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Adult Children of Alcoholics
- 1. Jessie Mason EDHS 3500: Abnormal Psychology MYTH: ADULT CHILDREN OF ALCOHOLICS DISPLAY A DISTINCTIVE PROFILE OF SYMPTOMS
- 2. Enthusiastic, positive, cheerful view of life Confident Commands respect and recognition Warm and cheerful glow Proud Super-achiever Inspiration to others Go out of your way to give helpful hints Offer genuine friendship Tremendous sense of loyalty in your relationships PROFILE
- 5. “…personality descriptions from tests are made to fit the patient largely or wholly by virtue of their triviality; and in which any nontrivial, but perhaps erroneous, inferences are hidden in a context of assertions or denials which carry high confidence simply because of the population base rates, regardless of the test's validity.” (Meehl, 1956) THE BARNUM EFFECT
- 6. University of Missouri: 1992 224 subjects selected from 2,428 screenings Personality assessment Evaluation of “specific” personality profile RESEARCH
- 9. “…lack of a reliable interaction between Family History and Profile Type, indicating that the difference between ACOA profiles and Barnum profiles was not different for ACOAs and non-ACOAs.” “…the majority of subjects rated the profiles as highly descriptive of Self.” RESULTS
- 10. Although this list of “symptoms” may describe adult children of alcoholics, it does not define them as a group. The personality profiles of adult children of alcoholics seem accurate to them because they are accurate to a large number of people in the population, some of whom happen to be adult children of alcoholics. WHAT DOES THIS ALL MEAN?
Editor's Notes
- This is a personality profile generated about the “typical college student”
- This is actually a personality profile for the zodiac sign Leo
- personality descriptions from tests are made to fit the patient largely or wholly by virtue of their triviality; and in which any nontrivial, but perhaps erroneous, inferences are hidden in a context of assertions or denials which carry high confidence simply because of the population base rates, regardless of the test's validity
- Basically: the base rate of people in the population is so high that although the symptom profile may describe the group, it does not define them
- Study at the University of Missouri (Logue, Sher, & Frensch 1992)56 women ACOA, 56 men ACOA, 56 non ACOA women, 56 non ACOA menGiven a personality assessment. Then they were asked to evaluate a personality profile that, they were told, the computer had generated on the basis of their answers to the initial set of question- naires. In reality, ACOAs and non-ACOAs were randomly assigned to receive one of the four personality profiles shown Rate the profile 1-7 on how well it described 1. self, 2. people in general, 3. ACOA, 1 being very poorly and 7 being excellently
- So they took these profiles and evaluated them based on how accurate they were “how well does the profile describe you”“how well does the profile describe people in general”“how well does the profile describe children of alcoholics”
- 71% rated profile types as describing them “very well” or better (74 non 67 ACOA)43% rated it as describing people in general “very well” or better33% rated it as descrribing children of alcoholics “very well” or betterNo significant difference between ratings for Barnum profiles and ACOA profiles, they are indistinguishable as descriptors of self, people in general, and children of alcoholics