Reviews Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) performance as a function of ethnic group membership in Asian Americans, Blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans. Recommends issues raised in the review be addressed by research before it can be concluded that new norms for the MMPI are needed for specific ethnic groups. (Author/NB)

Adult self-directed learning is considered a process of self-instruction. This concept is inadequate because it fails to account for persistence in learning and excludes adults unable to plan self-instruction. These inadequacies can be addressed by studying self-directed learning as it relates to the learner's personality. (Author/CH)

Studied influence of television as a leisure activity in adult women between the ages of 36 and 50 (two groups: one, sports-oriented, the other, not sports-oriented). Nonsports-oriented subjects watched television for passing of time, companionship, and information; the other group viewed television for current events. Leisure activity was direct…

Developed and cross-validated an empirically derived classification system of chronic pain patients. Identified three unique subgroups of chronic pain patients, labeled dysfunctional, interpersonally distressed, and minimizers/adaptive copers. Cross-validated and confirmed the uniqueness and accuracy of the taxonomy in a second study. Offers…

The Objective Measure of Ego Identity was administered to 350 adolescents to test the Eriksonian theory of a developmental continuum from role diffusion to identity achievement. The results offer construct validity for the dynamic process proposed by Blos and Erikson, but do not support the categorization procedure as set forth by Adams, Shea, and…

An examination of a learning style topology through the comparison of information processing and instructional preference toponymies is discussed. It was hypothesized that learning style modes would be discernible within each of these toponymies and that the toponymies would demonstrate orthogonality. Data analyzed for 429 university students…

Examined whether cognitive rigidity is personality trait of suicide attempters or transient characteristic limited to crisis period. Tests for rigidity administered to suicide attempters after the crisis period found subjects less rigid than attempters from previous studies which administered tests during crisis situation. Findings suggest that…

The results of an empirical investigation with 122 university students are discussed in terms of J. E. Marcia's identity status paradigm. E. H. Erikson's notions of institutionalized moratoria, value orientation stages, and the ego-superego struggle for dominance of the personality are related to the identity status categories to the degree that…

When 96 mothers and 46 fathers of 6- or 13-month-old infants independently generated behavioral cues they believed contributed to their perception of their infant's recent easiness/difficultness, few systematic differences were found between easy and difficult infants, 6- and 13-month-olds, males and females, and firstborn and later-born.…

Hutt's hypothesis that anxiety is reflected by absolute size deviations on reproduced Bender-Gestalt figures was investigated by administering the test to 40 subjects. Measures of trait anxiety and defensive style were found to be intercorrelated significantly and to interact significantly with anxiety condition. (Author/BL)

Describes the KAS scale, a new composite anxiety scale that comprises items on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-168 (MMPI-168), a popular short form of the MMPI. Relevant normative statistics and the KAS scale relationship with other MMPI scales are discussed. (Author/KS)

Eighty-four 11-year-olds were grouped in three levels of extraversion on the basis of their Junior Eysenck Personality Inventory score. They were then given an arithmetic test consisting of addition, subtraction, division, and multiplication. A significant interaction between extraversion, sex, and type of operation was found. (Author/CH)

Findings argue for an increased emphasis on temperament research in the first postpartum months, for the development of more age-appropriate assessments, for the simultaneous use of multiple measures in such research, and for the continued inclusion of mothers as credible observers of infant behavior. (Author/RH)

The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) was used to study the personality characteristics of four groups of subjects from incest families: natural father perpetrators, stepfather perpetrators, nonparticipating mothers, and daughter victims. The daughter victims' mean profile was more elevated and differed significantly from the…

Reports results from a study of 377 high school and college students' level of personality psychology knowledge as measured by the 60-item true-false Personality Research Test. Concludes that much of what personality textbooks purport to teach undergraduates may already be known through common informal experiences. (Author/JDH)