Methodological issues and the construct validity of the MacAndrew Alcoholism Scale: A response to the rebuttal and constructive comments of Merenda and Sparadeo.

Abstract

This article responds to the criticisms by Merenda-and Sparadeo of our study of the construct validity of the MacAndrew Alcoholism Scale. Although some of their statistical concerns have merit, they have overemphasized the practical importance of these concerns and have overlooked some important findings of our study.

Trajectories of Concurrent Substance Use Disorders: A Developmental, Typological Approach to Comorbidity

“…An additional 36 predictors* were evaluated as potential predictors of family history status and were retained if improved prediction (p Ͻ 0.10) of FH status over the nine broadband measures under both forward and backward stepwise elimination replicated across two split samples. This process led to the retention of two additional items: MMPI-168 Psychopathic Deviance and the School Maladjustment subscale (Graham and Schwartz, 1981) of the MacAndrew (1965) scale. Those high on the Vulnerability Index (i.e., likely to be FHϩ) tended to be more behaviorally undercontrolled (high scores on Psychoticism, School Maladjustment, and MMPI-168 PD), emotionally unstable (high scores on Neuroticism), unconventional (low scores on Lie Scale), and somewhat less cognitively proficient than those low on the index.…”

“…* These 36 variables included cognitive ability items (see Sher et al, 1991Sher et al, , 1997b and personality measures, including private and public selfconsciousness and social anxiety (Fenigstein et al, ), six factor-analytically derived subscales (Graham and Schwartz, 1981) of the MacAndrew (1965) scale, and subscales of the Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire (TPQ; Cloninger, unpublished data, 1987) and the MMPI-168 (Overall et al, 1973). † Although specificity and sensitivity ideally should approach 1.0 in a diagnostic study, this is not necessarily the case in a high-risk study, because not all family history-positive individuals are expected to possess vulnerability, and not all family history-negative individuals are expected to lack vulnerability (Sher, 1991).…”