Psychiatry and Psychology Commons^™

A Critical Examination Of The Construct Of Perfectionism And Its Relationship To Mental Health In Asian And African Americans Using A Cross-Cultural Framework, Patricia Marten Dibartolo, María José Rendón

Psychology: Faculty Publications

Although the bulk of the research literature on the construct of perfectionism and its relationship to mental health in the last 20 years has focused predominantly on Caucasian American samples, researchers are paying increasing attention to understanding perfectionism's dimensions across ethnicities. Given this momentum, the purpose of this paper is to use a cross-cultural framework to review published studies assessing perfectionism in members of an ethnic minority group living in the United States. Research to date has focused exclusively on Asian and African American samples and we organize our review by separating this literature into those studies that use level …

Comparison Of Object And Animal Hoarding, Randy O. Frost, Gary Patronek, Elizabeth Rosenfield

Psychology: Faculty Publications

Recent research has highlighted the prevalence and harmful consequences of hoarding,1 and investigators have proposed inclusion of hoarding disorder in DSM-5.2 An unanswered question about the proposed disorder is whether people who hoard animals would meet diagnostic criteria for it. This article discusses the similarities and differences between object and animal hoarding. People who hoard animals appear to meet the basic diagnostic criteria for hoarding disorder. Their homes are cluttered, disorganized, and dysfunctional. They have great difficulty relinquishing animals to people who can more adequately care for them, and they form intense attachments (urges to save) that result in significant …

Comorbidity In Hoarding Disorder, Randy O. Frost, Gail Steketee, David F. Tolin

Psychology: Faculty Publications

Background: Hoarding Disorder (HD) is currently under consideration for inclusion as a distinct disorder in DSM-5 (1). Few studies have examined comorbidity patterns in people who hoard, and the ones that have suffer from serious methodological shortcomings including drawing from populations already diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), using outdated definitions of hoarding, and relying on inadequate assessments of hoarding. The present study is the first large-scale study of comorbidity in a sample of people meeting recently proposed criteria for hoarding disorder (1) and relying on validated assessment procedures. Methods: We compared psychiatric comorbidity in a large HD sample (n …

How Children’S Cognitive And Affective Responses To A Novel Task Relate To The Dimensions Of Perfectionism, Patricia Marten Dibartolo, Sara Pierotti Varner

Psychology: Faculty Publications

The current study examined how the Maladaptive Evaluative Concerns (MEC) versus Positive Achievement Striving (PAS) dimensions of perfectionism relate to anxiety, goal-setting, and cognitive appraisal in third-grade to sixth-grade students who completed an object-naming task under three goal-demand conditions: self-set goals, and low and high experimenter goals. The results indicated that children high on a measure of socially prescribed perfectionism (SPP; a measure of MEC) experienced more anxiety across all conditions than children low in SPP. Children scoring high on SPP also rated performing well on the task as more important and were more likely to say they should have …

A Brief Interview For Assessing Compulsive Hoarding: The Hoarding Rating Scale-Interview, David F. Tolin, Randy O. Frost, Gail Steketee

Psychology: Faculty Publications

This article describes the development and validation of the Hoarding Rating Scale-Interview (HRS-I), a brief (5-10 min) five-item semi-structured interview that assesses the features of compulsive hoarding (clutter, difficulty discarding, acquisition, distress and impairment). Trained interviewers administered the HRS-I to 136 adults (73 compulsive hoarding, 19 OCD, 44 non-clinical controls) along with a battery of self-report measures. An initial assessment was conducted in the clinic, and a second assessment was conducted in participants' homes. The HRS-I showed high internal consistency and reliability across time and context. The HRS-I clearly differentiated hoarding and non-hoarding participants, and was strongly associated with other …

Waitlist-Controlled Trial Of Cognitive Behavior Therapy For Hoarding Disorder, Gail Steketee, Randy O. Frost, David F. Tolin, Jessica Rasmussen, Timothy A. Brown

Psychology: Faculty Publications

Objective: This study investigated a multicomponent cognitive behavioral treatment (CBT) for hoarding based on a model proposed by Frost and colleagues and manualized in Steketee and Frost (2007).

Method: Participants with clinically significant hoarding were recruited from the community and a university-based anxiety clinic. Of the 46 patients randomly assigned to CBT or waitlist (WL), 40 completed the 12-week assessment and 36 completed 26 sessions. Treatment included education and case formulation, motivational interviewing, skills training for organizing and problem solving, direct exposure to nonacquiring and discarding, and cognitive therapy. Measures included the Saving Inventory-Revised (self-report), Hoarding Rating Scale-Interview, and measures …

Gender, Sexuality, And The Authoritarian Personality, Bill E. Peterson, Eileen L. Zurbriggen

Psychology: Faculty Publications

The political correlates of the authoritarian personality have been well established by researchers, but important linkages to other major constructs in psychology need fuller elaboration. We present new data and review old data from our laboratories that show the myriad ways in which authoritarianism is implicated in the important domain of gender roles. We show that women and men high in authoritarianism live in rigidly gendered worlds where male and female roles are narrowly defined, attractiveness is based on traditional conceptions of masculinity and femininity, and conventional sexual mores are prescribed. As a construct, authoritarianism is not just relevant for …

Excessive Acquisition In Hoarding, Randy O. Frost, David F. Tolin, Gail Steketee, Kristin E. Fitch, Alexandra Selbo-Bruns

Psychology: Faculty Publications

Compulsive hoarding (the acquisition of and failure to discard large numbers of possessions) is associated with substantial health risk, impairment, and economic burden. However, little research has examined separate components of this definition, particularly excessive acquisition. The present study examined acquisition in hoarding. Participants, 878 self-identified with hoarding and 665 family informants (not matched to hoarding participants), completed an Internet survey. Among hoarding participants who met criteria for clinically significant hoarding, 61% met criteria for a diagnosis of compulsive buying and approximately 85% reported excessive acquisition. Family informants indicated that nearly 95% exhibited excessive acquisition. Those who acquired excessively had …

The Economic And Social Burden Of Compulsive Hoarding, David F. Tolin, Randy O. Frost, Gail Steketee, Krista D. Gray, Kristin E. Fitch

Psychology: Faculty Publications

The aim of the present study was to determine the economic and social burden of compulsive hoarding in a large sample of individuals with self-identified hoarding, as well as a separate sample of family members of individuals who hoard. Self-identified hoarding participants (N = 864, 94% female, 65% met research criteria for clinically relevant compulsive hoarding) and family informants (N = 655, 58% described a relative who appeared to meet research criteria for compulsive hoarding), completed an internet survey. Questions were derived in part from those used in the National Comorbidity Survey (NCS), and when possible, hoarding participants were compared …

Family Burden Of Compulsive Hoarding: Results Of An Internet Survey, David F. Tolin, Randy O. Frost, Gail Steketee, Kristin E. Fitch

Psychology: Faculty Publications

Compulsive hoarding, the acquisition of and failure to discard large numbers of possessions, is associated with substantial health risk, impairment in functioning, and economic burden. Despite clear indications that hoarding has a detrimental effect on people living with or near someone with a hoarding problem, no empirical research has examined these harmful effects. The aim of the present study was to examine the burden of hoarding on family members. Six hundred sixty-five family informants who reported having a family member or friend with hoarding behaviors completed an internet-based survey. Living with an individual who hoards during childhood was associated with …

An Open Trial Of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy For Compulsive Hoarding, David F. Tolin, Randy O. Frost, Gail Steketee

Psychology: Faculty Publications

The aim of the present study was to provide preliminary data on the efficacy of a new cognitive-behavioral treatment (CBT) for compulsive hoarding. Fourteen adults with compulsive hoarding (10 treatment completers) were seen in two specialty CBT clinics. Participants were included if they met research criteria for compulsive hoarding according to a semistructured interview, were age 18 or above, considered hoarding their main psychiatric problem, and were not receiving mental health treatment. Patients received 26 individual sessions of CBT, including frequent home visits, over a 7-12 month period between December 2003-February 2005. Primary outcome measures were the Saving Inventory-Revised (SI-R), …

Generativity And Successful Parenting: An Analysis Of Young Adult Outcomes, Bill E. Peterson

Psychology: Faculty Publications

Generativity scores were assessed in parents and correlated with offspring outcomes. The offspring were participants in a longitudinal study spanning their first and senior years of college. Generativity of parents was positively related to offspring agreeableness and conscientiousness. Parental generativity was also related to offspring scores on future time orientation and positive affect. In addition, generative parents seemed to model their political interests to offspring, and that modeling was related to children’s higher scores on generativity and greater interest in politics. Parental generativity was also related to offspring religiosity. Most of these relationships remained significant after controlling for offspring scores …

Authoritarianism As An Agent Of Status Quo Maintenance: Women’S Careers And Family Lives, Lauren Duncan, Bill E. Peterson, Erin E. Ax

Psychology: Faculty Publications

We examined how right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) influenced career and family plans and life outcomes in 2 samples of educated women. In the college-aged sample, participants who planned to earn professional degrees scored higher on RWA than those who planned to earn graduate degrees in the humanities or social sciences. RWA was also positively related to the expression of preferences for male partners who possess masculine characteristics. In the midlife sample, RWA scores were higher for participants with traditional career and family outcomes at midlife. For midlife participants following a nontraditional career path, RWA was positively related to compartmentalizing career and …

Crossing The Line: Case Studies Of Identity Development In First Generation College Women, Phyllis A. Wentworth, Bill E. Peterson

Psychology: Faculty Publications

In this paper we present four case studies of adult women from working class backgrounds who attended Hillside College (a pseudonym for one of the “seven-sister” colleges) during the early 1990s. Although research on women has led, over the past few decades, to a more complex picture of the contexts in which women develop their identities, one important context that has been underexplored is social class. Drawing on data from three lengthy interviews with each of our four participants, our purpose was to explore the identity concerns of adult women from working class backgrounds in their experience getting to and …

Generative Concern, Political Commitment, And Charitable Actions, Bill E. Peterson, Lauren Duncan

Psychology: Faculty Publications

The implications of psychosocial generativity (Erikson, 1950) for understanding contemporary politics were explored. Study 1 replicated, in two samples, previous findings that generativity concerns are related to a variety of political activities, including the expenditure of time and money in support of political organizations. Using path analyses, Study 2 extended these findings and demonstrated how midlife generativity concerns interacted with political orientation and interest in politics to produce stronger relationships with giving. These findings suggest that people view the political arena as one important way to improve society and thereby manifest cultural generativity. Although focusing on the domain of politics, …

Authoritarianism And American Students' Attitudes About The Gulf War, 1990–1996, Richard M. Doty, Bill E. Peterson, Markus Kemmelmeier

Psychology: Faculty Publications

Studies with several different groups of students over the period from October 1990 to spring 1996 show a consistent set of relationships between right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) and aggressive support for U.S. policy during the Persian Gulf crisis and Gulf War Before the war, high-RWA scorers endorsed more aggressive responses (including the use of nuclear weapons) to hypothetical Iraqi actions. After the war, they expressed relatively more gloating and less regret and, in retrospect, endorsed more aggressive hypothetical U.S. policies. Overall, their opinions tended to be low in complexity, high in certainty, and brief.

Authoritarianism And Gender Roles: Toward A Psychological Analysis Of Hegemonic Relationships, Lauren Duncan, Bill E. Peterson, David G. Winter

Psychology: Faculty Publications

The authors examined the relationship between authoritarianism and gender-role identity, attitudes, and behaviors. Using Altemeyer's Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) Scale, they found that high scores on authoritarianism were related to traditional gender-role identity and attitudes, rating political events concerning women as less important, and rating feminists and women as having relatively more power and influence in society. Authoritarianism was also related to the expression of anti-abortion views in essays and using arguments based on conventional morality, submission to authority, and punitiveness toward women seeking abortions. Finally, high scores on authoritarianism were related to participating in pro-life rallies and not participating in …

Laboratory Tests Of A Motivational-Perceptual Model Of Conflict Escalation, Bill E. Peterson, David G. Winter, Richard M. Doty

Psychology: Faculty Publications

We present a model suggesting that international conflicts escalate to violence when countries (a) express higher levels of power motive imagery, (b) exaggerate levels of perceived power motive imagery in communications and statements from the “other” side, and (c) express still higher levels of power motive imagery as a result of such exaggerated perceptions. The model is supported by three studies. In the first two, participants wrote replies to one of two versions of the same letter taken from a real crisis. The third study explored conditions that affect the exaggerated perception of power motive imagery of the other side …

Authoritarianism And Attitudes Toward Contemporary Social Issues In The 1990s, Bill E. Peterson, Richard M. Doty, David G. Winter

Psychology: Faculty Publications

Three studies were conducted to examine the relevance of authoritarianism to contemporary social attitudes, with special emphasis on AIDS, drug use, and the environment. In Studies 1 and 2, students scoring higher on authoritarianism (measured by Byrne's balanced F scale and Altemeyer's Right-Wing Authoritarianism Scale, respectively) were more likely to endorse harsh, punitive sentiments and solutions to the problems of AIDS and drugs and less likely to endorse more egalitarian ones. These two issues are presumed to represent a threat to the "American way of life" and provide clear out-groups for authoritarian aggression. Regarding the environment, authoritarians express hostility toward …