Learning and psychopathology.

Experiments concerning the learning of abnormal human Ss are reviewed. The review includes discussion of how persons with particular types of psychopathology learn different kinds of tasks as well as the reasons suggested for the learning phenomena found. (73 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Culture and psychopathology.

"In my opinion, the major contribution of anthropology to symptomatology is the opportunity it offers for reducing the ethnocentrism of the diagnostician… . The fact is that most distinctions between the fundamental symptomatological concepts in psychiatry have implicit or explicit social or cultural reference… . It follows that a valid diagnosis cannot be based on symptomatology alone, but must be derived from a study of the psychodynamics of the individual's patient in relation to his social and cultural milieu… . It is obvious that the content of a syndrome is influenced by the patient's culture… . Finally, the culture influences the individual's perception of a situation." The author's points are illustrated by material drawn from case studies. 45 references. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personality and psychopathology.

The author outlines a biometric model for analysis of behavior on 5 major levels of activity: physiological, sensory, perceptual, psychomotor, and conceptual. The tests and the technique are described and evaluated. 47 references. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Crime and psychopathology.

"This study investigated the relations between type of crime, age, intelligence, and degree of psychopathology, as measured by the MMPI F score. MMPIs were available from 190 white male court referrals who were nearly all classified as low socioeconomic status. It should be noted that one crime class (i.e., lewd acts on children) would have been excluded from the analysis if the usual criteria for discarding MMPIs had been used. A definite relationship between type of crime and degree of psychopathology was found. Individuals who commit sexual crimes appear to be the most seriously emotionally disturbed. No difference in mean F score between Ss released to the courts vs. those retained in the hospital was found." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Ego disjunction and psychopathology.

"This study was designed to test the hypothesis that degree of ego disjunction is positively related to degree of psychopathology. A scale based upon the Edwards Personal Preference Schedule was devised to measure ego disjunction. College Students, Adolescents, Neurotics, Character Disorders, and Schizophrenics were tested and the following results were found… . a positive relationship between degree of ego disjunction and degree of psychopathology was demonstrated… . scores yielded three significantly different subgroups… . Schizophrenics alone;… Character Disorders, Neurotics and Adolescents;… [and] College Students alone." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Size constancy in psychopathology.

Size-constancy judgments were made by 21 schizophrenics, 17 psychotically depressed, 16 hysterical character disordered patients, and 35 normal controls. Judgments were obtained for a neutral stimulus, a circle of light, under 4 experimental conditions which varied the number of distance cues available to S. The psychotic patients were more constant in all experimental conditions; all groups exhibited increasing constancy with increasing distance cues. Anchor effects were less for the controls and most marked in the schizophrenics and hysterical character disorders when distance cues were minimal. Results are interpreted as a function of an integrative defect in perception relating to psychosis rather than specific to schizophrenia. It is hypothesized that the psychotics are more sensitive to the information available whether or not such information leads to veridical perception. (16 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Readability of adult psychopathology inventories.

Although most manuals for psychopathology inventories suggest a minimal level of reading ability necessary for valid administration, supporting data are not always provided. To establish guidelines for clinical use of commonly used psychopathology inventories, this study examined the text and vocabulary complexity of 4 tests: MMPI-2, Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-II (MCMI-II), Basic Personality Inventory, and Personality Inventory Assessment. Analysis of the complexity of complete item sets showed that the inventories had overall reading levels at the 5th grade or lower, but measures of the difficulty of individual scales and vocabulary difficulty of the entire inventories showed that the 6th-grade level is a better estimate. Guidelines are given for testing Ss of various levels of education. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Fantasy proneness and psychopathology.

In Study 1, we administered objective (MMPI) and projective (Rorschach) measures to high fantasy prone individuals (upper 4% of college population), medium fantasy prone individuals (middle range), and nonfantasizers (lowest 4%). Subjects who were fantasizers appeared to use fantasy for defensive or adaptive purposes compared with others and produced 8/9 modal code types on the MMPI. On the basis of the MMPI findings, a subset of fantasizers could be described as exhibiting a significant degree of psychopathology. In Study 2, a second sample of fantasy prone individuals could not be distinguished from comparison groups in contacts with professionals for help with psychological problems, use of psychotropic medication, or number of close friendships. Although fantasizers perceived themselves as less well adjusted than comparison subjects and reported greater difficulty in distinguishing fantasy from reality, most fantasizers rated their psychological functioning as adequate and above and did not differ from less fantasy prone subjects in ratings of positivity of self-concept. As demonstrated in Study 1, a subset of fantasizers did appear to be more pathological than other subjects were, with three fantasizers reporting a history of psychiatric hospitalizations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Inconsistent communications and psychopathology.

Investigated the presence of possible incongruity between verbal and nonverbal components of parental messages to a disturbed child. Video-taped family interactions of 2 groups of families in which there were 2 degrees of psychopathology of an adolescent member were employed. There were 2 different measures of incongruity between attitude conveyed in verbalizations and posture. Findings did not support the hypothesized relationship between incongruity and degree of pathology. Results did however indicate a relationship between degree of negative attitude conveyed by parental messages and rated psychopathology of the adolescent in the family. It was found that parents of the more disturbed adolescents verbally communicate more negative attitudes toward the adolescents than parents of the less disturbed adolescents. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Adolescent attachment and psychopathology.

The relationships among attachment classification, psychopathology, and personality traits were examined in a group of 60 psychiatrically hospitalized adolescents. The concordance of attachment classification was examined in 27 adolescent-mother pairs. Both adolescent and maternal attachment status were overwhelmingly insecure and were highly concordant. Adolescents showing a dismissing attachment organization were more likely to have a conduct or substance abuse disorder, narcissistic or antisocial personality disorder, and self-reported narcissistic, antisocial, and paranoid personality traits. Adolescents showing a preoccupied attachment organization were more likely to have an affective disorder, obsessive-compulsive, histrionic, borderline or schizotypal personality disorder, and self-reported avoidant, anxious, and dysthymic personality traits. The results support a model of development of psychopathology based partially on relational experiences with parents. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive controls and psychopathology.

Studied 90 psychiatric inpatients (nonpsychotic, nonschizophrenic psychotic, schizophrenic) and 35 normal controls to (a) determine whether some of the traditional cognitive controls could be isolated in these patients and (b) evaluate whether various diagnostic groups differed from each other and from normals in terms of these congitive controls. Ss were administered a battery of cognitive control tasks (e.g., the Phillips Scale of Premorbid Adjustment, WAIS, and Rorschach tests). With age, socioeconomic status, and verbal IQ as covariates, the factor structure for the total group was similar to that reported in other studies of cognitive control organization in the normal population. Schizophrenic and other psychiatric patients were not characterized by distinctly different organizations of cognitive controls. Although patients showed specific areas of cognitive dysfunctions, these seemed to be related to degree of disorganization. (41 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The origins of confusion.

Repeats previous criticism of the work of S. Dinitz, H. Goldman, H. E. Allen, and L. A. Lindner as resting on an inadequate data base. A series of published reports by the group are ostensibly independent but seem to be derived from a single study, a 1969 dissertation by Allen. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Experimental psychopathology in psychological science.

Although the enterprise of experimental psychopathology has been around for quite some time, the integrative role that it plays in psychological science has not received explicit attention. This issue sits on the backdrop of theoretical and empirical evidence that, as an enterprise, experimental psychopathology has the potential to tie together psychological processes studied both in basic and applied domains. In this article, the authors discuss the nature of experimental psychopathology, focusing on its research agenda, historical perspective, and why and how it can be improved to have more of a direct impact in the study of psychopathology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Comparing factor structures of adolescent psychopathology.

Research on the structure of adolescent psychopathology can provide information on broad factors that underlie different forms of maladjustment in youths. Multiple studies from the literature on adult populations suggest that 2 factors, Internalizing and Externalizing, meaningfully comprise the factor structure of adult psychopathology (e.g., Krueger, 1999) and presumably represent broad vulnerability for co-occurring disorders. Though this research was partially inspired by early work with children and adolescents (e.g., Achenbach & Edelbrock, 1984), the role of substance use in these models of youth psychopathology has not been fully explored. Toward this goal, we recruited 223 youths (10–17 years of age, M = 14.2) from mental health agencies and the community. We found evidence for a 3-factor model of youth psychopathology, including Internalizing (depression, generalized anxiety), Externalizing (conduct disorder, attention deficit, oppositional defiant disorder), and Substance Use (alcohol and cannabis). The 3-factor model showed the best fit to the data relative to other factor models tested, including across subsamples of adolescents who differed on level of psychopathology (treatment vs. community samples). Implications for the structure of adolescent psychopathology, including important developmental considerations, are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Parental alcoholism and childhood psychopathology.

We reviewed studies about children of alcoholic parents published between 1975 and 1985 to clarify the relation between parental alcoholism and child psychopathology. We identified methodological problems in this body of literature and organized substantive findings around eight areas of outcome: (a) hyperactivity and conduct disorder; (b) substance abuse, delinquency, and truancy; (c) cognitive functioning; (d) social inadequacy; (e) somatic problems; (f) anxiety and depressive symptoms; (g) physical abuse; and (h) dysfunctional family interactions. The literature as a whole supported the contention that parental alcoholism is associated with a heightened incidence of child symptoms of psychopathology, in comparison with no increased incidence in offspring of nondisturbed parents. However, neither all nor a major portion of the population of children from alcoholic homes are inevitably doomed to childhood psychological disorder. Findings are discussed in terms of causality, child resiliency, and potential qualifying factors, such as variations in family disruption. Recommendations are presented regarding methodological improvements, possible mediating variables, and a multiple-risk conceptualization. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Modes of temporal orientation and psychopathology.

Investigated modes of temporal orientation in 18 psychiatric outpatients and a nonpsychiatric comparison population. A Q-sort technique was employed to assess actual temporal orientation and ideal temporal orientation. Ss' ability to project themselves into the future was obtained from story completions and a future-events test. Ss' ratings of their self-satisfaction were related to psychiatric status and temporal orientation. Outpatients expressed greater dissatisfaction with their actual temporal orientation, desiring it to be more future oriented. The measured ideal temporal orientations were the same for both groups. Temporal extension was also significantly more abbreviated for outpatients. Results indicate that comparison Ss endorse statements reflecting a significantly greater future actual temporal orientation than do outpatients. Greatest satisfaction with self seems to be associated with a moderate future temporal orientation. (24 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Pain in psychopathology. Brief phenomenological analysis

The dentist is faced with a daunting task in application of clinical skills to achieve maximum cosmetic results when it comes to the management of discoloured and/or hypoplastic dentition. In this paper, an overview is made of the diagnosis and the management of these broadly termed conditions and the cost-effectiveness of the various modalities discussed.     

The origins of symbolic racism.

The theory of symbolic racism places its origins in a blend of anti-Black affect and conservative values, particularly individualism. We clarify that hypothesis, test it directly, and report several findings consistent with it. Study 1 shows that racial prejudice and general political conservatism fall into 2 separate factors, with symbolic racism loading about equally on both. Study 2 found that the anti-Black affect and individualism significantly explain symbolic racism. The best-fitting model both fuses those 2 elements into a single construct (Black individualism) and includes them separately. The effects of Black individualism on racial policy preferences are mostly mediated by symbolic racism. Study 3 shows that Black individualism is distinctively racial, with effects distinctly different from either an analogous gender individualism or race-neutral individualism. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)