Objective: According to cognitive-behavioral models of hypochondriasis (HYP), biased attentional and memory processes related to health threat stimuli are crucial for the development and maintenance of severe health anxiety. Little is known about the specificity, temporal stability, and modifiability of these biases via psychotherapy. Method: In…

This study examines attitudes toward those who are stigmatized as mentally ill as a function of this individual's gender. The results contradict the notion that female patients are considered to be less severely ill, given a similarity of symptoms with male patients. (Author)

The validity of the MMPI Psychopathic Deviate (Pd) and Pd+.4K scales to discriminate levels of social deviance among young black male prisoners was investigated in three studies. It was concluded that Pd and Pd+.4K both validly differentiate levels of social deviance but that the norms for the scales appear to show racial bias. (Author)

Middle-class persons in the present study were, in general, rated more likely to need help, and the social class effect was especially marked when the ratings were done by laymen, when the stimulus person was normal in behavior, or when he was neutral in mood. (Author)

Sixty graduate students in clinical psychology made diagnostic assessments of one of two staged interviews identical in content but enacted to convey either a middle- or lower-class impression. The results indicate the existence of a class bias and suggest a status differential between psychologists and psychiatrists. (Author)

The effect of presentation labels upon subjects' evaluation of behavior modification was investigated in two experiments. Subjects were two groups of undergraduate and graduate students required to evaluate identical administrations of a lesson under different presentation labels. (Author/YJ)

The present study examined the problem of exaggerated reporting of drug use on a drug survey questionnaire by including a bogus drug in a survey administered to high school students. The results indicated that the admitted users of the bogus drugs were significantly different from the other Ss and their responses were consistently in the direction…

Results of the present investigation indicate that when there is no actual change in behavior, knowledge by observers of predicted results is unlikely to alter behavioral recordings. (Author)

This study assesses the effect of labels on clinicians' judgements. Two groups of behavior and analytic therapists viewed an interview of a subject designated as "job applicant" or "patient." Behavior therapists describe the interviewee as fairly well-adjusted regardless of label while psychoanalysts describe "patient" as more disturbed than "job…

In this study only bias in scoring, controlling for the effect of actual administration, was investigated. Results indicated that scoring the WISC was biased by scorers' expectations, and that the bias effect exists independent of actual administration of the test. (Author)

Offender status had a negative effect on dimensions involving acceptance of the client for therapy but little effect on assessment of personality variables. (Author)

Research shows a relationship between diagnoses of schizophrenia among twins. It was studied whether information that a twin was schizophrenic would bias diagnoses. Such information almost doubled the rater's estimates of probability of schizophrenia in a hypothetical case history. (NG)

Assessed attributional style of psychoanalysts, behavior therapists, and nontherapists. Results indicated that the clinical task of generating explanations for problematic behavior appeared to be handled differently by psychoanalysts and behavior therapists. Selection of a therapist may be an important factor in determining inferred etiology and…

This study investigated the influence of confederates' verbal evaluation of psychological test data on clinical psychology graduate students' evaluations. Subjects' evaluations on both dependent measures were influenced by the confederates' prior evaluations, especially when the confederate was designated as having higher status. (Author)