The validity of an alternative 5-factor measure of personality, the Zuckerman-Kuhlman Personality Questionnaire (ZKPQ), was assessed in 450 cocaine abusers. Results supported the validity of the ZKPQ. Internal consistency was generally good, and items loaded on the predicted factors. (SLD)

Assessed U.S., English, Israeli, and Japanese teachers' views of the ideal temperaments of children. Teachers in the U.S. and England had the most similar views, whereas those in Israel were most divergent. Differences and similarities of teacher's views are discussed in terms of eight dimensions of temperament. (BB)

Thirty-six father-daughter/stepdaughter sexual abusers were followed over the course of a two-year outpatient treatment program. Results supported the importance of pretreatment personality assessment and suggested that involvement of the criminal justice system does not interfere with, and may help, therapeutic progress. (Author/DB)

Finds that differences in parent and teacher ratings of low ability readers were more pronounced than the differences for high ability readers. Shows that parents of low readers viewed their children as more adaptable, approachable, and persistent than their teachers, whereas both parents and teachers viewed low readers as distractible. (SR)

Explored differences between caregiving daughters' (n=150) perceptions of their own and their mothers' personalities. Daughters generally rated their mothers more negatively than themselves. Functional impairment was not related to assessment of mothers' personalities, whereas psychological and cognitive impairments were. (ABL)

Fourth and fifth graders viewed a slide show that depicted a boy displaying negative behaviors and that had a negative consistent or a positive inconsistent ending. Children who believed that personality is fixed, but not children who believed personality is malleable, did not differ in their ratings of the boy in the consistent- and…

Presents a summary of the "Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders" (DSM) criteria for childhood anxiety and depression disorders, as well as modifications in the diagnostic criteria from DSM-III-R to DSM-IV. Discusses the utility of DSM-IV for school psychologists, including delineating essential criteria for diagnosis and the…

The DSM-IV categorizes 10 personality disorders, long-term patterns of personality traits that result in impairment of social and occupational functioning. The author details steps in the recognition and diagnosis of personality disorders, with emphasis on using the DSM-IV diagnostic framework. (Author)

The empirical structure of the item set from the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems was examined in the context of the interpersonal circumplex and Big Five factors of personality using results from 1,093 undergraduates. Results support using a theoretically guided empirical analysis rather than blind analysis of empirical methods. (SLD)

Psychometric issues pertinent to the application of an item-response-theory-based person-fit (response aberrancy) detection statistic in the personality measurement domain were explored using Monte Carlo methods. Recommendations are made about proper implementation of person-fit statistics in personality measurement. (SLD)

The Couple Behavior Report (CBR), a scale used to assess behaviors important to maintaining a couple's relationship, was tested with participants from a university Marriage and Family Therapy clinic and couples in the community. Report states that the CBR has several advantages over current instruments in that it is brief, focuses on positive…

The authors discuss the applicability of nonparametric item response theory (IRT) models to the construction and psychometric analysis of personality and psychopathology scales, and they contrast these models with parametric IRT models. They describe the fit of nonparametric IRT to the Depression content scale of the Minnesota Multiphasic…

The efficiency of a new strategy to identify back random responding (BRR) on the Personality Assessment Inventory (L. C. Morey, 1991) was studied using random manipulations of item responses from community (904 adult nonpatients) and clinical (1,079 adult patients) respondents. The strategy involved a comparison of short-form and full-instrument T…

The present research examined the amount and kind of personality measured within four sets of personality disorder (PD) scales. Three samples of undergraduate students (Ns = 326, 537, and 617) completed at least one PD measure and a combined interpersonal circumplex model (ICM) and five-factor model (FFM) measure. The FFM dimensions were found to…

This study describes the relation between personality items' validities, defined as the items' correlations with acquaintance ratings on the Big 5 personality factors, and other itemmetric properties including ambiguity, syntactic complexity, social desirability, content, and trait indicativity. Five external validity coefficients for each item on…