Undesirable Personality Research Articles

Restricting loans of money to Hong Kong civil servants: social censure or violation of human rights?

Obtaining a loan is an individual’s private business and such a right should be free from interference. However, if Government officers obtain a loan from undesirable persons, they may be lured into committing an act which they would not otherwise have done but for the favours having been shown by the lenders. Section 3 of Hong Kong’s Prevention of Bribery Ordinance attempts to limit such behaviour of Government officers. Since the power of this provision is draconian, it may possibly violate human rights. This paper attempts to use a Social Censure perspective to explain why this provision was put in place in the 1970s and why it was not repealed in the 1990s in line with the rise of human rights standards in Hong Kong. It argues that the then British colonial government used a high-hand legal code to fight against corruption in the civil service to win its legitimacy in face of the rise of Red China in the 1970s. A review of twenty-one Section 3 cases suggests that most of the loans were not distributed for mere friendship but involved a wide range of culpability. Thus the coercion generated by Section 3 was approved by the masses, resulting in the reinforcement of a draconian but efficient legal provision in the service of the colonial administration.

The association of neighborhood poverty with personality change in childhood.

The child sample of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (n.d.) was analyzed to examine the relation of undesirable personality change in early childhood to neighborhood economic deprivation. Participants in the survey who had complete data at Time 1 (3-4 years of age) and Time 2 (5-6 years of age) and who remained in the same neighborhood during both time periods were included in the analyses. The results indicated that neighborhood economic disadvantage was associated with undesirable personality change even after controlling for family-level variables such as maternal education, family income, and cognitive and emotional support in the home environment for children. The association of personality change with neighborhood economic deprivation was not mediated by maternal depression, Head Start participation, cognitive and emotional support in the home, or maternal trust in the neighborhood. The authors discuss recommendations for future investigations.

Reigning Cats and Dogs: A Pet-Enhancement Bias and Its Link to Pet Attachment, Pet-Self Similarity, Self-Enhancement, and Well-Being

We extended past research on the self-enhancement bias and the mere ownership effect to examine whether people have favorably distorted views of their pets. Participants in Study 1 rated their own pet and the average pet on a series of desirable and undesirable personality traits. Participants rated their own pet more favorably than the average pet, revealing a pet-enhancement bias. Study 2 found that the extent of bias was positively correlated with pet attachment, pet–self similarity, and self-enhancement. Pet enhancement was also correlated with some indexes of subjective well-being but for only a subsample of participants. Pet–self similarity was more consistently related to well-being. Results are discussed in terms of their relevance to the potential psychological and physiological benefits that can be derived from people's perceptions of their pets.

Spectres of Fear: Jihadism as the Global Bogeyman

AbstractThis article examines jihadists, who are presently engaged in a “war of terror” against the West and the Muslim world. Using Marina Warner's idea of the “bogeyman,” I contend that jihadists are constructed by global audiences as phantasmagoric entities— ambiguous, hyperbolic, and monstrous. Jihadists evoke the indeterminacy of modernity which has shattered the modernist belief of the “existential safety of larger totalities” (Bauman 1999:39) assured by western governments.I examine some of the historical influences which inform and contour present day jihadists' liminal features. I then explore aspects of Australian social imaginary post‐September 11, 2001, which has manifested fear of the Muslim Other via increasingly nationalist discourses over the potential violation of national space by “undesirable persons ” who are imagined to embody a counter will.

Greece in 'Schengenland': Blessing or anathema for citizens' and foreigners' rights?

This paper is a case-study of the actual impact of Schengen implementation by the Greek state security apparatus, and its implication for basic and new rights of Greek citizens and foreigners, vis-a ¤ -vis European integration. It is based upon an analysis of special data records, including surveillance of national and alien suspects, asylum and deportations, 'border repulsion of undesirable persons', etc. provided to the press by the Greek Schengen Bureau. Some comparisons are made with other Schengen counterparts. The analysis illustrates those particular geopolitical and sociopolitical control imperatives that actually affect the efficiency of the Schengen Agreement in Greece. Based also on other documented evidence, I conclude that Schengen's impact is a mixed blessing for Greek and European citizens as regards both their free movement, and also potential violations of their privacy and civil liberties. It is clearly an 'immigration anathema' to build a 'Fortress Europe', especially as regards Third World immigrants' and refugees' rights and life chances in the EU.

Appraisal of obsessional thought recurrences: Impact on anxiety and mood state

Recent cognitive-behavioral models of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) emphasize the role of thwarted control efforts in the escalation of thought frequency, negative thought appraisal, and subsequent negative mood state in the development and persistence of the disorder. To date, no studies have investigated the relationship between in vivo appraisal of thought recurrences and distress over obsessional thoughts and subsequent mood state. In the present study, 84 nonclinical individuals completed a measure of general thought appraisal and then were randomly assigned to suppress or not suppress their most upsetting obsessional thought during an initial thought-monitoring interval. In a second interval, all participants received the “do not suppress” instructions. Suppression was not associated with an increase in thought frequency either immediately or subsequently. However, results indicated that appraisal of thought recurrences as signifying the presence of undesirable personality characteristics and as portending future negative events was a significant predictor of immediate and subsequent anxiety, as well as more negative mood state. Natural active resistance to the thought was predicted by in vivo appraisal of the importance of regaining thought control. Results are discussed in terms of their theoretical and clinical implications.

Physical and personality traits of preschool children in Fuzhou, China: only child vs sibling

Concern about the healthy growth and development of an only child has been voiced since the 1970s, when the Chinese government launched the only child policy. In this study, the physical and personality traits of rural Chinese preschool only-children (onlies) whose age ranged from 3 to 6 years old were evaluated. The sample included 197 onlies and 367 children with siblings who came from seven kindergartens in rural areas in Fuzhou, Fujian province. The results showed no statistically significant differences in height, mass or BMI between the onlies and siblings. Regarding the personality traits, the significant difference was that the onlies exhibited more somatic complaints, however, the data didn't indicate any other undesirable personality traits for the onlies. These results suggest that Chinese preschool children grow normally with or without siblings.

"The defects of his race": E.G. Boring and antisemitism in American psychology, 1923-1953.

From the 1920s to the 1950s, Edwin G. Boring wrote letters of reference for Jewish students and colleagues in which he followed the common practice of identifying them as Jews and assessing whether they showed "objectionable traits" thought to characterize Jews. These practices are discussed in relation to the increasing antisemitism of the interwar period, with specific reference to Abraham A. Roback and Kurt Lewin. In Roback's case, the "defect" of Jewishness was thought to explain his undesirable personality: with Lewin, personal charm mitigated the "defect" of Jewishness. Boring's unsuccessful attempts to place Jewish students, his subsequent pessimism, and his postwar discussions of Jewish identity are examined in relation to the general issue of antisemitism in the history of academic psychology.

A new look at defensive projection: thought suppression, accessibility, and biased person perception.

It has long been assumed that people perceive in others qualities that they wish to deny in themselves, but empirical evidence for defensive projection is limited and controversial. A new model for projection is presented in this article. People might try to actively suppress thoughts about the possibility that they have undesirable personality traits, but it was hypothesized that this response to threat ultimately causes thoughts about the unwanted traits to become chronically accessible. As a result, those trait concepts will be used to interpret others' behavior. Studies 1-4 showed that those people who both avoid thinking about having threatening personality traits and deny possessing them (repressors) also readily infer those traits from others' behavior. Studies 5-6 provided experimental support for the model. Unfavorable traits were attributed to participants, who, when they were asked or predisposed to not think about the traits, subsequently projected them onto someone else.

Psychology and non-psychology students' estimation of their desirable and undesirable personality traits

The present study examines the relationship between psychology and non-psychology students' actual and self-estimated test scores derived from Eysenck's Personality Questionnaire-Revised (EPQ-R, 1985). One hundred and five final year psychology (58 female, 47 male) and 90 final year non-psychology students, mainly from Engineering and Physics disciplines, (40 female, 50 male) rated the degree to which they exhibited extraversion, neuroticism and psychoticism on a 13-point scale (0 = low, 12 = high), and completed the EPQ-R. There was a significant positive correlation between participants' actual extraversion test scores and their estimates of what those scores would be for both psychology and non-psychology students. However, only the non-psychology students showed a strong and significant positive correlation between actual and self-estimated neuroticism test scores. There was no significant correlation between actual and self-estimated psychoticism scores. These results indicate that students are generally better in estimating their desirable (extraversion) than undesirable personality test scores (neuroticism, psychoticism) irrespective of their level of scientific knowledge of those traits. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Ernst Rüdin--a Swiss psychiatrist as the leader of Nazi psychiatry--the final solution as a goal

The study of work and life of the Swiss-German psychiatrist Ernst Rüdin, honoured up to our time as "father of psychiatric genealogy", lead to different views. Rüdin early in his life became a racial fanatic, and as a propagandist for the purity of the "Germanic people" he constantly demanded preventive coercive measures against the reproduction of the mentally ill and other, in the racist's view, undesirable persons. With this objective in mind he started his psychiatric research. The results of Rüdin's monograph about the genetics of dementia precox do not withstand scientific criticism but confirmed his preexisting opinions. They served however as scientific reasoning for the forced sterilisation by the Nazis, for which Rüdin's comments were obligatory. The next step, to the holocaust of the mentally ill and the undesirable, was not only tacitly agreed with by Rüdin. Max Weber, Karl Jaspers and others realised at an early time the dangers arising from racial hygienics and voiced their warnings in a plain language. The surviving victims are still waiting for compensation.

Relationship of anesthesia to postoperative personality changes in children

SOME POSSIBLE deleterious effects of hospitalization and surgical operations on the personalities of children have been described.1However, apparently there has been no attempt to relate the experiences of the induction period of anesthesia to the development of undesirable personality changes afterward. It is difficult to establish precise relationships, because the experiences of hospitalization, anesthetization, and operation are not easily separated. A recent study of the effect preanesthetic medication has upon the course of anesthesia2has led to an investigation of possible relationship between anesthesia and personality changes. Over an 18-month period, questionnaires were mailed to the parents of all children admitted to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania for an otolaryngological operation. Answers were sought to the following questions: 1. Is your child a bed-wetter; since operation does he wet the bed or wet it more frequently? 2. Does your child have night cries or terrors;

Prediction of Cancer and Coronary Heart Disease as a Function of Method of Questionnaire Administration

We have tested the hypothesis in this study that different methods of administering a questionnaire produce differential approximations to truthful admission of undesirable personality traits and behaviours. Four different methods of administration produced different levels of trust and understanding, using the current prediction among healthy subjects of death by cancer or coronary heart disease 13 years later as the criterion. There were significant differences in the accuracy of the predictions, depending crucially on the method of administration of the questionnaires. Best predictions were achieved for subjects when both trust and understanding had been increased by interviewers’ suitable participation; worst results were achieved for subjects when no special effort was made to increase either. Intermediate results were found for procedures which increased either trust or understanding. It is argued that the success or failure of studies investigating the influence of personality and stress on diseases like cancer and coronary heart disease may depend crucially on the adopted method of interrogation.

Prediction of Cancer and Coronary Heart Disease as a Function of Method of Questionnaire Administration1

We have tested the hypothesis in this study that different methods of administering a questionnaire produce differential approximations to truthful admission of undesirable personality traits and behaviours. Four different methods of administration produced different levels of trust and understanding, using the current prediction among healthy subjects of death by cancer or coronary heart disease 13 years later as the criterion. There were significant differences in the accuracy of the predictions, depending crucially on the method of administration of the questionnaires. Best predictions were achieved for subjects when both trust and understanding had been increased by interviewers’ suitable participation; worst results were achieved for subjects when no special effort was made to increase either. Intermediate results were found for procedures which increased either trust or understanding. It is argued that the success or failure of studies investigating the influence of personality and stress on diseases like cancer and coronary heart disease may depend crucially on the adopted method of interrogation.

Perceptions of past, present and future selves among children and adolescents

Children's and adolescents' projections of the self into the future and memories of the self in the past were compared with their current self‐conceptions. In Study 1, 82 children and adolescents between the ages of 4 and 15 were asked to describe themselves and to describe themselves as they thought they would be in five years. The results indicated that, at all ages, subjects were more likely to think of their current selves than their future selves in terms of typical activities, personality characteristics and preferences. The future self was more likely to be described in terms of social relationships than the current self. In Study 2, perceptions of change and continuity in the self were examined by asking 88 children and adolescents between the ages of 9 and 18 to describe themselves as they were two and four years in the past, as they are now, and as they will be two and four years in the future. Subjects also estimated the similarity between their present selves and their past and future selves. Similarity between the present self and future selves was perceived to be higher than between past and present selves. Children and adolescents assert that with time they become more capable and physically attractive, develop better personalities and mature intellectually and emotionally, while simultaneously shedding undesirable personality, cognitive and emotional characteristics. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for personal narratives and social cognitive approaches to personality.

Denial and Social Desirability in Clinical Evaluations of Alleged Sex Offenders

Clinicians are increasingly being requested to evaluate alleged sex offenders. Denial of sex offenses and minimization of psychopathology is common in such patients. We studied the relationship between denial of deviant sexual behavior and minimization/exaggeration of problems (i.e., response bias) during clinical evaluations in 59 alleged sex offenders. The data indicated that patients who denied allegations of deviant sexual behavior showed significantly more minimization of problems than did admitters (p < .001), and patients who admitted allegations showed more exaggeration of problems than did deniers (p < .05). Response bias was significantly associated with a number of personality characteristics. In particular, alleged offenders who denied deviant sexual behavior were more likely to be defensive about undesirable personality characteristics and to minimize problems than were those who admitted to deviant sexual behavior. When defensive, alleged sex offenders were likely to minimize anxiety and personality disorders. The data support the forensic utility of psychological testing in the assessment of alleged sex offenders.

Sexually Aggressive Tactics in Dating Relationships: Personality and Attitudinal Correlates

The relationships were determined between two sets of dispositional measures, desirable and undesirable personality characteristics, and gender-related attitudes about sex roles, rape myths, and adversarial beliefs, and the use of sexually aggressive tactics by college men with their dates and the experience of college women with these tactics. In men, Impulsiveness, Negative Instrumentality, and Anger were significantly correlated with their scores on the Sexual Aggression scale. The attitudinal measures were also related to the Aggression measure, men with traditional sex-role preferences and negative beliefs about women reporting more aggression. Regression analyses indicated that a composite of the significant personality variables and of the attitudinal variables each made an independent contribution to the criterion. In women, Positive Instrumentality, Anger, and Impulsiveness were significantly related to reports of experience with aggressive tactics, low scores on the first variable and high scores on the latter two being associated with more victimization. Women high in traditional sex-role preferences and adversarial beliefs also reported more experience. Regression analysis indicated, however, that once the contribution of personality variables was taken into account, attitudes made no significant increase in R2

Mood and constructive memory effects on social judgement

Abstract Based on a theoretical model of the mood-cognition interface, the prediction is derived and tested empirically that positive mood enhances constructive memory biases. After reading an ambiguous personality description, participants received a positive or negative mood treatment employing different films. Within each mood group, half of the participants were then questioned about the applicability of either desirable or undesirable personality traits to the target person. This questioning treatment was predicted to bias subsequent impression judgements in the evaluative direction of the questioned attributes. As earlier research had shown that such a bias is stronger for negative than positive attributes (presumably because of the higher diagnosticity of negative attributes), a non-trivial test of the sup posed mood effect was possible. Positive mood should enhance constructive effects, but this should be most apparent for negative attributes. The empirical findings lend support to these predictions. Positive mood subjects' impression judgements were biased by the prior questioning even when they did not find the questioned attributes to be particularly applicable to the target person. By contrast, negative mood subjects' judgements were more consistent with their responses to the prior questioning and did not exhibit a constructive bias.

Psychological determinants of health and performance: The tangled web of desirable and undesirable characteristics.

Correlations were determined for male (n = 225) and female (n = 242) college students between sets of undesirable personality traits (anxiety, stress reactivity, anger, and alienation) and desirable personality traits (instrumentality, achievement strivings, and optimism measured by the Scheier-Carver [1987] Life Orientation Test), and a series of outcome variables related to health (self-reported health complaints and health maintenance behaviors and beliefs) and academic performance (academic expectations and actual grade point average). Significant correlations were found between many of the personality variables and the outcome variables. However, partial correlations revealed different relationships for the various criteria. With other variables held constant, health complaints were related to several undesirable characteristics, whereas health maintenance behaviors and beliefs were related to several desirable attributes. Only achievement strivings made an independent contribution in both sexes to the 2 measures of academic performance. The theoretical and methodological wisdom of using measures of multiple personality constructs and outcome variables is discussed.

Psychological determinants of health and performance: The tangled web of desirable and undesirable characteristics.

Correlations were determined for male (n = 225) and female (n = 242) college students between sets of undesirable personality traits (anxiety, stress reactivity, anger, and alienation) and desirable personality traits (instrumentality, achievement strivings, and optimism measured by the Scheier-Carver [1987] Life Orientation Test), and a series of outcome variables related to health (self-reported health complaints and health maintenance behaviors and beliefs) and academic performance (academic expectations and actual grade point average). Significant correlations were found between many of the personality variables and the outcome variables. However, partial correlations revealed different relationships for the various criteria. With other variables held constant, health complaints were related to several undesirable characteristics, whereas health maintenance behaviors and beliefs were related to several desirable attributes. Only achievement strivings made an independent contribution in both sexes to the 2 measures of academic performance. The theoretical and methodological wisdom of using measures of multiple personality constructs and outcome variables is discussed.