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No description available.

The present study involved the development of an objective paper-and-pencil measure of McClelland's personalized power theory of alcoholism. This theory proposes that alcoholics have a high personalized power need that they satisfy by drinking alcohol. Need for personalized power is characterized by a desire to prove oneself by defeating an opponent in one-to-one combat. Since they are unable to satisfy this need directly, alcoholics drink alcohol, the physiological and psychological effects of which are interpreted by the individual as strengthening, therefore satisfying the personalized power need. The study consisted of two phases. The first phase was designed to establish the applicability of the personalized power theory to alcoholics and developing a questionnaire to measure personalized power. The second phase was involved with cross-validating the instrument, establishing the reliability and comparing it with what is currently the most frequently utilized screening instrument for alcoholism. Alcoholic subjects came from the population in treatment at the Alcohol Treatment Unit of the Tucson, Arizona Veterans Administration Medical Center. The control group was composed of outpatients at the same facility. The results of Phase I indicate that alcoholics have high personalized power needs. In addition, an instrument was developed to measure personalized power. The instrument was developed using a composite approach from four already established instruments (the MacAndrews Alcoholism Scale, the Personal Reaction Inventory, the Machiavellianism IV Scale and the F Scale). In Phase II the instrument showed high reliability across a two week test-retest interval. Additionally, the instrument showed high concurrent validity, accurately categorizing 86% of the Phase II sample as alcoholic or control. There were significant differences between the sample's responses on this measure. The construct validity of the instrument was established primarily by the logic of its development and, to a lesser extent, by the method of internal consistency. The instrument, hereafter referred to as the Gingras-Kahn Inventory of Personalized Power (G-KIPP), compared very favorably with the most frequently used screening instrument, the MacAndrews Alcoholism Scale. The G-KIPP exceeded the MacAndrews on every measure and was more efficient at screening the alcoholics from the controls in the sample. The study also included a drinking pattern questionnaire. This questionnaire revealed that alcoholics suffered in more than one area because of their drinking. Most alcoholics reported suffering psychologically, physically, socially, economically and legally because of their drinking. The typical alcoholic had a 20-year history of drinking before realizing that he had a problem and then spent eight more years before seeking treatment. Alcoholics also liked different aspects of drinking than did controls. The controls liked the taste, the social aspects and the relaxation associated with drinking. Alcoholics were more likely to report liking the sensation of being inebriated and liked being able to forget as a result of drinking. The relationships of these findings to the theory of personalized power was discussed. These findings were discussed in relationship to the theory of personalized power and in relationship to the treatment program that is based on this theory. The advantages of theoretically-derived instruments were discussed compared to empirically-derived instruments.

The primary objective of this study was the development and investigation of the psychometric properties of a measurement instrument based on the integrated model of behavior roles of offspring of alcoholic parents (Schneider, 1989,1995). The Behavior Role Scale was developed utilizing Crocker and Algina's (1986) 10 step instrument development process and deals directly with the concepts of the original models of behavior roles of offspring of alcoholic parents (Black, 1981; Booz-Allen & Hamilton, 1974; Deutsch, 1983; Kritzberg, 1985; Wegscheider, 1981). The first three steps of the instrument development were completed in an earlier investigation (Schneider, 1989). In this investigation, steps 4 - 8 were completed. The following activities were undertaken: step 4, the construction of an initial pool of items; step 5, the review and revision of the items with the assistance of a panel of experts; step 6, a preliminary tryout of the items in a pilot test; step 7, a field test of the instrument with a nonclinical sample of offspring of alcoholic parents and offspring of nonalcoholic parents; and, step 8, initial investigation of the psychometric properties of the behavior role scale. This investigation contributed the following findings. The field test yielded reliability estimates of .72 for the Caretaker, .67 for the Super Achiever, .86 for the Invisible One, .89 for the Jester, .78 for the Rebel, and an overall alpha of .88. Initial validity was indicated by the emergence of a five factor model as the most interpretable factor analysis solution. The performance of the Behavior Role Scale was also investigated using six validity issues identified in the literature. Offspring of alcoholic parents, offspring of nonalcoholic parents who had experienced a significant family disruption, and offspring of nonalcoholic parents who had not experienced a significant family disruption had significantly different scores with the Super Achiever, Invisible One, and Rebel roles. The three groups did not demonstrate significant differences with the Caretaker or Jester roles. Additional significant differences were discovered with the Jester and Rebel roles among offspring of alcoholic fathers when they were compared according to their fathers' pattern of drinking. The findings of this investigation add to the research evidence which suggests that refinements need to be made to improve the clinical and psycho-educational uses of the behavior roles of offspring of alcoholic parents. Recommendations for future research include submitting the Behavior Role Scale to construct validation studies in order to further refine its ability to measure behavior roles and to be of assistance to researchers seeking to unravel the complexities of life for more than 28 million offspring of alcoholic parents.

Whereas many studies of adult children of alcoholics (COAs) have utilized clinical subjects, subjects in this study (n = 229) were relatively well functioning college students. The Children ofAlcoholics Screening Test (CAST; Jones, 1983) was utilized to define parental alcoholism.Results of a multivariate analysis of variance indicated that COAs were more likely to exhibit symptoms related to poor psychological adjustment than were their non-COA peers. No significant psychological differences in male and female COAs were found. COAs scored significantly higher than non-COAs (p.< .01) on the Alienation scale of the Psychological Screening Inventory (PSI; Lanyon, 1978), indicating the greater similarity of COAs to those with psychiatric problems. Social Nonconformity, as a measure of psychopathic behavior, was higher for COAs than for non-COAs (p. < .001). COAs from lower income families demonstrated higher scores on the Discomfort scale (p < .01), which measures symptoms. Those subjects who reported parental greater symptomatology and anxiety than those who reported no parental depression (p. ( .001). Although parental divorce rates were higher for COAs (32.4%) as compared to non-COAs (10.9%), no significant association with any of the psychological variables was found for parental divorce.In comparison to non-COAs, both male and female COAs evidenced greater problem alcohol use (p < .001) measured by the Michigan Alcoholism Screening Test (MAST; Selzer, 1971). As demonstrated by a MAST score of 7 or more, 88.8% of male COAs and 30.5% of female COAs indicated serious alcohol-related problems. Parental depression was also significantly related to problem alcohol use in subjects. It was found that the MacAndrew scale (MAC; MacAndrew, 1965) was of little utility for identifying subjects with problem alcohol use. / Department of Educational Psychology

This study is an examination of the relationships between alcoholics' and nonalcoholics' attributions and their emotions of anxiety and depression. The research design is an ex post facto/causal comparative analysis. Subjects were 150 white males. The treatment factor is separated into three levels: no treatment for alcoholism (50 nonalcoholics), two or three day treatment for alcoholism (50 alcoholics in detoxification units), and three to six months of treatment for alcoholism (50 alcoholics in a supportive living situation, halfway house, three-quarterway house). The Michigan Alcoholism Screening Test (MAST) was used to separate nonalcoholics from alcoholics. The variables measured for the three populations are: attributional style (as measured by the Attributional Style Questionnaire-revised for drinking practices) and emotional state (as measured by the Profile of Mood State).One-way MANOVA analysis was used to examine the data because there are three attributional areas measured by the ASQ (internality, stability, and globality) and two emotional areas measured by the POMS (tension-anxiety, depression-dejection). MANOVA analysis resulted in a significant F. The three groups were significantly different at the multivariate level in terms of attributional and emotional states.Discriminate analysis was used to determine if the groups were reliably different. Both synthetic variables analyzed resulted in significant results. The first synthetic variable was labeled "emotional stability," and the second was labeled "specific causal attribution."Univariate analysis showed: (1) no significant difference between groups on the internal/external dimension or the stable/unstable dimension, (2) significant difference at the .01 level on the global/specific dimension when comparing alcoholics in recovery and nonalcoholics, and (3) significant difference at the .01 level on anxiety and depression levels of each of the three group comparisons.Pearson Product Correlations were examined to understand the relationships between attributions and emotional states for alcoholics and nonalcoholics. The stable/unstable and global/specific dimensions are positively correlated with depression and the global/specific dimension is positively correlated with anxiety.All the hypotheses were supported:1. Alcoholics in detoxification make different attributions and have different mood states than alcoholics in recovery.2. Nonalcoholics make different attributions and have different mood states than alcoholics in treatment and in recovery.3. There are correlational relationships between the attributions and emotional states for alcoholics and nonalcoholics.Some alcoholic treatment recommendations were made. / Department of Counseling Psychology and Guidance Services

The purpose of this correlational study was to determine if women alcoholics (n = 31) percieve their surroundings differently, and thereby make decisions differently, than men alcoholics (n = 29), women nonalcohoics (n = 30) and men nonalcoholics (n = 29).The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (Form 6) was utilized to determine reported preferences on extraversion-introversion (EI), sensing-intuition (SN), thinking-feeling (TF) and judgment-perception (JP). A 2 x 2 factorial analysis was conducted to tests the research questionsthe .05 level of significance. Other statistical analyses included a multiple regression analysis and Cronbacks Alpha coefficient of reliability.Findings1. Female alcoholics do not demonstrate an extraversion-introversion attitudinal preference that is significantly different than male alcoholics, female nonalcoholics and male nonalcoholics.2. Female alcoholics do not perceive their surroundings significantly different as reported on the sensing-intuition index than male alcoholics, female nonalcoholics and male nonalcoholics.3. Female alcoholics report no significant difference on preference for the thinking-feeling modes of judging than male alcoholics, female nonalcoholics and male nonalcoholics.4. Female alcoholics report no significant difference on preference for judgment-perception modes than male alcoholics, female nonalcoholics and male nonalcoholics.5. The main effect of Alcoholic Status accounted for differences between groups on EI. Alcoholics reported a preference for extraversion.6. A two-way interaction of Gender and Alcoholic Status on SI indicated that male alcoholics preferred the sensing mode while the male nonalcoholics preferred the intuition mode.7. The main effect of Gender showed that the women preferred the feeling mode and the men reported a preference for thinking.8. Demographic information indicated that the women alcoholics identified specific precipitating events to their drinking more often than men alcoholics and that the time between the onset of drinking and treatment was less for the women than for the men. The women reported a more frequent occurence of alcoholism among family members than the men.ConclusionsWomen alcoholics did not report a preference on any of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator indices of EI, SN, TF, and JP that was significantly different from men alcoholics, women nonalcoholics and men nonalcoholics. In addition, the MBTI was not validated as a reliable clinical instrument. Recommendations for further research are made.

There is no abstract available for this dissertation.

Much empirical evidence attests to a strong relationship between the panic-related disorders and alcoholism. Recent data suggest that anxiety sensitivity (fear of anxiety) may be one common underlying vailable contributing to the large degree of overlap between the panic-related disorders and alcoholism. In fact, some data indicate that the relationship between anxiety sensitivity and alcohol misuse may be particularly strong in women, a group which is generally underrepresented in the alcoholism etiology literature. Research described in this thesis was conducted with the aim of further elucidating the nature of the relationship between anxiety sensitivity and alcohol use/abuse in young adult women. The series of seven experiments included in this thesis demonstrated that: (1) high levels of anxiety sensitivity are characteristic of subjects meeting diagnostic criteria for panic disorder, an anxiety disorder frequently associated with alcohol abuse; (2) female university students demonstrate significantly higher average levels of anxiety sensitivity than male university students; (3) anxiety sensitivity is an important predictor of self-reported rates of alcohol consumption in university women; (4) high anxiety sensitive university students are both more likely to report drinking alcohol primarily to "cope" with negative emotional states, and less likely to report drinking alcohol primarily for social-affiliative motives, than are low anxiety sensitive university students; (5) high anxiety sensitive women display greater degrees of sober subjective-emotional arousal when anticipating aversive stimulation, greater degrees of sober electrodermal reactivity to the aversive stimulation, and greater sensitivity to the dampening effects of alcohol on these measures of reactivity, than low anxiety sensitive controls; (6) high anxiety sensitive women show a sober attentional bias favoring the processing of physically threatening information, which is dampened through th

The influence of a primarily Public form of self-awareness and of Private and Public Self-Consciousness on drunken physical aggression and complex reaction-time were examined. Two forms of the balanced-placebo design were employed. Results indicated that each form of self-focus played a significant role in the determination of various aspects of drunken comportment. Consumption of alcohol did not eliminate self-aware behavior on the measures employed. Public Self-Consciousness acted to increase drunken impairment. A modified form of the balanced-placebo design proved superior to the standard version for use with moderately high doses (1.32 ml/kg) of alcohol on a measure of subjective intoxication. The implications for the literature on self-focus and drunken comportment are discussed.