Arie Cohen

Test Anxiety and Its Effect on the Personality of Students with Learning Disabilities.

The purpose of this study was to look for personality variables that characterized young adults with learning disabilities and test anxiety. Fifty-four Israeli adults diagnosed with learning disabilities participated in the study, 24 of them were diagnosed as having test anxiety; 30 did not have test anxiety. The participants completed the Test Anxiety Inventory (TAI) to validate the diagnosis of test anxiety and the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) to assess the different personality profiles. The results showed significant differences between the two groups on 35 out of 68 measures of the MMPI-2. A discriminant-function analysis of the content scales, the supplementary scales, and the Harris-Lingoes scales of the MMPI-2 showed that one measure, College Maladjustment, explained most of the variance. Further analysis assessed the various test anxiety profiles of the two types of test anxiety, “emotionality” and “worry.” The meaning of the results is discussed as a basis for explaining the profile of a student with learning disabilities and test anxiety.

Using the WISC-R to identify attentional deficit disorder

The purpose of the present research was to test the utility of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R) subscales in differentiating between children with Attentional Dificit Disorder (ADD) and children with other problems. Twenty-four children with ADD and a control group of 19 children with behavioral/emotional disorders were identified on the basis of historical background and intake interview. The results indicated that scores on three WISC-R subscales—Arithmetic, Digit Span, and Coding—were significantly lower among the ADD group. The practical implications of the findings are discussed.

A Psychosocial Typology of Drug Addicts and Implications for Treatment

The underlying assumption of the paper is that the poor state of our understanding in the field of addiction stems, in part, from our failure to differentiate among different personality structures to be found in addicted people. To test this assumption, a typology was developed based on personal and psychological data of 663 drug addicts. Cluster analysis of these data, which did not include variables pertaining to drug abuse, resulted in nine types of addicts with different sociocultural backgrounds and psychological makeups. Treatment recommendations, including goals, techniques, staff, settings, and prognosis are offered for five types. The paper concludes that drug addicts are not a homogeneous group, but that there are different types of addicts with differing motives for drug use and differing psychological needs, and therefore drug addiction treatment should be matched with the specific needs of each type.

The “Urge to Classify” the Narcotic Addict: A Review of Psychiatric Classification. II

Attempts to classify drug addicts are divided into three main groups: (1) psychiatric classifications, (2) psychosocial classifications, and (3) classifications by pattern of abuse. An extensive literature review of the psychiatric classifications of narcotic addicts suggests that there is no one diagnosis that fits all narcotic addicts and that the importance of psychopathology in drug addiction has been exaggerated. It is concluded that theoretical psychiatric classifications of narcotic addicts have failed to stimulate empirical research and that empirical classifications have not demonstrated their utility for treatment and prognosis.

An exploratory study of individual differences in perceptual centering and decentering.

Summary Perceptual centering and decentering, or internal versus external locus of perception, was studied as a function of individual differences in cognitive style, locus of control, and approval motivation (defensiveness?), with adolescent male Ss. Locus of perception was operationalized as the Ss responses to discrete tactile stimulation using a new technique to infer an internal versus external orientation. Locus of perception as measured was found to be a significant function of all three individual difference variables [multiple correlation R = .70 (p < .05)]. Implications for theoretical analyses of processes of centering and decentering were suggested.

A Factor Analysis of the Israeli Fear Survey Inventory

Behavior modification has gained in popularity in Israel of late. Given the unique security situation and other cues peculiar to Israeli conditions and culture, an Israeli Fear Survey Inventory has been adapted from the American model. This inventory was administered to students and responses for each sex (129 males, 215 females) were separately factor analyzed. Although in general the factor structures for the two sexes tended to overlap, certain important differences were found, in particular, the fact that “Seeing Blood” was the primary factor among the males and only secondary among the females. It appears that the “Seeing Blood” factor was more crucial for the males owing to the more immediate dangers and experiences involved in military service for men in Israel.

The Common-Item Problem in Measurement: Effects on Cross-Cultural Invariance of Personality Inventory Structure

A previous study has reported the similarity of the California Psychological Inventory (CPI) structure in American and Israeli samples. In the present paper, however, it is argued that the invariance of structure of the CPI between these two samples may be partially attributable to a common-item effect—that is, the scoring of some items on more than one scale. This common-item effect may superimpose or magnify a similarity of structure. Data analyses supporting this view are presented. It is concluded that a common-item effect in cross-cultural comparison of structure should be considered, otherwise, a similarity of structure between two cultures may be inferred when such a similarity does not exist.

Attentional Deficit Disorder and short‐term visual memory

Twenty-four children with Attentional Deficit Disorder (ADD) were compared to a control group of 17 children with emotional problems. All the subjects were tested on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R), along with an adaptation of the Coding subtest to measure short-term visual memory. The results showed superiority of the control group on the short-term visual memory task. The correlations of short-term visual memory with each of the subtests of the WISC-R were different for each group. For the emotional group short-term visual memory correlated significantly with the WISC-R verbal scores, while in the ADD group visual memory more often significantly correlated with performance subtests. In the discussion an attempt was made to explore the reasons for these differences and their implications for academic tasks.

The Common Item In Measurement: Effects On Structure

Procedures for analyzing common item effects on the inference of personality structure were reviewed and a study using smallest space analysis of the CPI reported. Solutions to three matrices -- intercorrelation matrix of the original CPI scales, of reduced scales (with common items removed), and of the number of common items -- were compared visually, and by interpoint distance correlations and configurational similarity analyses. Marked similarity among the original structure, the item-overlap-free structure and the built-in structure was observed. It was concluded that common items magnify an intrinsic structure already existing among scales and that the common-item problem is not likely a serious on in personality measurement.

Fears in American and Israeli Women

Summary The characteristics of fears in American and Israeli female college students were studied in terms of the things feared, the intensity and extremity of fear ratings, and the generality of fearfulness across a wide range of stimuli. Two samples of 66 Ss each obtained from American and Israeli universities, and matched pairwise on age, were studied. Fears were assessed by an 88 item fear survey schedule, with an English language and Hebrew version being used. The two samples were compared in terms of generalized fear, extreme fear, item x item differences in fear responses, and in the 10 most feared stimuli in each group. The Israelis had significantly greater generalized fear measured across all stimuli employed, but were not significantly different in the frequency of specific extreme or phobic fears. On 10 stimuli the Israelis reported significantly greater fearfulness; on five stimuli the Americans reported significantly greater fearfulness. The Israelis were notable in the psychiatric implicati...