The MMPI-based typology, developed by Megargee and his associates, classifies criminal offenders and makes recommendations for the management and treatment of the ten types. Recently, several authorities suggested that type How, which is considered the most pathological group, is heterogeneous consisting of "neurotic" and "psychotic" subtypes. The purpose of this study was to investigate this notion empirically. / The MMPI profiles of 155 men (X age = 22.3) incarcerated at(' )a medium security federal correctional institution were subclassified by three clinicians into: "neurotic-like" (HowN: negatively sloped) and "psychotic-like" (HowP: positively sloped) subgroups. Comparing this clinical method of profile differentiation with five more objective procedures found in the literature, similar results were observed. This supported the reliability of the clinicians' ratings. / Next, the proposed subtypes were compared with t-tests on six dependent variables measuring institutional adjustment and three measures of recidivism to determine if they differed in behavior. The two subgroups were also compared with the other nine MMPI types (N = 1009) using Duncan's ranges. These analyses were calculated based on flexible sorting criteria which produced more general subgroups, and stringent criteria which produced extreme subgroups. The subgroups differed significantly on some measures. However, the results were not considered consistent or substantial enough to recommend a subdivision. / The third phase of this investigation considered conceptual issues. The subtypes were compared using t-tests and were also compared with the other nine MMPI types on eleven variables measuring background, demographic characteristics and psychological test results. Using the general and extreme subgroups, similar results were observed. Although significant differences were obtained on some measures, the similarities between the subgroups outweighed the differences. Differential treatment strategies for each type was not considered necessary, but some fine-tuning was suggested. / While clinicians could subclassify MMPI profiles into subtypes reliably, the major conclusion was type How is not in need of subdivision since the proposed subtypes did not differ in their behavior. The empirical procedures used to develop the typology appeared sound. Therefore, future investigators should complete an exercise such as this one before recommending a subdivision in an existing type or the addition of a new type of the system. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 42-06, Section: B, page: 2559. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1981.

It was hypothesized that the desire for equity in relationships and the desire for validation from significant others are common human concerns which affect marital relationship satisfaction. Sixty married couples from Colorado Springs, Colorado completed a series of questionnaires which assessed equity in 23 areas of the marital relationship, global equity in the marital relationship, relationship satisfaction, perceptions of relationship stability, understanding from spouse, validation from spouse, assistance from spouse in intellectual and emotional growth, frequency of stimulating conversations between the marital pair, frequency of affectionate touching from spouse and sexual satisfaction in the marital relationship. Personality similarity between spouses was assessed by comparing the degree of similarity between the spouse's personality profiles on the Jackson Personality Inventory. Subjects who felt validated by their spouses reported more relationship satisfaction, greater relationship stability, more assistance from their spouses in intellectual and emotional growth, and greater sexual satisfaction than did subjects who did not feel validated by their spouses. Overall, equitably treated subjects reported more relationship satisfaction, greater relationship stability, more assistance from spouse in emotional growth, greater sexual satisfaction, and a greater frequency of affectionate touching from their spouses than did inequitably treated subjects. However, these differences between equitably treated and inequitably treated subjects applied primarily to non-validated subjects. Personality similarity between spouses was negatively related to relationship satisfaction. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 42-06, Section: B, page: 2539. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1981.

This study investigated the differences between right and left-handed left hemiplegic persons in the areas of cognitive and perceptual functions. The subjects were 32 right-handed left hemiplegic persons and 32 left-handed left hemiplegic persons who were former or current patients of medical centers, hospitals, or rehabilitation centers located throughout the United States. Etiology included: (a) cerebral thrombosis; (b) cerebral embolism; and (c) intracranial hemorrhage. / The instrument utilized in assessing differences between the right and left-handed groups was the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS). A demographic and WAIS data sheet was completed on all of the subjects. / Results indicated that there were statistically significant differences between the mean Verbal Scale IQ's minus the mean Performance Scale IQ's of right and left-handed left hemiplegic persons. The difference between the two groups was less on average for the left-handed group when compared to the right-handed group. Results may benefit in the expansion of traditional diagnostic and rehabilitative services to include additional objectives for the remediation of physical, psychological, familial, social, and vocational deficits. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 42-06, Section: B, page: 2546. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1981.

This research evaluated several antecedent stimulus conditions for facilitating client conversation during a noon-time family style dining program at a state retardation facility. Experiment one compared a condition using a staff member as the table leader to a condition with the clients serving as table leader, within a multi-element design. Results indicated that more client conversation resulted on both tables under the client-as-table-leader condition. Experiment two evaluated whether the passing and serving of food by the clients themselves produced more subsequent conversation than during meals when they received pre-served plates. Again, a multi-element design was utilized. Here, ambiguous results were obtained: one table evidenced no differences, while the second table engaged in a higher rate of conversation after passing and serving their own food. Experiment three investigated the effectiveness of a designated topic for producing conversational rates beyond that obtained under the optimum conditions discovered in experiments one and two. Within a multiple-baseline design, the results obtained suggest that providing a designated topic increases conversation over that found under the baseline conditions (Client table leader plus pass-and-serve food service). However, the conversational levels obtained in experiment three did not equal the level of conversation found among similarly sized groups of staff members at lunchtime. The potential cost-effectiveness of these antecedent manipulations argues in favor of their use for increasing client interactions as opposed to more costly contingency management systems. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 42-10, Section: B, page: 4194. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1981.

An attempt was made to develop a scale that measures a meaningful set of dimensions of consumer satisfaction with outpatient mental health services. After items were written to ensure content validity of seven presumed dimensions, the scale was administered three times consecutively with empirical item selection occurring after the second administration. The scale was administered first to a small sample of clients at a general psychological services clinic. In the second and third administrations the scale was completed by outpatients at two different Veterans Administration hospitals. Analyses of data from the third administration (based on a sample of N = 174 which was predominantly white, male and middle-aged) showed that both the total scale and six of the seven subscales possess adequate test-retest reliability and internal consistency but that the subscales have poor discriminant validity. A principal factor analysis showed the presence of one major factor but further analysis showed the presence of one major factor but further analyses suggested a tendency for the subscales to emerge as minor factors. It was concluded that the scale measures only one empirically discriminable dimension although the subscales are useful for practical assessment purposes. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 42-10, Section: B, page: 4198. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1981.

The effectiveness of EMG and Thermal biofeedback training for nine women suffering from chronic primary dysmenorrhea was evaluated in a single-subject long-term treatment approach. The women were screened according to selection criteria and were randomly assigned to a treatment progression. Six subjects, four of whom had previously received Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation (TENS) treatment for their dysmenorrhea, received EMG followed by thermal biofeedback, while three subjects received thermal followed by EMG training. Baseline data were collected prior to each treatment condition. Each type of biofeedback training occurred for two menstrual cycles, with the women individually attending 6 thirty-minute sessions within each cycle. An autogenic relaxation exercise was recited during the first 10 minutes of a session, and the appropriate biofeedback training occurred for the final 20 minutes. / A Daily Symptom Scale (DSS) questionnaire, which reported severity and duration of symptoms, medication usage, hours of bed rest, and interference with activities, was completed for the first 2 days of each menstruation. Results indicated a highly significant trend (p < .001) in reduction of DSS values across the course of treatment. Final assessment of symptom changes for eight of the women resulted in one woman rating her symptoms as "greatly improved to completely gone," five rating "greatly improved," and two reporting a "moderate change." / Examination of physiological data, which included trapezius EMG and finger temperature values, revealed a reduction in muscle tension by all subjects by the end of treatment; comparable temperature increases did not occur. Within training sessions, six subjects displayed the ability to control muscle tension, while only two evidenced skin temperature control. / Results were discussed in terms of symptom alleviation as presumably more related to muscular relaxation and control than to peripheral temperature warming. However, further investigation is needed to determine the relationship between biofeedback modalities, physiological changes, and symptom alleviation. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 43-07, Section: B, page: 2324. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1982.

In residential treatment settings, it is essential for many clinical and research purposes to conduct high-quality assessments of the integrity of treatment, that is, the extent to which the intended therapy is occurring. When psychosocial treatment integrity has been measured in these settings, retrospective ratings by direct-care staff have often been utilized. The current study was designed to empirically evaluate the potential of both self-ratings by staff and ratings by their supervisors for accurately assessing treatment integrity. Forty staff members of an inpatient psychiatric unit rated their own behavior toward clients. In addition, 11 unit supervisors completed a similar rating-scale measure on 29 of the workers. When the data were examined at the level of the individual worker, self-ratings by staff and ratings by their supervisors were at best only moderately similar to data on the Staff-Resident Interaction Chronograph, a direct-observational-coding instrument. These results clearly do not warrant use of rating-scale data for clinical decision-making, which often has profound effects on peoples' lives. However, when administered under certain conditions and averaged across respondents, both self-ratings and supervisor ratings did fairly accurately reflect the actual interactional pattern exhibited by the staff group, suggesting some potential for uses requiring information that is accurate at this level (e.g., program evaluation). / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-12, Section: B, page: 6560. / Major Professor: Mark H. Licht. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1992.

This study investigated the applicability of the MMPI-based criminal classification system to people hospitalized by the court after being tried on criminal charges (i.e., those adjudicated to be mentally disordered sex offenders or people who were not guilty by reason of insanity). There were two purposes for this research. One was to investigate the generalizability of a typology found useful with various penal populations. The second was to discover if that classification system could serve as a means of communication between penal institution mental health staff and forensic hospital personnel concerning viable differential treatment and prediction for offenders. / Subjects for the research were drawn from the population at the Forensic Service at the Florida State Hospital in Chattahoochee, Florida. Their MMPI profiles were obtained along with a variety of data from the patients' hospital medical files. To test the applicability of the typology to that population, statistical analyses were performed comparing the hospital patients to the prison subjects studied by Megargee et al. (1979). / There were two hypotheses tested. The first stated that different proportions of people would be classified within each typological category when comparing samples from the two settings. That hypothesis was supported. The second stated that people classified within each category would not differ in their demographic and behavioral correlates, regardless of the institution from which they came. Results did not tend to support that hypothesis. Some procedural flaws were noted, though the investigator still concluded that there was a lack of support for the use of the MMPI-based classification system with forensic hospital populations with the same meaning it has acquired within penal settings. Future research directions are discussed. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 44-12, Section: B, page: 3928. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1983.

The present study investigated relationships between the MMPI and multiple validational referents within an experimental-laboratory situation, where Ss underwent provocative interpersonal stress. / The subject sample comprised an N of 176 black and white, male, prison inmates, ages 18 to 26 years. Subjects with valid MMPI profiles were counterbalanced in assignment to black and white experimenters. The data were collected during a larger research project in 1970-1974. / Experimental procedures resulted in a 3 x 2 factoral design across three classes of dependent variables. Thus, the results were analyzed for MMPI high, medium and low categories, on each standard clinical scale for each of 26 dependent variables. These included reports of subjective feelings, social behaviors and autonomic responses. / Findings were nonsignificant and discussed in light of homogeneity and chance factors as being salient features. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 44-11, Section: B, page: 3538. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1983.

This research posed several questions: Can normal subjects produce a frontal lobe profile on the Luria-Nebraska, Form I, and what effect might coaching have on this ability? In addition, can subjects maintain profile stability over one week's time, and what effect might coaching have on this ability? / Uncoached subjects had considerable difficulty in dissimulating a frontal lobe profile. Coached subjects, on the other hand, produced significantly more profiles that were classified as having frontal lobe damage when critical scale elevations were used to make the classification. In absolute terms, more coached subjects were also classified as "frontal" by judges, but this difference did not reach significance. / In terms of profile stability, the results of this study indicate that a test-retest method for the detection of faking has some promise. Despite subjects being told to try to match their previous performances, the Motor and Expressive Speech scales demonstrated significant differences on retest for both groups. / The question of whether coaching effects profile stability must remain unanswered for the moment. The failure to demonstrate significant differences means little in light of the small sample size. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 45-06, Section: B, page: 1907. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1984.