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‘Psychoticism’ in Drug‐Users
Author(s) -
TEASDALE JOHN D.,
SEGRAVES R. TAYLOR,
ZACUNE JIM
Publication year - 1971
Publication title -
british journal of social and clinical psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.479
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 2044-8260
pISSN - 0007-1293
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8260.1971.tb00729.x
Subject(s) - psychoticism , neuroticism , extraversion and introversion , psychology , drug , normative , population , clinical psychology , homogeneous , psychiatry , medicine , social psychology , personality , big five personality traits , physics , thermodynamics , environmental health , philosophy , epistemology
Scores on the PEN Inventory were obtained from four groups of drug‐users. They were compared with scores from a group of apprentices who had completed the Inventory non‐anonymously rather than the normative data, as the latter were obtained anonymously, and it was found that this factor significantly elevated P (‘psychoticism’) scores. All four groups were significantly higher on P than the comparison groups. This was not simply the result of endorsement of items directly related to drug‐taking, nor to the correlation of P and N scores. Item analysis showed that 11 of the 20 items significantly differentiated drug‐using and control groups, but item content was more homogeneous in the items which did not differentiate the groups. Hypotheses to account for the high P scores of drug‐users are suggested. Three of the drug‐using groups were significantly high on neuroticism, the fourth approaching significance in that direction. Two of the drug‐using groups were significantly low on extraversion; the other two did not differ from a control population. Significant differences were obtained on P, E and N scores between the four drug‐using groups.