William McCown

The impulsive client: Theory, research, and treatment.

Offers an anthology of research and theories on impulsive behaviour and explores why people differ in impulsivity and the implications for psychological treatment. The study includes the chaos theory and treatment of impulsive behaviour in eating disorders and substance abuse.

Personality and chronic procrastination by university students during an academic examination period

Abstract The relation of neuroticism, extraversion and psychoticism with study-related attitudes, affects and behaviors is investigated in a group of chronic university student procrastinators immediately prior to a period of academic examinations. Neuroticism was associated with anxiety regarding exams and lack of confidence in preparation. Extraversion and psychoticism were associated with confidence in preparation. Extraversion also was associated with interference in examination studying due to preplanned social activities, while both extraversion and psychoticism were associated with impulsive and unplanned study distractions. Psychoticism was also associated with a dislike of academic coursework. Treatment implications are discussed.

Contributions of the EPN paradigm to HIV prevention: A preliminary study

Abstract This study examined the relation between HIV knowledge, behavioural change and Eysenckian personality variables. Neuroticism and Lie Scale correlated negatively with HIV disease knowledge in a general population that had not received HIV disease education. Among those who had received HIV education, Psychoticism, Extraversion and Neuroticism all correlated with unsafe sexual behaviour. Implications of this study for HIV education and for prevention are discussed.

Personality factors predicting failure to practice safer sex by HIV positive males

Abstract This study examines the restrospective relationship between neuroticism, psychoticism, extraversion, immune system functioning and HIV knowledge on the failure to practice safer sex by persons with HIV disease. As predicted, psychoticism and lack of HIV knowledge correlated positively with failure to practice safer sex. Contrary to prediction, the correlation between neuroticism and unsafe sexual behavior was not significant. The possible implications of these findings are discussed.

The Basic HIV Disease Knowledge Questionnaire: A Rasch-scaled instrument to measure essential HIV knowledge.

The need for improvement in HIV disease-related psychometric questionnaires is noted. In response to this need a Rasch-scaled measure to ascertain basic HIV disease knowledge was developed and calibrated on 1092 subjects. Four studies conducted with the measure suggest adequate test-retest reliability. Three validity studies also conducted with this questionnaire suggest that the measure is sensitive to knowledge obtained from HIV-related training and education. Potential uses and limitations of this new questionnaire are discussed.

Addictive Behaviors and Substance Abuse

Addictive behaviors have reached epidemic proportions and present a dominant public health and social concern in the United States (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1990). Although cautious optimism may derive from apparent decreases in the use of some substances, such as the hallucinogens, the burgeoning use of other illicit substances—most recently “crack” cocaine, inhalable methamphetamine, and “designer” drugs—has provoked considerable societal alarm. The economic value of decreased economic productivity, unemployment, escalating health care costs, and criminal justice expenses attributed to substance abuse is estimated in the United States at more than

Procrastination and Task Avoidance: Theory, Research, and Treatment

100 billion annually (National Institute of Justice, 1989). Tobacco use alone may cost at least half again as much (Koop, 1989). Estimates of societal expense are usually limited to lost wages and property theft and do not include less obvious losses such as declining property values often found in urban, high-crime areas. Similarly, they do not reflect the personal and societal costs associated with the spread of diseases such as human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) or human T-lymphotropic virus, type 1 (HTLV-1), which are increasingly connected with a substance-abusing lifestyle (Rezza et al., 1990).