Cross-validation of some personality correlates of the A-B therapist scale among male alcoholics.

Abstract

The A-B therapist distinction, determined by a therapist's responses to a scale composed of Strong Vocational Interest Blank items, seems a promising variable for predicting therapist-patient compatibility. One assumption of A-B laboratory analogue studies, needed to justify the use of non-therapists, is that scores on the A-B scale have some basic personological invariance across populations. Recently, the explicability of the scores in terms of scales and factors of Jackson's Personality Research Form has been demonstrated (1). Also, five core correlates of A-B scores in Jackson's Harmavoidance, Dominance, Change, Sentience, and Succorance scales for male professionals, male students, male patients, and female smdents have been shown (2). The present aim was to examine the invariance of the A-B scale within a radically different population, 129 chronic alcoholic male veterans, whose mean age was 42 yr., and mean education 11 yr. The A-B scale was included in the admissions battery of this hospital's Alcoholic Treatment Program of which Form AA of Jackson's inventory was already a part. Of Jackson's 20 content scales, 8 were significantly (p < .05) but very modestly correlated with A-B total scores-Harmavoidance ( - .25 ) , Sentience (.23), Change (.23 ) , Play (.21) , Affiliation (.21), Nurmrance (.21), Dominance (.19), and Understanding (1) Among these 8 scales are 4 of the 5 core correlates, 3 of which, here, rank as the best 3 correlates of A-B scores for male alcoholics. Ss were then assigned an A-B status on the basis of total score cut-offs for male professionals and male students (1). Univariate F ratios, berween the 16 As and 52 Bs thus obtained, for each of Jackson's scales, yielded significant Fs (p < .05, df = 1/66) for 7 scales (only Play did not differentiate groups). The same 4 core scales emerged among the first 5 largest F ratios across the A vs B groups. Thus, even for chronic alcoholic males these core scales were related to both the distribution of A-B total scores and, more importantly, to the A and B prototypes (based on total score cut-offs) as used in analogue studies. Thus, like the A-type professional therapists, collegiate Ss, and outpatients studied in prior research, the A-rype male alcoholics emerge as cautious, uninclined to seek sensory thrills, change-avoidant, and submissive; the B-types, in contrast, may be depicted as more adventurous, as seekers of sensation and change, and as more dominant. The convergence of these data with those of prior studies (1, 2) leads to the conclusion that the A-B scale's personological invariance is not only replicable, but quite robust.