Conforming behavior and personality variables in college women.

Conforming behavior of 41 freshman women, as measured in an Asch situation, was compared with the scales of the Edwards Personal Preference Schedule, the Gough California Psychological Inventory, and the Gordon Personal Profile. In the sample studied, only the Edward's Abasement scale was able to generate a small but significant relationship (+.33) with a kind of behavior which should have been predictable from some 12 to perhaps 27 of the 38 measures used. Excepting the 5 scales of Gough's 18, on the basis of questionable comparability of samples, a total of 33 measures was correlated with conforming behavior. Only 1 was found to have construct validity for this type of social conformity criterion when tested on a sample of college women. (17 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interrelationship of study skills and personality variables in college students.

Although training in improved study skills is an important function of counseling center personnel, study skills are typically perceived as cognitive skills unrelated to other aspects of functioning. This study was undertaken to determine the relationship of study skills (i.e., study habits and attitudes), as measured by the Survey of Study Habits and Attitudes, to personality variables, as measured by the California Psychological Inventory. Data from 201 freshmen (correlational, contrasted groups, and factor analyses) clearly indicate the complex interdependence of study skills with personality factors and the need to take the latter into consideration. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social desirability ratings of personality variables by Norwegian and American college students.

The statements in Edwards Personal Preference Schedule were used to determine the degree of relationship between social desirability judgments made by Norwegian and American college students. 86 Norwegian Ss averaging 17 years of age and 152 college students of somewhat higher age rate the statements on a 9-point scale ranging from extremely socially desirable to extremely socially undesirable. The correlation between the scale values of the 2 ethnic groups was .78 which indicates a high agreement with 61% of the variance being common. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social perceptions and borderline personality disorder: The relation to mood disorders.

Used the Structural Analysis of Social Behavior to compare the social perceptions of borderline, unipolar, and bipolar-depressed inpatients. As predicted, borderline Ss differed from bipolar-depressed and unipolar Ss in their social perceptions. Borderline Ss viewed their relationships to their mother, hospital staff, and other patients as more hostile and autonomous than did mood disordered Ss. The results are discussed in terms of an integrative theory of borderline personality that considers the psychobiology of interpersonal relationships and attachment disruptions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Student and faculty perceptions of educational values.

"A questionnaire asking respondents to rank nine sets of phrases" representing different objectives of higher education was the basic instrument. 4 hypotheses were formulated as follows: "(a) there is a significant difference between what students wish to gain from college and what faculty consider as worthy objectives of higher education, (b) the expectancies of freshmen and seniors are different, (c) seniors are better able than freshmen to predict expressed faculty goals, and (d) more students than faculty feel that their educational goals are being met at the university." The first hypothesis was confirmed, data on the second hypothesis "led to a rejection," and the third hypothesis "was not confirmed by the data." The "students as a group reported substantially more goal fulfillment than did the faculty." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sexual responsiveness of college students to rape depictions: Inhibitory and disinhibitory effects.

Conducted 2 experiments with a total of 436 undergraduates to identify the specific dimensions in portrayals of sexual violence that inhibit or disinhibit the sexual responsiveness of male and female college students. Exp I replicated earlier findings that normals are less sexually aroused by portrayals of sexual assault than by depictions of mutually consenting sex. In Exp II, it was shown that portraying the rape victim as experiencing an involuntary orgasm disinhibited Ss' sexual responsiveness and resulted in levels of arousal comparable to those elicited by depictions of mutually consenting sex. Surprisingly, however, it was found that although female Ss were most aroused when the rape victim was portrayed as experiencing an orgasm and no pain, males were most aroused when the victim experienced an orgasm and pain. The relevance of these data to pornography and to the common belief among rapists that their victims derive pleasure from being assaulted is discussed. Misattribution, identification, and power explanations of the findings are also discussed. Finally, it is suggested that arousing stimuli that fuse sexuality and violence may have antisocial effects. (37 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Measurement of attitudes toward alcohol and their relation to personality variables.

2 10-item alcohol attitude scales were developed from an available item pool. 1 scale measures favorability of attitude toward "social drinking" while the other taps attitude toward "alcoholism and the alcoholic." Scores on the scales were consistent with ratings of attitudes and of drinking behavior made from interview reports obtained from 2 college student samples participating in a longitudinal study, 92 students at Stanford University and 102 at the University of California, Berkeley. Alcohol attitudes of these groups were correlated with scores on 2 personality variables, "social maturity" and "impulse expression." Differences between the 2 samples, and between the sexes, are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Student and faculty perceptions of student needs and the services of a university counseling center: Differences that make a difference.

800 university students and 400 faculty members were telephoned and asked to estimate how common 14 areas of concern were in the student body and to indicate how likely they would be to refer students to the university counseling service for assistance with those same concerns. Analyses revealed significant differences between the 2 groups on 8 of the 14 items. The 2 groups also differed significantly in their reasons for referring students to counseling. Students were more likely to refer on the basis of a pragmatic need such as finances and career planning. Faculty would refer for personal–social issues. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Student acceptance of generalized personality interpretations: A reexamination.

51 undergraduates given a general personality questionnaire were able to assess correctly the triviality of generalized interpretations when asked to make that judgment. Thus, the student or client can provide valuable feedback to the clinician about his or her personality interpretations if the proper questions are asked. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Providing psychological services to deaf individuals: A response to new perceptions of diversity.

The Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 mandates that psychologists provide equal access to services for persons with disabilities. Disabled individuals, including deaf and hard of hearing persons, form an important part of the diversity spectrum. Deafness and hearing loss significantly affect life experiences, development, and the ability to obtain and use services. Psychologists must develop awareness of the implications thereof in order to provide appropriate services in an ethical manner to such clients. This article presents core knowledge about deafness and hearing loss in an effort to enhance this necessary awareness for practitioners not specializing in this area. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relation of personality, expectancy, and situational variables to self-disclosing behavior.

Studied self-disclosure of female undergraduates after they performed a Gestalt awareness task either in the absence of E and one peer (personal situation) or in the presence of these people (interpersonal situation). Results suggest that knowledge of subjective expectancies, as well as situational contexts, is an effective predictor of what a person feels like inside (e.g., discomfort) and of how she responds to awareness-disclosure questions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Some interactions between personality variables and management styles.

Administered rating scales and Rotter's Internal-External Control scale to 110 hourly employees of a large chemical plant to investigate the interaction between management style and locus of control on workers' satisfaction with supervision and job involvement. Satisfaction with supervision was found to be a function of the interaction between management style and employee internality. Job involvement was directly related to employee internality, with the interaction of management style and employee internality having a negligible effect on this dependent variable. (22 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Incidents of bias in college classrooms: Instructor and student perceptions.

Little is known about incidents of bias specific to college classrooms or how they are handled by instructors. To learn more about this subject, professors, graduate instructors, and undergraduates (N = 2,523) completed surveys assessing perceptions of classroom bias. Results indicated that about a quarter of instructors and half of students perceived an incident of bias in a classroom in the last year. Instructors’ responses to bias commonly included forms of direct confrontation, discussion, and ignoring. Undergraduates perceived significantly more bias than did instructors and rated responses to bias as significantly less effective than did instructors. Undergraduates also reported that instructors were occasionally the perpetrators of bias. These results indicate that preparation of instructors should include increased awareness of bias and methods of handling classroom bias. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Student evaluations of college professors: When gender matters.

Student evaluations completed over a 4-year period at a private liberal arts college were analyzed for the effects of teacher gender, student gender, and divisional affiliation. A significant multivariate interaction between teacher gender and student gender was found for each of the 4 semesters examined. Overall, the ratings of male professors appeared to be unaffected by student gender. In contract, female professors tended to receive their highest ratings from female students and their lowest ratings from male students. This interaction generally remained when possible confounding factors (such as teacher rank) were partialed out. The mean ratings received by female and male professors also varied as a function of the divisional affiliation of the course. Implications of these findings are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Task, setting, and personality variables affecting the desire to work.

120 undergraduates rated their desire to work in (verbally described) situations varying in setting and task variables. Desire to work was significantly greater for (a) easier tasks, (b) less arousing settings, (c) more pleasant tasks, and (d) more pleasant settings. Predicted interaction effects showed that easier tasks and more pleasant settings also allowed more tolerance for arousal from the settings. Results support a proposed expansion of R. M. Yerkes and J. D. Dodson's 1908 law (that performance is an inverted-U shaped function of arousal) in which pleasure and task difficulty affect the optimum arousal level for performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interpretive and supportive forms of psychotherapy and patient personality variables.

A randomized clinical trial investigated the efficacy of interpretive and supportive forms of short-term individual psychotherapy and the interaction of each form with the patient's quality of object relations (QOR) and psychological mindedness (PM). The psychiatric outpatient sample included 144 therapy completers and 27 dropouts. Eight experienced therapists provided distinct forms of manual-guided therapy. Outcome was assessed by a comprehensive battery. The dropout rate was higher for interpretive therapy than for supportive therapy. Patients in both forms improved, but they did not differ on outcome from each other. A multivariate interaction effect indicated a direct relation between QOR and outcome for interpretive therapy and almost no relation for supportive therapy. A multivariate main effect indicated a direct relation between PM and outcome for both forms. The relevance of patient personality to outcome in different forms of therapy is addressed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Spontaneous trait inferences and organisational actions: The formation of organisation personality perceptions.

Organisation personality perceptions, or the attribution of human personality characteristics to an organisation, have been found to affect organisational attraction, job pursuit intentions, and organisational reputation. Although the presence and potency of these attributions have been established, little is known about the manner in which these attributions come about, particularly whether the process is consistent with personality attributions made about human targets. In the current paper, we extend previous work by investigating the underlying social–cognitive mechanism by which organisation personality perceptions are formed. Specifically, we tested the proposition that organisation personality perceptions are spontaneously inferred in a manner that is functionally isomorphic with individual personality perceptions. Study 1 used a cued-recall paradigm, with results indicating that implied trait words improved recall for both individual and organisational actors. Study 2 extended these findings using a lexical decision paradigm; results showed improved performance when making a lexical decision about trait words regardless of whether the actor in a behaviour presented just prior was an individual or an organisation. The results are discussed in terms of their theoretical and practical implications. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sexual symbolism and the variables of sex and personality integration.

The purpose was to reassess the hypothesis of sexual symbolism using stimulus figures similar to those presented in Levy's study (see 28: 8696). The hypotheses were: (1) when asked to designate stimulus objects as male or female, Ss respond to elongated, pointed, or penetrating objects as male, and to hollow, rounded, or enclosing objects as female; and (2) psychiatric patients identify these objects as male or female, respectively, less frequently than nonpsychiatric patients. 20 psychiatric patients and 20 college students, each group made up of an equal number of males and females, served as Ss. Both hypotheses were confirmed at significant levels. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effect of therapist-patient personality variables on therapeutic outcome.

Attempted to assess the effect of therapist and patient personality variables on the outcome of therapy. 55 women and 27 male psychiatric inpatients served as Ss. The MMPI was used to derive personality measures. Therapist and patient ratings of the therapy relationship served as the dependent variables. Therapy outcomes were found to be positively related to therapist's level of anxiety and negatively related to therapist's level of repressiveness. Patients' levels of anxiety and repressiveness were both positively related to outcomes. In 2 instances, increasing similarity between patient and therapist was found to be negatively related to outcome. (15 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Note on "personality variables and response to color."

Some criticisms of an article by Cerbus and Nichols (1963) relating to their report of author's work. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)