RESUMEN
A self-report questionnaire was developed to assess attributional and emotional responses to aversive, but socially ambiguous, actions by one or more provocateurs. Multiple vignettes were developed and were followed by questions related to attribution of the provocateur's intent and the subject's emotional response to the provocateur's actions. The resulting social information processing-attribution and emotional response questionnaire (SIP-AEQ) was administered to 923 community-based adults (ages 18-45). Factor analysis revealed a three-factor structure reflecting hostile attribution, instrumental attribution, and benign attribution to provocation. A cross-validational study substantiated the factor structure. The modified 8-vignette SIP-AEQ demonstrated good internal reliability, and convergent and discriminant validity. The hostile attribution items showed a significant relationship with measures of emotion processing and responsiveness. Further analysis in a sample of impulsive aggressive patients and healthy control subjects noted similar psychometric properties and good separation between groups. Implications regarding the cognitive and emotional correlates of aggression are discussed.
Asunto(s)
Agresión/psicología , Señales (Psicología) , Emociones/fisiología , Conducta Impulsiva/fisiopatología , Conducta Social , Percepción Social , Adolescente , Adulto , Femenino , Humanos , Relaciones Interpersonales , Masculino , Persona de Mediana Edad , Psicometría , Autoimagen , Encuestas y Cuestionarios , Adulto JovenRESUMEN
No randomized clinical trials have evaluated the efficacy of psychotherapy for intermittent explosive disorder (IED). In the present study, the authors tested the efficacy of 12-week group and individual cognitive-behavioral therapies (adapted from J. L. Deffenbacher & M. McKay, 2000) by comparing them with a wait-list control in a randomized clinical trial among adults with IED (N = 45). Aggression, anger, and associated symptoms were assessed at baseline, midtreatment, posttreatment, and 3-month follow-up. Group and individual cognitive-behavioral therapy tended not to differ, with each reducing aggression, anger, hostile thinking, and depressive symptoms, while improving anger control relative to wait-list participants. Posttreatment effect sizes were large. These effects were maintained at 3-month follow-up. Findings provide initial support for the use of multicomponent cognitive-behavioral therapy in the treatment of IED.
Asunto(s)
Terapia Cognitivo-Conductual/métodos , Trastornos Disruptivos, del Control de Impulso y de la Conducta/terapia , Psicoterapia de Grupo/métodos , Adaptación Psicológica , Adulto , Agresión/psicología , Ira , Trastornos Disruptivos, del Control de Impulso y de la Conducta/diagnóstico , Trastornos Disruptivos, del Control de Impulso y de la Conducta/psicología , Femenino , Estudios de Seguimiento , Humanos , Control Interno-Externo , Masculino , Persona de Mediana Edad , Determinación de la Personalidad/estadística & datos numéricos , Proyectos Piloto , Psicometría , Calidad de Vida/psicología , Terapia por RelajaciónRESUMEN
Intermittent explosive disorder (IED) is the sole psychiatric diagnostic category for which aggression is a cardinal symptom. IED focuses on physical aggression, but researchers have argued for the inclusion of verbal aggression (VA) (e.g., arguing, threatening) as a part of the IED criteria set. The utility of VA in identifying clinically relevant aggression, however, is unknown. IED participants were compared to individuals without a marked history of physical aggression, but who report frequent (two or more times a week) VA, and non-aggressive personality-disorder individuals on behavioral and self-report measures of aggression, self-report measures of related constructs (e.g., anger, affective lability), and a clinician assessment of psychosocial impairment. Both the IED and VA groups were more aggressive, angry, and clinically impaired than personality-disorder individuals, while the IED and VA groups did not differ from each other on these measures. These results support the clinical importance of frequent VA for future iterations of the IED criteria set.
Asunto(s)
Agresión/psicología , Trastornos Disruptivos, del Control de Impulso y de la Conducta/psicología , Conducta Impulsiva/psicología , Conducta Verbal , Adulto , Síntomas Afectivos , Ira , Trastornos Disruptivos, del Control de Impulso y de la Conducta/diagnóstico , Femenino , Humanos , Conducta Impulsiva/diagnóstico , Masculino , Pruebas Psicológicas , Autoimagen , Estadística como AsuntoRESUMEN
Research on intermittent explosive disorder (IED) has been hindered by vague and restrictive DSM-IV diagnostic criteria. Integrated research criteria have been developed for IED (IED-IR) that address the DSM-IV criteria's shortcomings. The purpose of this study was to examine the convergent and discriminant validity of the IED-IR criteria set by comparing adults meeting these criteria (n=56) to healthy controls (n=56) and to individuals with an Axis I major mental disorder (n=33) or an Axis II personality disorder (n=22) diagnoses on measures of aggression (self-report and behavioral) and global functioning. IED-IR individuals demonstrated higher levels of aggression compared to the other three groups, and were rated as more impaired than the healthy control and Axis I individuals. Subgroup analyses showed that IED-IR subjects who did not meet DSM IED criteria did not differ from DSM IED subjects on self-report measures of aggressiveness or global functioning. Furthermore, the IED-IR subjects evidenced more behavioral aggression than their DSM-IED counterparts.
Asunto(s)
Trastornos Disruptivos, del Control de Impulso y de la Conducta/diagnóstico , Trastornos Disruptivos, del Control de Impulso y de la Conducta/psicología , Encuestas y Cuestionarios , Adolescente , Adulto , Anciano , Agresión/psicología , Manual Diagnóstico y Estadístico de los Trastornos Mentales , Análisis Discriminante , Trastornos Disruptivos, del Control de Impulso y de la Conducta/epidemiología , Femenino , Humanos , Masculino , Persona de Mediana Edad , Variaciones Dependientes del Observador , Reproducibilidad de los ResultadosRESUMEN
Individuals who volunteer as control subjects for clinical studies are regularly screened for Axis I diagnoses, but seldom screened for Axis II disorders. This study examined the relative rates of Axis II diagnoses among 341 volunteers passing an initial telephone screen for entry into biological research studies. Axis I and II diagnoses by DSM-IV were assigned by best estimate after structured clinical interview, and subjects were categorized into one of three groups based on their diagnostic profiles: (1) volunteers without lifetime Axis I or II diagnoses ("healthy controls"), (2) personality-disordered volunteers without any history of Axis I pathology, and (3) personality-disordered volunteers with past (but not current) Axis I pathology. The results revealed a high prevalence of personality disorders (44.4%) among these volunteers. Several clinically relevant self-report inventories were used to demonstrate important characterological differences between the three comparison groups. Although inventory results demonstrated multiple differences between all three groups, most scales revealed differences between healthy controls and the two personality-disordered groups (with or without lifetime Axis I diagnoses), suggesting that most of the variance was accounted for by the presence or absence of an Axis II disorder, not a past Axis I disorder. These results suggest that personality-disordered volunteers may bias a control group due to the infrequent screening for Axis II disorders among volunteers for medical and psychiatric research. Implications are discussed for routine Axis II screening of volunteers for research with specific diagnostic instruments.
Asunto(s)
Estudios de Casos y Controles , Trastornos de la Personalidad/epidemiología , Adulto , Sesgo , Femenino , Humanos , Masculino , Prevalencia , Reproducibilidad de los Resultados , Resultado del TratamientoRESUMEN
Although initial reports of genetic contributions to personality dimensions were promising, continued empirical support remains controversial. The focus has largely revolved around polymorphisms of the serotonin transporter gene-linked polymorphic region and the D4 dopamine receptor subtype. Equivocal findings likely stem from numerous sources including ethnic diversity of subject samples, phenotypic characterization of personality traits, and insufficient sample sizes. Research has begun to shy away from single gene causation in support of more complex polygenic models of personality traits. This search has identified numerous other candidate genes including dopamine D2 and D3 receptor subtypes, serotonin receptors, and catecholaminergic enzymes, to name a few. This article endeavors to review and evaluate the most recent literature within the context of this burgeoning field. Some considerations for future research are presented in summary.
Asunto(s)
Personalidad/genética , Polimorfismo Genético , Humanos , Fenotipo , Receptores de Dopamina D2/genética , Receptores de Dopamina D2/fisiología , Receptores de Dopamina D3 , Receptores de Serotonina/genética , Receptores de Serotonina/fisiología , Serotonina/genética , Serotonina/farmacologíaRESUMEN
Following bilateral lesions targeting lateral deep cerebellar nuclei, rats were subjected to a bridge test as a measure of visuomotor coordination and were trained on the Morris water maze (MWM) as a measure of visuospatial processing. Lesioned rats were significantly impaired in visuospatial processing, but not visuomotor coordination, relative to sham rats. In a 2nd experiment, rats were pretrained on a delayed spatial alternation task (T maze) before MWM training. Pretraining reversed the visuospatial deficit caused by the lesions as compared with nonpretrained rats. Results suggest that lateral deep cerebellar nuclei contribute to visuospatial processing with a negligible contribution to visuomotor skills and that visuospatial deficits resulting from lateral nuclei damage can be reversed with pretraining on aspatial working memory task.