Date of Award

1982

Publication Type

Doctoral Thesis

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Department

Psychology

Keywords

Psychology, Clinical.

Rights

info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

Abstract

Recent writers (Johnston & Holzman, 1979; Rudzinski & Auld, 1980) have pointed out that most of the currently available measures of thought disorder are unsatisfactory for the following reasons: They measure only a limited range of thinking disturbances, and they are unduly influenced by factors irrelevant to thought disorder. In order to overcome these inadequacies, Rudzinski (1979) developed the Picture-Preference Test (PPT) of Thought Disorder. Initial research on the validity of the test was encouraging and thus prompted the present cross-validation study. Two versions of the PPT thought-disorder scale were used in the present study: the regular 31-item scale, and a revised scale made up of 20 of the original items, each presented twice. The scores of 45 schizophrenic inpatients were compared to those of 88 University of Windsor students. In addition the schizophrenics' PPT thought-disorder scores were compared to their performances on three criterion measures of disturbed thinking. The results did not unequivocally support the validity of the Picture-Preference Test of Thought Disorder. Schizophrenics' scores on the regular PPT thought-disorder scale correlated significantly with only one of the criteria; their scores on the revised scale did not correlate significantly with any of the criterion measures. Nevertheless, scores on the regular PPT thought-disorder scale did discriminate the schizophrenics from the normals. The results of additional analyses suggest that PPT thought-disorder scores are determined in part by a disposition toward making deviant responses. Also, this deviant-responding dimension showed some relationship to the severity of thought disorder among the schizophrenics. Further analyses focused on the consistency of subjects' responses on the 20 thought-disorder items that were presented twice. The inconsistency of the schizophrenics' performance discriminated them from the normals, and also proved to be a reasonably good predictor of thinking pathology. Taking account of present findings, the author suggests several modifications that might improve the predictive power of the Picture-Preference Test of Thought Disorder.Dept. of Psychology. Paper copy at Leddy Library: Theses & Major Papers - Basement, West Bldg. / Call Number: Thesis1982 .A773. Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 43-07, Section: B, page: 2323. Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Windsor (Canada), 1982.

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