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THE DIFFERENTIATION BETWEEN NORMAL AND VARIOUS NEUROTIC GROUPS ON THE MAUDSLEY PERSONALITY INVENTORY
Author(s) -
EYSENCK H. J.
Publication year - 1959
Publication title -
british journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.536
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 2044-8295
pISSN - 0007-1269
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8295.1959.tb00694.x
Subject(s) - neuroticism , eysenck personality questionnaire , psychology , personality , citation , social psychology , library science , big five personality traits , extraversion and introversion , computer science
The M.P.I. (Eysenck, 1958b) is a 48-question inventory which purports to measure, in a rough and ready fashion, the two personality dimensions of Neuroticism (N) and Extraversion-Introversion (E). It has been carefully constructed on the basis of itemand factor-analyses (Eysenck, 1956), possesses adequate reliability (Jensen, 1958), and has been shown to possess ‘construct validity’ (Eysenck, 1957); the two scores are independent of each other. A summary of researches on a variety of normal groups (students, nurses, industrial apprentices, etc.) as well as several neurotic groups has shown considerable differentiating power as far as the N scale is concerned (Jensen, 1958); a study of the responses of different neurotic groups (Sigal, Star & Franks, 1968) found psychopaths and hysterics more extraverted than dysthymics, but did not succeed in obtaining statistically significant results due to the small numbers employed (Eysenck, 1958~) . The present note is intended to collect together all available information on the differentiation between various neurotic groups, between normals and neurotics, and between all the above groups and recidivist criminals and patients suffering from psychosomatic disorders. The means and S.D.’S are given in Table 1. The normal standardization group consisted of a quota sample of the population, collected along similar lines to those described elsewhere for the standardization of the short form of the M.P.I. (Eysenck, 1958a), except that subjects filled in the questionnaire instead of E. The American student group was largely collected by Dr A. W, Bendig of the University of Pittsburgh. The dysthymic, hysteric and psychopathic groups are made up of hospital patients so diagnosed by experienced and responsible psychiatrists, or else unanimously diagnosed on the basis of their case papers by three independent psychologists (Sigal et al. 1958). The prisoner group consisted of recidivists in one of H.M. prisons. The psychosomatic group consisted of patients suffering from asthma and ulcers; their use was suggested to me by Dr A. Barendregt who, in an unpublished paper read a t the 1958 International Congress of Applied Psychology, found such groups to be highly neurotic and less introverted than dysthymics on the Heron questionnaire (Heron, 1956), which is in certain ways similar to the M.P.I. and correlates with it.