Edward Helmes

Kin Altruism, Reciprocal Altruism, and the Big Five Personality Factors

Abstract The purpose of this study was to identify personality characteristics associated with kin altruism and reciprocal altruism, and to relate those characteristics to the Big Five personality dimensions. We hypothesized that traits such as empathy and attachment mainly facilitate kin altruism, and that traits such as forgiveness and non-retaliation mainly facilitate reciprocal altruism. Self-report items that we constructed to measure those kinds of personality traits defined two factors as hypothesized. Those factors correlated significantly with external criterion measures intended to represent kin altruism and reciprocal altruism, respectively. Furthermore, correlations with adjective markers of the Big Five indicated that the Empathy/Attachment factor was related positively to Agreeableness and negatively to Emotional Stability, whereas the Forgiveness/Non-Retaliation factor was related positively to both Agreeableness and Emotional Stability.

A Psychometric Investigation of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire

Summaries of item properties for the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) are reported, based upon the responses of 99 male and 92 female undergraduate psychology students. Means, stan dard deviations, and internal consistencies were comparable to those already published, with the ex ception of lower reliabilities for the P and L scales. A high incidence of extreme p values and correla tion with social desirability was noted for the P scale. Item factor analyses at both the first- and third-order levels did not replicate the four-factor structure claimed by Eysenck; at best, four com ponents accounted for approximately 30% of the observed variance. Many items did not load in ac cordance with the EPQ scoring key, and many items did not load on an interpretable component. The question of difficulty factors is discussed: None were located. It is concluded that there is little em pirical support for the structure claimed for the EPQ.

Beyond memory impairment: cognitive changes in Alzheimer's disease

In addition to memory impairment, deficits in other cognitive processes are common in the advanced stages of Alzheimers disease (AD). The diagnosis of AD does not consider the relative prevalence of deficits in cognitive areas other than memory. We report on the prevalence of aphasia, apraxia, and other cognitive changes in individuals from a large representative sample of elderly Canadians. The proportion of these symptoms and the relevant neuropsychological test performance were compared in a group of 749 people over 65 years in age with AD and a control group of 563 people without cognitive impairment. Agnosia was less common in both groups than were deficits in complex visuomotor tasks, abstract thinking, aphasia, and constructional defects. The occurrence of all symptoms increased, and levels of performance on relevant neuropsychological tests decreased, with severity of Alzheimer disease. The tests did not, however, distinguish between possible and probable AD. Both these diagnostic groups showed similar levels of performance, which suggests that this distinction is not clinically meaningful.

The Item Factor Structure of the Personality Research Form

Multiscale personality inventories have rarely, if ever, demonstrated factor structure broadly consis tent at the item level with scale keys. An item fac tor analysis of the 352 items of PRF-E was under taken to evaluate the extent to which PRF items de fine separate and distinct factors corresponding to keyed scales. A matrix based on 352 items and 214 subjects drawn from 31 colleges was decomposed according to the Eckart-Young theorem, the factor loading matrix was formed, and then was rotated to an orthogonal target matrix of the 22 PRF-E scales. Inspection of the rotated matrix showed that only 2 of the 352 items failed to load in the keyed direc tion. The mean loading of items on their scale fac tor was .38; the mean loading of non-scale items was .09. This strong tendency for scale items to load more highly than non-scale items was also re flected in the majority of scale items being among the 16 highest loadings on each scale factor. For three scales, Dominance, Harmavoidance, and Or der, the scale items were the 16 highest loaded items. The observed item factor structure of the PRF is interpreted as being attributable to the methods of construct definition and item selection used in the construction of the PRF.

Eating attitudes as related to demographic and personality characteristics: a high school survey

A survey of 577 high school students was conducted to assess attitudes toward eating and their relationship to demographic and personality characteristics. Students completed a demographic questionnaire, and Eating Attitude Test (EAT-26) and the Basic Personality Inventory (A-BPI). When a cut-off score of 20 on EAT-26 was applied, overall prevalence of disordered eating attitude was found to be 7.5%. Groups scoring in pathological versus normal ranges showed no significant difference in mean age, socioeconomic status or race. The former group reported significantly shorter height and lower body weight. Of the subjects, 6.06% reported weight below the 10th percentile. This subgroup did not vary from those above the 10th percentile on sociodemographic and psychopathological variables, nor in prevalence of abnormal eating attitudes. Analysis of the A-BPI data showed subjects with abnormal eating attitudes had increased psychopathology in several areas, with greater neurotic tendencies, lower self-esteem and higher levels of deviant thinking and behaviour.

Psychological defence mechanisms in patients with pain.

&NA; There is a long standing position that pain, and especially chronic pain, may arise from psychological mechanisms of defence. We have compared a group of chronic pain patients with a sample of psychiatric patients attending for reasons other than pain. The pain group had less evidence of poor care in childhood (measured by the Parental Bonding Instrument) and tended to use more mature psychological defence mechanisms (assessed with the Defense Mechanisms Inventory), compared with the other group. The pain group also had fewer current psychiatric diagnoses but more evidence of anxiety and depression on the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale. We conclude that in general the patients with chronic pain had more normal childhoods and more mature defences than the psychiatric control group. They showed an increase in the diagnosis of depression, attributable to reactive factors. In the sample of patients with pain the majority of the psychological change cannot be attributed to the operation of primitive psychological defences.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the Life Satisfaction Index

Factor models of the construct of well-being in later life have shown mixed results. Here we evaluated the factor structure of the Life Satisfaction Index A (LSIA), a widely used measure. Confirmatory factor analyses using a sample of community living aged people (N = 187) suggested that a unidimensional model was not appropriate for the scale. Moreover, only two of the 10 models previously proposed for the LSIA was found to fit reasonably well. These models (Bigot, 1974; Hoyt and Creech, 1983) consisted of only eight of the 20 LSIA items. Models which utilized all 20 LSIA items tended to fit poorly, whereas, those based on subsets of items generally showed improved fit. Allowing correlated factors also improved the fit. Throughout, fit indices were computed using the Satorra-Bentler scaled test statistic because the data were not normally distributed. These results highlight the importance of theory and construct development prior to actual scale development in social indicators research.

Evaluation of a chronic pain programme by referring physicians

&NA; A neglected source of treatment outcome evaluation is the opinion of the referring physicians. We report on 179 patients with chronic pain who were admitted to a 6 week inpatient inter‐disciplinary pain programme. A retrospective 2 page mail questionnaire accompanied by initial letters of referral was sent to the referring physicians. We hypothesized that the main reason family physicians referred patients was to establish a management plan. The physician response rate was 70%, encompassing 72% of the patients. Intra‐observer reliability was tested by a second mailing 3 months later (68% response rate). Test‐retest reliability, and correlations between questions were significant and are reported for: reasons for referral, the utility of the discharge summary, coping, and behavioural changes at discharge and at time of the questionnaire. This appears to be the first report of a survey of the evaluation of a pain programme by referring physicians.

ARE SCHIZOPHRENIC SYMPTOMS DIFFERENT IN PATIENTS WITH HIGHER EDUCATION

Ratings of 87 symptoms on a Canadian sample of 108 DSM-III schizophrenics (41 men, 67 women) were unrelated (point biserial coefficients) to their education. The only exceptions to this trend were weak correlations with ratings of apathy, insight, and of premorbid adjustment. Patients with higher education were less frequently labelled as apathetic (r = .28) or as lacking insight (r = .26) and their premorbid adjustment was better (r = .25). None of the symptoms traditionally considered as markers specific for schizophrenia was significantly related to education.

Some calculations on the prevalence of dementia in Canada

The epidemiology of dementia in Canada is not known. However, we report figures on the frequency of dementia in institutions in Ontario based upon the use of a multidimensional observation scale for the assessment of the elderly. These findings on institutionalized patients can be extrapolated to the whole elderly population, but the procedure is clearly too conservative by comparison with findings in other countries and in the light of the known occurrence of numbers of demented patients outside institutions. Ratios in different sutidies for the numbers of patients with dementia outside institutions and within institutions range from 1:1 to 6:1. Using a ratio of 2:1 and applying it to age specific population figures, a prevalence of dementia in Canada of 222,324 for those over 65 is obtained with a rate of 9.4% in that age group. When the figures projected in this way are compared with five epidemiological studies for the rate of dementia elsewhere, the Canadian figure which we have obtained ranks fourth out of six. This estimate provides potential figures on which to base the planning of services, provided that the inferential nature of the estimates is fully recognized.