Detection of Feigning of Different Symptom Presentations With the PAI and IOP-29.

This study examined the effectiveness of the negative distortion measures from the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI) and Inventory of Problems-29 (IOP-29), by investigating data from a community and a forensic sample, across three different symptom presentations (i.e., feigned depression, posttraumatic stress disorder [PTSD], and schizophrenia). The final sample consisted of 513 community-based individuals and 288 inmates (total N = 801); all were administered the PAI and the IOP-29 in an honest or feigning conditions. Statistical analyses compared the average scores of each measure by symptom presentation and data source (i.e., community vs. forensic sample) and evaluated diagnostic efficiency statistics. Results suggest that the PAI Negative Impression Management scale and the IOP-29 are the most effective measures across all symptom presentations, whereas the PAI Malingering Index and Rogers Discriminant Function generated less optimal results, especially when considering feigned PTSD. Practical implications are discussed.

Cross-cultural investigation from nine countries on the associations of antisocial traits and the WHO's containment measures for the COVID-19 pandemic.

Personality traits play a role in prosocial behavior in relation to containment measures intended to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic. Empirical findings indicated that individuals high in socially aversive traits such as callousness are less compliant with containment measures. This study aimed to add cross-cultural data on the relationship between antisocial traits and adherence to COVID-19 containment measures. The sample consisted of 4,538 adults recruited by convenience in nine countries (Australia, Brazil, England, Iraq, Iran, Italy, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the United States). Statistical analyses indicated two latent profiles from our sample, empathic and antisocial, and six COVID-19 containment-measure-related factors using measures covering antisocial traits (PID-5), empathy (ACME), global personality pathology (LPFS-BF), and COVID-19 behaviors and beliefs. Through MANCOVA, the antisocial profile consistently showed less compliance and concern about the COVID-19 containment measures, even when controlling for demographics and local pandemic covariables. The network analysis indicated a lack of empathy and callousness as crucial traits of the predisposition to non-compliant behavior. In elaborating on prosocial campaigns in community emergencies, our cross-cultural findings would need to consider personality traits that focus on antisociality, anticipating similar associations and potential impacts in future disease outbreaks.

The sensitivity of the IOP-29 and IOP-M to coached feigning of depression and mTBI: An online simulation study in a community sample from the United Kingdom.

Assessing the credibility of symptoms is critical to neuropsychological assessment in both clinical and forensic settings. To this end, the Inventory of Problems-29 (IOP-29) and its recently added memory module (Inventory of Problems-Memory; IOP-M) appear to be particularly useful, as they provide a rapid and cost-effective measure of both symptom and performance validity. While numerous studies have already supported the effectiveness of the IOP-29, research on its newly developed module, the IOP-M, is much sparser. To address this gap, we conducted a simulation study with a community sample (N = 307) from the United Kingdom. Participants were asked to either (a) respond honestly or (b) pretend to suffer from mTBI or (c) pretend to suffer from depression. Within each feigning group, half of the participants received a description of the symptoms of the disorder to be feigned, and the other half received both a description of the symptoms of the disorder to be feigned and a warning not to over-exaggerate their responses or their presentation would not be credible. Overall, the results confirmed the effectiveness of the two IOP components, both individually and in combination.

Can the Rorschach be Administered Remotely? A Review of Options and a Pilot Study Using a Newly Developed R-PAS App.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has required psychologists to adopt measures like physical distancing and mask wearing, though other safety procedures such as travel restrictions or prohibitions on in-person practice and research have fostered the use of tele-health tools. In this article, we review options for using the Rorschach task via videoconference and provide preliminary data from using a new electronic app for remote R-PAS administration to determine whether the remote administration in an electronic form yields different information than in-person administration with the cards in hand. As a pilot study, our focus is on the "first factor" of all Rorschach scores, i.e., complexity. Data were collected from 60 adult Italian community volunteers, and statistical analyses evaluated the extent to which the average complexity score significantly departed from R-PAS normative expectations (SS = 100), accompanied by Bayesian likelihoods for supporting the null hypothesis. Results suggest that the general level of complexity shown by the test-takers when administered the Rorschach remotely with the new R-PAS app closely resembles that previously observed using "standard" in-person procedures. Tentative analyses of other R-PAS scores suggested normative departures that could be due to the effects of the app, testing at home, or responses to the pandemic. We offer recommendations for future research and discuss practical implications.

An Inventory of Problems-29 (IOP-29) study investigating feigned schizophrenia and random responding in a British community sample.

Compared to other Western countries, malingering research is still relatively scarce in the United Kingdom, partly because only a few brief and easy-to-use symptom validity tests (SVTs) have been validated for use with British test-takers. This online study examined the validity of the Inventory of Problems-29 (IOP-29) in detecting feigned schizophrenia and random responding in 151 British volunteers. Each participant took three IOP-29 test administrations: (a) responding honestly; (b) pretending to suffer from schizophrenia; and (c) responding at random. Additionally, they also responded to a schizotypy measure (O-LIFE) under standard instruction. The IOP-29's feigning scale (FDS) showed excellent validity in discriminating honest responding from feigned schizophrenia (AUC = .99), and its classification accuracy was not significantly affected by the presence of schizotypal traits. Additionally, a recently introduced IOP-29 scale aimed at detecting random responding (RRS) demonstrated very promising results.

A multimethod assessment to study the relationship between rumination and gender differences.

Rumination is described as the propensity of responding to distress by repetitively and passively focusing on one's negative emotions, and failures, and their consequences (Nolen-Hoeksema, 1991, 1998). Therefore, given that rumination is characterized especially by difficulties in managing and controlling negative emotional states, it is considered as the most common (impaired) emotional regulation strategy, and can be defined as an emotional process related to a repetitive, undesired, and past-oriented negatively inclined thought (Compare, Zarbo, Shonin, Van Gordon, & Marconi, 2014; Smith & Alloy, 2009). Recent evidence suggested that because of problems related to monitoring of negative states, rumination may be associated with exaggerated physiological reactivity relative to demands from the environment, and to some difficulties in attentional control abilities. The current study aimed at deepening our understanding of the role that a maladaptive emotional regulation strategy - such as rumination - might play in physiological response changes and in engaging dysfunctional attentional strategies. We used a multimethod assessment including self-reports (i.e., Rumination and Reflection Questionnaire, and Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale), physiological measures, (i.e., Heart Rate Variability recording), and attention tasks (i.e., Stroop Task) in order to examine the multiple aspects of rumination across genders. Sixty-eight individuals (30 males and 38 females) were administered DERS -16, RRQ and, soon after them, the Stroop task. Immediately after completing the Stroop task (T1), participants were exposed to a three-phase, baseline-stress-recovery experimental paradigm while their heart rate variability (HRV) was recorded. After completing the experimental paradigm, Stroop stimuli were presented for the second time (T2), in order to examine possible intra-individual differences between the two performances in the Stroop task. Our findings showed that rumination was higher in females than in males, but in men it appeared to be strongly associated with an overall impaired emotional regulation. However, no gender differences in rumination and emotion dysregulation were found when inspecting physiological data. The current study aims to contribute towards a better understanding which emotion regulation strategies and which physiological mechanisms are associated with rumination.

Complexity and Cognitive Engagement in the Rorschach Task: An Eye-Tracking Study.

This study investigated whether complexity and the other related Rorschach Performance Assessment System (R-PAS) variables in the engagement and cognitive processing domain would associate with eye-tracking measures reflecting increased cognitive engagement and effort while visually scanning the Rorschach inkblots. A nonclinical sample of 71 adult volunteers were administered the Rorschach task while their eye movements were recorded using an eye tracker. Then, the average duration of fixations, the average number of fixations, the average amplitude of saccades, and the average maximum pupil size recorded during the response phase (RP) of the Rorschach administration were correlated with protocol-level, R-PAS variables located in the engagement and cognitive processing. As expected, complexity correlated, with a large effect size (r = .526, p < .01), with the number of fixations occurring during the RP of Rorschach administration. Some other variables related to complexity (e.g., Synthesis, Sy) also produced similar associations. The other eye-tracking variables under examination, however, produced weak or nonsignificant correlations.

Relationships Between Personality Features and the Rubber Hand Illusion: An Exploratory Study.

The rubber hand illusion paradigm allows investigating human body ownership by inducing an illusion of owning a life-sized fake hand. Despite the wide consensus on the fact that integration of multisensory signals is the main interpretative framework of the rubber hand illusion, increasing amount of data show that additional factors might contribute to the emergence of the illusion and, in turn, explain the strong inter-individual differences of the illusory patterns. Here, we explored whether and how personality features contribute to the emergence of the illusion by administering to healthy participants the rubber hand illusion paradigm along with two well-known personality tests, i.e., the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI) and the Rorschach test. Results showed that two Rorschach domains (i.e., "Perception and Thinking Problems" and "Self and Other Representation") were positively correlated with the illusory mislocalization of the own left hand toward the fake hand. Further analyses suggested that while the tendency to perceive unconventionally is related to mislocalizing the own hand toward the fake hand, the association of the RHI index and other personality features measured by the Rorschach remain uncertain. However, our findings in general suggest that personality features might have a role in the emergence of the rubber hand illusion. This, in turn, could explain the high inter-individual variability of the illusory effects.

An Interrater Reliability Study of Rorschach Performance Assessment System (R-PAS) Raw and Complexity-Adjusted Scores.

Recently, the Rorschach Performance Assessment System (R-PAS; Meyer, Viglione, Mihura, Erard, & Erdberg, 2011 ) was introduced to overcome some possible limitations of the Comprehensive System (CS; Exner, 2003 ) while continuing its efforts to link Rorschach inferences to their evidence base. An important, technical modification to the scoring system is that R-PAS interpretations are based on both standard scores and complexity-adjusted scores. Two previous U.S. studies reported good to excellent interrater reliability (IRR) for the great majority of R-PAS variables; however, IRR of complexity-adjusted scores has never been investigated. Furthermore, no studies have yet investigated R-PAS IRR in Europe. To extend this literature, we examined R-PAS IRR of Page 1 and Page 2 raw and complexity-adjusted scores with 112 Italian Rorschach protocols. We collected a large sample of both clinical and nonclinical Rorschach protocols, each of which was coded separately by 2 independent raters. Results demonstrated a mean intraclass correlation of .78 (SD = .14) for raw scores and.74 (SD = .14) for complexity-adjusted scores. Overall, for both raw and complexity-adjusted values, most of the variables were characterized by good to excellent IRR.