Measurement issues associated with conditional reasoning tests: indirect measurement and test faking.

Conditional reasoning is a new measurement technique used to measure cognitive biases associated with latent personality motives. The current article describes 3 studies examining 2 related measurement issues associated with conditional reasoning tests (CRTs). Study 1 examined the necessity of maintaining indirect assessment when administering CRTs.

Adaptive defense use and resting blood pressure in a population-based sample.

Objectives: There is an accumulating body of research related to the psychosomatic study of blood pressure. One variable that has received attention is defense use. We examined the relation between defense use and blood pressure in men and women of different ages.

The use of defenses and physician health care costs: are physician health care costs lower in persons with more adaptive defense profiles?

Background: The objective of the present study was to determine if persons who use more adaptive defenses have lower physician health care costs compared to those who use less adaptive defenses.

Methods: We randomly selected 667 persons from the 1995 population-based Nova Scotia Health Survey who completed a videotaped structured interview. Each interview was rated for typical defense use by the Defense-Q.