuries are psychological or unspecified.

The purpose of this study was to (1) assess the reliability and validity of anger/hostility measures, (2) examine the relationship between anger/hostility and other negative emotions, and (3) examine the relationship between anger/hostility and health history. Sixty-five subjects were given the Buss Durkee Hostility Inventory (BDHI), the State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory (STAXI), the Profile of Mood States pomsS), the Clinical Analysis Questionnaire (CAQ), the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), the Health and Wellness Attitude Inventory (HWAI), and a health questionnaire designed to provide information about past disease and alcohol/drug use. Overall, the BDHI and POMS displayed good test-retest reliability. All six of the global indices of anger/hostility intercorrelated at a significant level, thus demonstrating good concurrent validity. The six global measures of anger/hostility also correlated at a significant level with other negative emotions.

The influence of cognitive organization, dysfunctional attitudes, and depressive "subtype" on the perceptions of negative life events is explored. BDI scores are used to delineate symptomatic and non-symptomatic groups. Construct content (sociotropic versus autonomous, as first defined by Beck) is used to identify predominant schema-type. Subjects completed a Problematic Situations Questionnaire with Dysfunctional Attitudes Scale. Results indicate that depressed individuals display more dysfunctional attitudes and negative affect in all types of negative situations; further the endorsement of dysfunctional attitudes is significantly more likely to occur in the context of schema-congruent situations. Findings are discussed a) in terms of the utility of personal constructs in the assessment of schema-type and b) in accordance with a person-event interactional model of depression.

The relationship of coronary-prone behavior, hostility, and defense style to atherosclerosis was examined. Subjects were 1,271 patients who underwent coronary angiography at Duke University Medical Center between 1974 and 1980. Type A behavior was assessed using both the Structured Interview and Jenkins Activity Survey. The Cook and Medley Hostility scale and Byrne's Repression-Sensitization scale, both subscales of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, were employed to measure hostility and defense style. The results revealed no significant association between the disease end-points CADSEV, history of myocardial infarction, and history of angina pectoris and either the Structured Interview Type A, hostility, or repression-sensitization, Jenkins Activity Survey defined Type B's, however, were found to more frequently complain of angina. It was suggested future research employ longitudinal or process designs to focus on adaptive functioning from a transactional and developmental perspective which may serve to promote coronary resistance.

The possibility that a positive correlation between nightmare frequency and hypnotic susceptibility reported by Belicki and Belicki (1986) was an artifact of administering a sleep questionnaire in the context of a hypnosis experiment was tested in the present study. Measures of vividness and absorption were also administered. Forty subjects, twenty of whom were told that the measures were related to hypnotic responding, completed the questionnaires immediately prior to hypnosis. Twenty other subjects, who completed the questionnaires in contexts unrelated to hypnosis, were later hypnotized. The hypothesis that context of administration of the questionnaires influenced the relationship between the measures and hypnotic susceptibility was not supported. Replication using a larger sample was recommended.