Predicting prison adjustment with MMPI correctional scales.

Investigated the degree to which 8 Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) scales specifically derived to assess correctional criteria related to 6 criteria of subsequent adjustment in prison. In addition, the interrelations among the 8 scales were examined and the scales were tested for racial bias. The 8 scales were J. H. Panton's (see PA, Vols 33:8380, 36:2HD12P, 37:8181, 38:8529, and 63:4486) Adjustment to Prison—Revised, Religious Identification, Homosexuality, Habitual Criminalism, and Parole Violation; H. S. Beall and Panton's (see record 1958-04344-001) Escape; J. H. Clark's (1948) Recidivism; and J. P. Wattron's (see record 1965-01849-001) Prison Maladjustment. Ss were 1,214 inmates (mean age 22.2 yrs) at a federal correctional institution who were admitted over a 2-yr period. Although some statistically significant correlations with the criteria were obtained, their magnitude was low, indicating the scales had little practical usefulness. Comparisons of Black and White subsamples did not indicate that any of the scales are notably more or less valid for one racial group. (40 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Response to personality inventories with situational stress.

"The effect of situational stress on personality inventories was measured by administering the MMPI and GAMIN during class sessions scheduled for midterm examinations to two classes of college students. The S's given the MMPI were informed that their academic performance had been inferior; S's given the GAMIN were informed that the examination would be a particularly difficult one. Significant differences between stress and non-stress scores were observed on D, Winne, and Welsh scales of the MMPI… . Adjustment scores on the GAMIN were also poorer under stress than in a retest situation." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Coping and defense mechanisms related to personality inventories.

Ratings of coping and defense mechanisms were made on the basis of intensive interviews with a sample of 99 men and women. Analyses of the Ss' California Psychological Inventory (CPI) and Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) were conducted by contrasting the item responses of extreme groups based upon the ego-mechanism ratings. Comparisons based on the coping mechanisms produced more differentiating items on the CPI than on the MMPI, and comparisons based on the defense mechanisms produced more on the MMPI than on the CPI. Defense in general, however, is not so well handled by these procedures as coping. The sets of items which were found to characterize the coping and defense mechanisms were then intercorrelated with the standard CPI and MMPI scales. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The significance of time spent in answering personality inventories.

Rankings of electronic sales engineers with respect to success in sales were correlated with ratios of time spent on inventories over time spent on all tests. The highest correlations were sales inventories as related to total time on all tests. The hypothesis that more time would be spent on sales personality and sales interest inventories was supported. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Temporal stability and validity of two personality disorder inventories.

The 3-mo temporal stability of self-report personality disorder scores from the Personality Diagnostic Questionnaire—Revised (PDQ—R; S. Hyler and R. Rieder, 1987) and the MMPI-Personality Disorder scales (MMPI-PD; L. Morey, M. Waugh, and R. Blashfield, 1985) was examined in a sample of 51 psychiatric outpatients. In addition, the convergent and discriminant validity of the scales from the PDQ—R and MMPI-PD were also assessed. Results indicate that PDQ—R and MMPI-PD scores were relatively stable over time, but support was obtained for the validity of only several of the personality disorder scales. Issues concerning the overlap of personality disorders as well as the lack of a "gold standard" to be used for establishing the validity of personality disorder instruments are discussed. Future research aimed at combining multiple forms of Axis II assessment (e.g., self-report, interview, informant) is recommended. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Some thoughts on the "culture-fairness" of personality inventories.

Issues attending the use of personality inventories in cultures other than the one in which it was sired were discussed. To demonstrate some of these points data were presented that indicated differential understandability of certain trait names between two cultures as similar as Canada and the U.S. The need for a research-based program prior to the adoption of non-Canadian tests into Canadian settings was stressed. The documented American-Canadian differences were also discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Development of a structured disguised personality test.

"To develop a disguised but objective personality inventory, a factor analysis was performed on scores based on 400 examinees' tendencies to accept or reject 13 lists of proverbs constructed to cover 13 areas. The three test factors which emerged… were: Conventional Mores, Hostility, and Fear of Failure. Using 200 new examinees, scales were constructed by item analysis to measure each. In subsequent samples, the three scales were found to have corrected split-half reliabilities ranging from .45 to .83 and intercorrelations ranging from - .12 to .54. The reliabilities and intercorrelations among the scales were higher when the groups were more heterogeneous in background. The reliabilities and intercorrelations among the scales suggest that three separate behavioral tendencies are being assessed." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Short-term structured treatment for avoidant personality disorder.

Forty-two men and 34 women (mean age 27.5 years) who met DSM-III criteria for avoidant personality disorder were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 treatment conditions or to a waiting-list control group. Treatment Ss who participated in a 10-week group treatment program displayed significantly greater improvement on a variety of self-report and behavioral measures than did untreated control subjects. The inclusion of skills-training procedures did not contribute to the effects of graduated exposure procedures alone. The gains made during treatment were maintained over the follow-up period, but few further improvements were made. Clinical significance was evaluated by both the subjective evaluation method and the social comparison method. These procedures indicated that although significant improvements had been made, these avoidant Ss were not functioning at the level of normative comparison samples at treatment termination. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of highly structured versus nondirective group counseling approaches on personality and behavioral measures of adjustment in incarcerated felons.

Compared the relative effectiveness of 2 methods of group counseling with incarcerated felons. 80 Ss were randomly assigned to either a new, highly structured method that used specific counseling exercises, a more traditional nondirective group method relatively low in structure, or a waiting-list control group. Treatment effectiveness was evaluated through the California Psychological Inventory and the Bipolar Psychological Inventory, MMPI, and behavioral measures of prison adjustment for 1 yr following treatment. Relative to the nondirective treatment condition, the highly structured approach produced significantly greater empathy, improved interpersonal functioning, and a reduction in frequency of serious rule violations. Contrary to expectations, there were no treatment-produced differences in self-esteem, self-disclosure, or frequency of total rule violations. (11 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Conceptual sorting and personality adjustment in children.

24 relatively well adjusted and 24 relatively poorly adjusted children, selected from 150 normal 6th-grade children, were compared on the Gelb-Goldstein-Weigl-Scheerer Object Sorting Test. Poorly adjusted children made significantly more inadequate sortings than well adjusted children, confirming the prediction of this study. High and average intelligence children were more adequate in their object sortings than low intelligence children. Relatively poorly adjusted children, because of lack of appropriate categories, may not be as able to reduce environmental complexity and assign meaning to events as relatively well adjusted children. High and average intelligence, at this age level, contributes to the ability to abstract and use shared properties as a grouping principle. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Are indigenous personality dimensions culture specific? Philippine inventories and the five-factor model.

The authors addressed the culture specificity of indigenous personality constructs, the generalizability of the 5-factor model (FFM), and the incremental validity of indigenous measures in a collectivistic culture. Filipino college students (N=508) completed 3 indigenous inventories and the Filipino version of the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R). On the basis of the factor and regression analyses, they concluded that (a) most Philippine dimensions are well encompassed by the FFM and thus may not be very culture specific; (b) a few indigenous constructs are less well accounted for by the FFM; these constructs are not unknown in Western cultures, but they may be particularly salient or composed somewhat differently in the Philippines; (c) the structure of the NEO-PI-R FFM replicates well in the Philippines; and (d) Philippine inventories add modest incremental validity beyond the FFM in predicting selected culture-relevant criteria. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The self as a mediator between personality and adjustment.

The self can be conceptualized as a mediating agent that translates personality into situated goal-directed activities and adaptation. This research used a level-of-analysis approach to link personality dimensions (Level 1) to self-systems (Level II) and to teacher ratings of adjustment in African American, Mexican American, and European American students (N?=?317). The authors hypothesized that links among aspects of self-esteem and teacher ratings of adjustment would be domain specific, and those links to dimensions of the 5-factor model would reflect the domain specificity. Structural equation modeling corroborated hypotheses about domain specificity in links between adjustment and 5-factor dimensions. Results were discussed in terms of levels of analysis for personality structure, personality development, and age-related adaptations to social contexts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perceived paternal nurturance-availability and personality adjustment among college males.

Designed and administered a family background questionnaire assessing perceptions of father-child relationships and the amount of time fathers spent at home to 127 white male undergraduates. Ss also completed the Personal Adjustment scale of the Adjective Check List and the Socialization scale of the California Psychological Inventory which were employed as measures of personality adjustment. High paternal nurturance combined with at least moderate paternal availability and high paternal availability combined with at least moderate paternal nurturance were related to high scores on the personality adjustment measures. High paternal availability combined with low paternal nurturance and high paternal nurturance combined with low paternal availability were associated with relatively low scores on the personality adjustment measures. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Comparative validity of two projective and two structured attitude tests in a prison population.

Which is better for assessing personality—structured or projective devices? "Attitude toward Home & Parents and Attitude toward Law & Justice of 79 prison inmates were each measured by a sentence completion test and a structured attitude test. As examined through a multitrait-multimethod matrix, these tests were found to validate each other quite satisfactorily. Insofar as the two measurement approaches differed at all in the efficacy with which they differentiated crime groups among the prisoners, the structured tests were slightly the better." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The application of psychodidactic support groups to facilitate female offenders' adjustment to prison.

Describes a program designed to facilitate newly admitted female inmates' adjustment to prison. More than 95% of the first offenders and 60% of the recidivists who were invited to join this program at the North Carolina Correctional Center for Women agreed to participate. The goals of the psychodidactic program were to promote a supportive group atmosphere, to convey relevant information, and to help group members to relate that information to their personal and collective experiences. Self-report measures indicate that participants experienced themselves as better-adjusted and more accepting of their circumstances than nonparticipants. (11 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The construct validity of differential response latencies in structured personality tests.

Shows that differential response latencies are a meaningful indicator of the presence of a trait. A total of 92 subjects responded to a series of microcomputerized personality test items reflecting 4 different traits on each of 4 occasions. Estimates of internal consistency, parallel forms reliability, and test–retest stability suggested that the reliability of the response latencies was modest. Differential response latencies showed excellent convergent validity for corresponding trait level measures and excellent discriminant validity for irrelevant trait level measures. Moreover, as predicted, the latencies for endorsing trait relevant items were negatively related to trait level measures whereas the latencies for rejecting items were positively related. Differential response latencies had no tendency to group together as a method factor. Rather, the pattern of convergent and discriminant relationships generalized across all 4 retest sessions. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Multivariate analysis of personality correlates of alcohol and drug abuse in a prison population.

Degree of alcohol and drug abuse among 215 prisoners (mean age 26.5 yrs) was analyzed in relation to MMPI scales by means of bivariate, multiple, and canonical correlational procedures. The canonical correlational analysis identified a 1st dimension in which increasing levels of both alcohol and drug use were associated with a generalized propensity for social nonconformity, coupled with a noteworthy anxiety component (F, Pd, and Pt), and a 2nd dimension relating alcohol use alone to neurotic hypochondriacal features (Hs) and drug use alone to psychopathic characteristics (L, Pd, and Ma). Methodological considerations are discussed, emphasizing the advantages of an approach that simultaneously treats alcohol and drug use as continuous variables and seeks to identify the magnitude and nature of the independent components of personality test score variance associated with them. (31 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Predicting future clinical adjustment from treatment outcome and process variables.

General issues relating to the use of outcome and process data from the treatment of antisocial children to predict future childhood adjustment are examined. For outcome measures, it was assumed that variables based on direct observation of child behavior would provide a better predictor of long-term adjustment than would ratings by participant adults. Long-term adjustment measures consisted of police arrest and out-of-home placement data collected 2 years after treatment termination. Observation data collected at termination predicted future police arrest, but parent and teacher ratings did not. It was also hypothesized that measures of the processes thought to produce the changes in child antisocial behavior would serve as predictors of future adjustment. The data supported this hypothesis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)