Emotionality, Repression-Sensitization, and Maladjustment

Abstract

Much of the current research on personality questionnaires has concerned itself with response style or bias related to “social desirability”, in which the first factor dimension of the M.M.P.I. is implicated (Edwards and Heathers, 1962). Stable personality differences have been detected between those who are placed high and low on this dimension as measured by a number of M.M.P.I. scales (e.g. Pt (Psychasthenia), K (Defensiveness), Taylor's MAS (Manifest Anxiety), Welsh's A (Anxiety) Scale—see Christie and Lindauer, 1963). However, a lack of integration has resulted from a failure to recognize that the same personality variable is being measured by scales of “social desirability”, “repression-sensitization”, or the tendency to deny or admit symptoms, and as well as “social desirability”, this factor has been identified as “general maladjustment or ego weakness” (Kassebaum, Couch and Slater, 1959), and “neuroticism” (Eysenck, 1962).