Although lack of self-insight and defensiveness are characteristic of many personality disorders (PDs), self report methods such as questionnaires and semi-structured interviews are still regularly, and often exclusively, used to assess personality. In fact, semi-structured interviews are often hailed as the """"""""gold standard"""""""" in PD assessment. The proposed study will investigate whether alternative forms of data such as peer- and stranger-report can augment interview data. Specifically, videotaped semi-structured interviews of people for whom peer-report PD data have been previously obtained will be shown to two naive undergraduate raters and two Master's-level psychologists, who will rate the targets on a battery of PD-related measures. Relationships among undergraduates' and psychologists' ratings, peer-report, and semi-structured interview scores will be examined. It is hypothesized that peer-report will correlate more highly with ratings (both undergraduates' and psychologists') than with the semi-structured interview. The proposed study will address the lack of validity in semi-structured PD interviews and will address how best to assess PDs.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
Type
Predoctoral Individual National Research Service Award (F31)
Project #
1F31MH070987-01
Application #
6790218
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZRG1-SSS-C (02))
Program Officer
Wynne, Debra K
Project Start
2004-04-01
Project End
2006-03-31
Budget Start
2004-04-01
Budget End
2005-03-31
Support Year
1
Fiscal Year
2004
Total Cost
$27,339
Indirect Cost
Name
University of Virginia
Department
Psychology
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
065391526
City
Charlottesville
State
VA
Country
United States
Zip Code
22904