New Spanish versions of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) and the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI) were assessed with the Spanish translation of the Diagnostic Interview Schedule (DIS) as the gold standard. Findings from categorical and dimensional analyses suggest that, although the degree of diagnostic concordance of both measures with the DIS was found to be moderately high, the MMPI-2 clinical scales yielded greater specificity but lower sensitivity than the PAI scales on two of four diagnostic categories (i.e., Major Depression, and Schizophrenia). Both measures failed to correctly diagnose Anxiety Disorders, while the MMPI-2 also showed poor diagnostic accuracy with Alcohol Dependence.

The relationship between learned helplessness (Seligman, 1975) and dependence on the judgment of others, as measured by an Asch-type conformity task, was investigated. Relevant constructs were reviewed: helplessness, locus of control, depression, self-esteem, dependency, and Campbell's (1961) epistemological weighting hypothesis. It was reasoned that experience with uncontrollable outcomes would not only result in learned helplessness, but also subjects' confidence in their own ability to control outcomes would be undermined so that they would rely heavily on the judgments of others as opposed to their own. Anxiety, psychological reactance, frustration, anger, or some combination of these resulting in a facilitation of performance was offered as a possible explanation for the unexpected results. Most plausible was that subjects' resulting performance deficits may have represented loss of initiative to control social reinforcers. It this is so, the deficits seen in helplessness experiments should be greater when test tasks involving social reinforcers are utilized. Further research is needed to clarify the interrelationship of helplessness, depression, and conformity/anti-conformity.

There is currently a crisis in military veteran mental health care. At 5-30% of veterans receive a PTSD diagnosis. Veterans face a large gap that exists in accessing and receiving high quality care. One intervention that is becoming more popular is equine assisted counseling (EAC). The purpose of the present study was to examine the effectiveness of Relational Equine-Partnered Counseling (REPC) in reducing symptoms of PTSD in military veterans. I also examined specific PTSD symptom clusters including intrusion, avoidance, negative alterations in cognitions and mood, and alterations in arousal and reactivity. The present study utilized a single-case design consisting of a baseline phase, intervention phase, and post-intervention phase. Participants included four military veterans presenting for war zone-related PTSD: four males and one female, aged 32-67 years, two White/European non-Hispanic, one African American non-Hispanic, and one mixed ethnicity. Symptoms were assessed weekly using the Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale and the PTSD Checklist (PCL-5). The data were analyzed by visual analysis and statistical effect size. The results were mixed across the participants. All participants experienced decreased means between the baseline and intervention phases. However, interpretation of the results indicated that the intervention was effective in some areas for some of the participants. All …

Athletes may be at increased risk for developing disordered eating and pathogenic weight control behaviors due to pressure for their bodies to look a certain way and perform at a high level (Sundgot-Borgen & Torstveit, 2004). Petrie and Greenleaf (2013) proposed a psychosocial model to explain the development of athletes’ disordered eating behaviors. Specifically, they suggested that unique weight/body pressures of the sport environment, general societal pressures about attractiveness, internalization of societal appearance ideals, body dissatisfaction, drive for muscularity, negative affect, and dietary restraint combine and contribute to the development of bulimic symptomatology. The aim of the current study is to test the Petrie and Greenleaf model in a large, nation-wide, diverse sample of male collegiate athletes. Participants were male collegiate athletes (N = 731; Mage = 19.91, SD = 1.50) representing 17 sports and National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Divisions I, II, and III. Participants completed a demographic questionnaire and measures designed to assess their experiences of the above constructs. Structural equation modeling was used to test the pathways proposed in the Petrie and Greenleaf (2013) etiological model. Results suggest that sport pressures, such as those from coaches and teammates about weight, the importance of appearance, and looking good …