Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

12-1982

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Psychology

Major Professor

Harold Fine

Abstract

The major aim of this study, which was an investigation of some personality correlates of the Whitehorn-Betz A-B Scale in psychotherapists, was to determine whether or not A male psychotherapists are more characterologically obsessional, depressed, anxious, and inhibited than B male psychotherapists. Because prior A-B studies based on samples as diverse as college students, alcoholic outpatients and psychiatric inpatients had all suggested the presence of these characteristics in A males, the investigator sought to cross-validate their existence in A male psychotherapists as well.

The investigator proposed a model for understanding why it has been that despite their (hypothetical) emotional problems, A male therapists have historically been shown to be more effective, rather than less effective therapists than B males. Based on Fine's conceptualization of the literary-imaginative and scientific-methodological sensibilities, it was postulated that the therapy work of A males has not appeared to be inferior to that of B males partly because of the ameliorating effects of the literary-imaginative intuitive and creative context in which the depression and anxiety-proneness exist as either potentiators or as integral parts. Some subsidiary aims of the project, then, were to determine whether or not there was a positive relationship between A-standing in both males and females, and possession of a literary-imaginative sensibility, on the one hand, and B-standing in both males and females, and possession of a scientific-methodological sensibility, on the other.

In addition, it was speculated that B females, who attain B status by endorsing interests in a high number of culturally defined "masculine" activities, would be more characterologically anxious than either A females, who do not endorse gender "inappropriate" interests, or B males, who conform to sex role stereotypes with their endorsements. Finally, it was proposed that the A-B Scale could be shown to be a masculinity-femininity scale by comparing its discriminating abilities with those of an established masculinity-femininity scale.

The total sample consisted of 50 male and 50 female psychotherapists drawn primarily from Houston, New York City, and Knoxville, Tennessee. On the basis of their A-B Scale scores, high scoring males (N=10) and females (N=10) were designated B's, and low scoring males (N=10) and females (N=10) were designated A's. The MMPI and 16 PF were then administered to each by mail. Analyses of variance were performed on selected subscales of these tests.

Although questions were raised about the degree to which test-wise therapists could be expected to respond honestly to MMPI questionnaires, most protocols were noted to have conformed to the expected validity pattern for psychotherapist populations.

Results did not confirm the idea that A male psychotherapists are more depressed, anxious or shy than B male psychotherapists, nor did they establish the A-B Scale as a masculinity-femininity index. There was some evidence, however, that A standing in both males and females is related to the presence of a literary-imaginative sensibility and B standing to a scientific-methodological one. There was also indication that B females are more diffusely anxious, tense, and detached than B males (but not A females).

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