Dissimulation and the sex difference in self-assessed fears: a brief note

Masculine Gender Role Stress: a potential predictor of phobic and obsessive-compulsive behaviour

Eisler and Blalock (Clin. Psychol. Rev. 11 (1991) 45) developed a cognitively mediated notion of Masculine Gender Role Stress (MGRS) which assumes that rigid commitment to masculine schemata for appraisal and coping with life's problems may both produce stress and result in dysfunctional coping patterns in men. Previous findings obtained in a non-clinical sample pointed to the ability of the MGRS General scale to predict different forms of irrational fears. Using a predominantly psychologically distressed sample, the present study replicated this finding. In addition, different subordinate concepts of MGRS (Physical inadequacy, Emotional inexpressiveness, Subordination to women, Intellectual inferiority, and Performance failure) predicted Agoraphobic fears, Blood-Injury fears, Social fears, and Obsessional checking and washing compulsions distinctively. Intellectual inferiority was the strongest predictor of Social fears. Most MGRS measures emerged as better predictors of Checking than of Washing rituals. There were no sex differences in the predictive capabilities of any of the MGRS measures on any of the criterion measures. A hypothetical explanation is given for the observation of MGRS being more strongly predictive of Checking than of Washing rituals using the concept of "inflated responsibility". Implications for assessment, treatment and further studies are briefly pinpointed.

Fears of youth with mental retardation: psychometric evaluation of the Fear Survey Schedule for Children-II (FSSC-II)

The nature and development of normal fear, although widely researched within the general population, has been seriously neglected for individuals with mental retardation. The present study involves the psychometric evaluation of the Fear Survey Schedule for Children-II with two samples: 187 children and adolescents with mental retardation and 372 intellectually average students. The schedule was demonstrated to have sound psychometric properties for both samples including good internal consistency and high retest reliability. Sound validity indices were determined by examining the relationships of fear scores with state, trait, and manifest anxiety scores. Comparison of the two samples yielded significant differences. In particular, students with mental retardation were found to score significantly higher than the comparison sample. In contrast to the age-related decrease in fear found for students of average intelligence, those with mental retardation did not demonstrate a decrease in self-reported fear with age. Gender differences were consistent across both samples with females reporting higher levels of fearfulness and a greater number of fears than males.

Exposure with and without cognitive therapy for generalized social phobia: effects of individual and group treatment

Patients with generalized social phobia (n = 73) were randomly allocated to two treatment modalities: (1) group or (2) individual treatment, and to three treatment packages: (1) two blocks of exposure in vivo (2) a block cognitive therapy followed by a block exposure in vivo, or (3) two blocks cognitive-behavioural treatment in which both strategies were integrated from the start. All treatments consisted of 16 sessions, given in two treatment blocks of 4 weeks each, separated by a no-treatment phase of 4 weeks. Self-report assessments were held before and after the treatment blocks and at 3-months follow-up. Significant differences were found between effects of the first treatment block vs those of the 4-weeks waiting-list period. Repeated measures MANOVA's demonstrated significant time effects after both treatment blocks and at follow-up, indicating improvement for the group as a whole. After the first treatment block the integrated treatment did significantly worse than either exposure in vivo or cognitive therapy in decreasing somatic complaints. On the other variables no differences among the treatments were found. At follow-up a significant interaction was found between treatment package and modality on the variable cognitions: largest progress was found in the group treatment with cognitive therapy followed by exposure in vivo; smallest progress was found in the integrated group treatment. Results are discussed and recommendations for further research are given.

Cognitive and behavioural treatments of fear of blushing, sweating or trembling

Social phobic patients (n = 30) with fear of blushing, sweating or trembling as the predominant complaint were randomly assigned to three treatment conditions: (1) exposure in vivo followed by cognitive therapy, (2) cognitive therapy followed by exposure in vivo, or (3) a cognitive-behavioural treatment in which both strategies were integrated from the start. Each treatment condition consisted of 16 sessions, given in two treatment blocks of 4 weeks each, separated by a no-treatment phase of 4 weeks. Self-report assessments were held before and after the treatment blocks and at 3-months follow-up. No significant differences were found between effects of the first treatment block vs those of the 4-weeks waiting-list period. After the second block treatment was significantly more effective than waiting-list. The analyses showed significant time effects after both treatment blocks and at follow-up, indicating improvement for the group as a whole. After two treatment blocks and at follow-up no significant differences among the different treatment packages were found on target problems, avoidance of social situations, cognitions and somatic complaints. After discussion of the results recommendations for further research will be given.