Using classification trees to identify psychotherapy patients at risk for poor treatment adherence.

To determine the relative importance of a wide variety of personality and psychopathology variables in influencing patients' adherence to psychotherapy treatment. Two classification trees were trained to predict patients' (1) treatment utilization (i.e.

Video-based Interpersonal Behavioral Evaluation (VIBE): A novel method for the assessment of interpersonal judgment.

One barrier to fully understanding and treating the interpersonal difficulties associated with a variety of psychiatric disorders is a current lack of suitable methodology, which aligns with contemporary interpersonal theory and offers a comprehensive assessment of interpersonal judgment. Specifically, no standardized behavioral interpersonal assessment exists that assesses the accuracy and biases of both interpersonal perceptions and anticipated reactions in a dyadic interaction. The present study presents the development and initial validation of a novel methodology, the Video-based Interpersonal Behavioral Evaluation (VIBE), which (a) utilizes a dynamic (i.

Relations Between Adolescent Sensation Seeking and Risky Sexual Behaviors Across Sex, Race, and Age: A Meta-Analysis.

Sensation seeking (SS)-the seeking of novel and intense sensations or experiences and the willingness to take risks for the sake of such experiences-has been shown to be related to various risky sexual behaviors (RSBs) in areas such as multiple sexual partners, condom use, and sexual initiation. The aims of the current meta-analysis were to examine (1) how SS relates to specific RSBs in adolescents and (2) how the overall relationship between SS and RSB differs across sex, race, and age. Overall, a total of 40 studies met the inclusion criteria for our meta-analysis examining the relationship between SS and RSB, contributing 102 effect sizes.

The self-reference effect as a behavioral indicator of identity disturbances associated with borderline personality features in a non-clinical sample.

Background: Identity disturbances are a common feature of personality pathology and BPD. The Self-Reference Effect paradigm is a method used to measure the impact of self-relevant processing on encoding/memory, whereby self-relevant information is typically advantaged in cognitive processes. We postulated that difficulties with identity might impede the process by which one encodes self-relevant information.

Criterion A: Level of personality functioning in the alternative DSM-5 model for personality disorders.

Criterion A, as represented by Level of Personality Functioning (LPF), offers a means by which to conceptualize the core impairment in self and interpersonal functioning that distinguishes personality disorder (PD) from other forms of psychopathology. One of the most widely cited criticisms of the current Section II in Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition categorical diagnostic system is the high level of comorbidity among the categorical PD diagnoses. The Section III alternative Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition model for PDs (AMPD) addresses this problem by assessing the commonalities of the PDs using a single severity continuum, represented in the AMPD by the Level of Personality Functioning Scale (LPFS), which comprises both self and interpersonal pathology.

Positive Urgency, Drinking Preoccupation, and Alcohol Problems in College Students.

Objective: Individuals high in positive urgency (i.e., impulsiveness stemming from high positive mood) may be more preoccupied with alcohol-related cognitions.

Development and Validation of a Validity Scale for Use with the UPPS-P and Short UPPS-P Impulsive Behavior Scales.

Two of the most widely used self-report measures of impulsivity are the UPPS-P Impulsive Behavior Scale and its shortened version, the SUPPS-P, which currently are limited by their inability to detect careless and/or random responding. The present study develops and cross-validates an inconsistency scale for use with the UPPS-P and SUPPS-P in order to accurately screen for data quality and better detect invalid responding. A total of 443 participants were recruited from Amazon's MTurk online data collection service to serve as the derivation sample and 231 undergraduates were recruited to serve as the cross-validation sample.

Assessing Autism Spectrum Disorder in Intellectually Able Adults with the Personality Assessment Inventory: Normative Data and a Novel Supplemental Indicator.

Differential diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) among intellectually-able adults often presents a clinical challenge, particularly when individuals present in crisis without diagnostic history. The Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI) is a multiscale personality and psychopathology instrument utilized across clinical settings, but to date there are no published normative data for use of the PAI with adults with ASD. This study provides normative PAI data for adults diagnosed with ASD, with effect size comparisons to the PAI clinical standardization sample and an inpatient sample.

Temporal stability and dynamic convergence of the Personality Assessment Screener in a prison sample.

Although the Personality Assessment Screener (PAS; Morey, 1997) has garnered substantial research interest, the measure's temporal stability and sensitivity to change have remained largely uninvestigated. The present study employs a dynamic approach to investigating the convergent and discriminant validity of the PAS by examining relationships between temporal changes on the PAS and changes on external criterion measures, thereby exploring the extent to which changes on the PAS offer meaningful information regarding changes in psychological functioning. Data were obtained from a public dataset funded by the United States Department of Justice in which male inmates were administered various psychological measures at 5 time points spanning the course of a year.

Convergence between Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) and self-report: Another look at some old questions.

Objective: This study extends upon the investigation of the influence of response format on the convergence between performance-based and self-report assessments of similar mental health constructs, to further examine the role of method variance in poor heteromethod convergence.

Methods: An online sample of 455 participants (57% male; mean age = 35.5 years) completed a multiple-choice adaptation of the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)-the Iowa Picture Interpretation Test (IPIT)-and two self-report instruments: the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI) and the International Personality Item Pool (IPIP) representation of the domain traits of the five-factor model.

An investigation of the influence of case and clinician gender in clinical decision-making.

The present study was intended to assess the reliability of clinician judgments, with a particular interest in how such judgments vary by the gender of the case vignette and clinician. A national sample of 123 mental health professionals (57.7% male) provided clinical judgments on 12 case vignettes primarily representing personality pathology; two identical versions of each vignette were prepared, with the only difference being the use of masculine or feminine pronouns identifying the client.

Convergence between Rorschach and self-report: A new look at some old questions.

Objective: This study presents an examination of the influence of response format on convergence between performance-based and self-report assessments of similar mental health constructs, to determine if such method variance might account for prior findings of lack of relationship.

Methods: An online sample of 455 participants (57% male; average age, 35.5) completed a multiple-choice version of the Rorschach and two self-report instruments, the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI) and the International Personality Item Pool (IPIP) representation of the domain traits of the five-factor model (FFM).

Prediction of psychotherapy process and outcome with the Personality Assessment Inventory.

The Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI; Morey, 1991) contains scales that were designed to make predictions about how an individual might respond to treatment, thereby allowing clinicians to attune treatment plans to a client's specific needs. The present study utilized two features of the PAI as predictors of treatment process and outcome in a sample of 47 outpatient veterans: the Treatment Rejection (RXR) scale and the Treatment Process Index (TPI). Data were collected for three treatment process and outcome measures: treatment utilization (ratio of appointments attended to appointments scheduled), therapist-rated therapeutic alliance, and symptom change over time.

Evaluating new supplemental indicators for the Personality Assessment Inventory: Standardization and cross-validation.

As the research literature on the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI; Morey, 1991) has expanded, several supplemental indicators have been introduced to aid in the interpretation of PAI results for the purpose of addressing particular assessment questions, such as protocol validity or treatment-related considerations. However, many of these indicators have remained largely unexamined beyond the initial validation studies in which they were derived. The purpose of the present study was to provide normative data for these new supplemental indicators, as well as to cross-validate these indicators in other existing PAI data sets and provide information about incremental validity beyond existing PAI scales and indices.

Who Are the Turkers? A Characterization of MTurk Workers Using the Personality Assessment Inventory.

As online data collection services such as Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk) gain popularity, the quality and representativeness of such data sources have gained research attention. To date, the majority of existing studies have compared MTurk workers with undergraduate samples, localized community samples, or other Internet-based samples, and thus, there remains little known about the personality and mental health constructs of MTurk workers relative to a national representative sample. The present study addresses these limitations and broadens the scope of existing research through the use of the Personality Assessment Inventory, a multiscale, self-report questionnaire which provides information regarding data validity and personality and psychopathology features standardized against a national U.