Some personality and aptitudinal correlates of the "A-B" therapist scale.

On the basis of prior research showing similarities between practicing therapists and undergraduates varying in A-B status, 12 scales from the Omnibus Personality Inventory and the 4 component scores of the American College Testing Program battery were related to A-B status of about 2400 undergraduates. A stepwise discriminant analysis showed that the present set of measures significantly discriminated male As from ABs (middles) and Bs, and that the differences between As and Bs involved the joint effects of masculinity-femininity, verbal aptitude, and natural science aptitude measures. As and Bs differed in a way consistent with previous reasearch on "cognitive style." Correlational and factor-analytic data indicated that the A-B variable cannot be regarded as linearly related to those measures which discriminated As from Bs. A quasi-typological interpretation of the A-B variable was proposed and methodological implications were drawn. (20 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)