Object Relations theorists contend that the object representations of borderline personality disordered individuals are distorted in the direction of malevolent and harmful schema. In this connection, the Social Cognitions and Object Relations Scale (SCORS) was developed by Westen and his colleagues (1985, 1988) to assist in assessing object representations. / The typical clinical data used for evaluation by the SCORS system has been narrative stories produced by subjects in response to Thematic Apperception Test. These studies have produced mixed results. For example, the cognitive complexity of object representations of Borderline Personality Disordered subjects (BPDs) has not always been different from that of normal subjects. / The study employed the clinical data contained in Early Childhood Memories (ECMs) to assess the complexity and affect-tone of BPDs as compared to normal individuals. The subjects for this study were 20 clients at the Ancora Psychiatric Hospital, southern New Jersey, and twenty normal comparison subjects who had no history of psychological or psychiatric services and who were matched on the basis of age, race, gender, and education to the clinical sample. Five ECMs were solicited from each subject. These memories were assessed for cognitive complexity and affect-tone through the use of the SCORS rating system. It was hypothesized that the BPD subjects will score higher than the normal subjects on the variable of cognitive complexity and lower than normal subjects on the variable of affect-tone. / This study employed a quasi-experimental, two-group post-test only design. A two-group Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) was conducted. Follow-up t-tests were used to assess group differences on the two dependent variables. The results of the two-group Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) revealed overall significant differences between the Borderline Disordered subjects and the normal subjects. Follow-up tests showed significant between-group differences on the variable of affect-tone, but non-significant between group differences on the variable of cognitive complexity. A Discriminant Analysis yielded an accurate classification rate of 82.50%. / The findings were interpreted from an Object-Relations perspective. In addition, the utility of Early Childhood Memories as an assessment tool and the Social Cognition and Object Relations Scale as a scoring format were also discussed. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-11, Section: B, page: 6443. / Major Professor: F. Donald Kelly. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1995.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_77612 |
| Contributors | Kim, Byeongseok., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 141 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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