Date of Award

10-1-1993

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Psychology

Abstract

The present study examined various aspects of interpersonal perception among individuals exhibiting significant sociopathic characteristics (spike 4 MMPI-2 elevations) and control subjects (no significant MMPI-2 elevations). In addition, sociopathic self-perceptions were examined to test hypotheses related to self-image differences between these individuals and control subjects.Each subject participated in two interaction sessions. In each session the subject interacted with two partners. For one session both partners were male, and for the other, both were female. This study appears to offer one of the first attempts to implement Cronbach's component analysis in a study of gender effects among individuals exhibiting a clinically significant psychopathology indicator.Significant differences were found on several measures of impression accuracy with experimental subjects exhibiting a higher degree of accuracy than control subjects. Results from past studies have been most notable for their lack of agreement. The present study appears to support those findings which indicate that females with sociopathic characteristics have a strong ability to predict the impressions they make on others.The analysis of subject self-ratings did not produce a significant difference. This indicates that the experimental subjects' self-perception is not unlike the self-perception held by control subjects. This is notable because the fact that experimental subjects demonstrated a greater ability to predict partner ratings indicates that females with sociopathic characteristics are much more aware of the difference between the way they see themselves and how others perceive them.Recommendations were offered for future studies of impression accuracy in individuals with significant sociopathic characteristics. Some potentially important factors which should be investigated further include the subject gender, presence of additional clinical characteristics, and partner gender. The benefits of a Likert scale format as opposed to a forced-choice format for the rating scale were discussed. Finally, the importance of investigating various traits which may be included on a rating scale was discussed, as well as the need to determine if certain clusters of traits exist which would serve to clarify the nature of the sociopathic individual's accuracy and to possibly identify specific areas of inaccuracy.

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