Normal and psychopathological personality characteristics of individuals in alcohol rehabilitation.

Abstract

Relations between normal and psychopathological personality characteristics were investigated in 72 inpatient male alcoholics, who were administered the Personal Styles Inventory (PSI) and the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI). Results support the PSI circumplex model for normal personality traits. All PSI scales correlated significantly with one or more MMPI scales, including the basic MMPI orthogonal factors Anxiety (r= .55) and Repression (r = -.47), showing a relation between normal and pathological personality attributes. The mean MMPI profiles for subjects categorized by normal (PSI) personality traits corresponded significantly to basic MMPI profile types identified in previous research. Implications for counseling alcoholics and developing treatment programs using information from a broader based personality assessment approach are discussed.

Personality differences of first-time and repeat offenders arrested for driving while intoxicated.

“…Although both groups had self-reported problem drinking on the Michigan Alcohol Screening Test and consisted of high proportions of men, neither of these two variables differentiated repeat from first-time offenders. The findings extend Kunce and Newton's (1989) descriptive study of normal and psychopathological characteristics of individuals with chronic problems of alcohol abuse/dependence and further indicate a need for differentiating counseling interventions with regard to normal as well as maladaptive personality attributes.…”

“…The maladaptive correlates of the constructing/stabilizing and systematizing/arranging PSI traits are repression and denial, as measured by the MMPI (Kunce & Newton, 1989) and the Jesness Inventory (Brannon, 1987). The denial observed in problem drinkers with these PSI characteristics may be more a consequence of their reticence to openly express themselves than a consequence of an unawareness of their basic personality characteristics.…”

“…Research on the PSI supports its content validity (Brannon, 1987); construct validity (Cope, Kunce, & Roland, 1990; Kunce & Newton, 1989); and concurrent validity (Kunce & Anderson, 1988; Kunce & Angelone, 1990b; Tedder, 1987). Test-retest correlations for the eight personality traits over a 60-day interval ranged from .81 to .91, with a median of .86 (Kunce & Angelone, 1990a).…”

“…Reynolds (1988) found, for example, that repeat offenders had a very low psychological need for affiliation as measured by the Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation-B (FIRO-B). Similarly, Kunce and Newton (1989) found that the majority of veterans in an inpatient alcoholism treatment program had high scores for social introversion as assessed by both the MMPI and the Personal Styles Inventory (PSI). The veterans' higher-than-average PSI scores for Modest, Reserved, Introspective, and Autonomous Styles are supportive of findings that shyness may predate the onset of problem drinking for some individuals (Schneier, Martin, Liebowitz, Gorman, & Fyer, 1989).…”

Joint factor structure of the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire and the MMPI in a psychiatric and high-risk sample.

“…Moreover, given the distinctions between traditional clinical instruments and normal personality measures, the latter might provide incremental diagnostic and predictive utility when used in conjunction with the former. A review of the recent literature on alcoholism (Brooner, Templer, Svikis & Schmidt, 1990; Kunce & Newton, 1989), as well as research in progress, reveals that a number of clinically oriented research projects have incorporated normal personality measures (Ben-Porath & Waller, 1992), including the MPQ (B. Epstein, personal communication, March 1991; E. F. Torrey, personal communication, January 1991). It is imperative that such efforts be accompanied by construct validation studies of normal personality measures in clinical samples.…”