The relationship between self-and informant reports of personality using psychometric instruments... more The relationship between self-and informant reports of personality using psychometric instruments is constantly the focus of attention for researchers in the field of clinical assessment in psychology. The research shows weak agreement between clinicians and patients' assessments of personality disorders (PDs). The current study aimed at the convergence of measurement of PDs using the Shedler-Westen Assessment Procedure (SWAP-200), the self-report Character Styles Questionnaire-R (CSQ-R) and Borderline Personality Inventory (BPI). Paper-pencil questionnaires were administered to 102 inpatients (88.2% female, aged 18-64, M = 38.4) in a voivodeship hospital and outpatient health care centre. The SWAP-200 allowed us to gather expert (clinician) personality ratings basing on the intensive contact with patients. Results show that only a few SWAP-200 PD scales showed low positive correlations with corresponding self-reported PD scales from the CSQ-R. With the canonical correlation analysis, we identified two functions (borderline and internalising) that described similarities between the SWAP-200 and CSQ-R. SWAP-200 Obsessive-Compulsive PD correlated negatively with BPI scales. Consistent with previous studies, the self-report and the clinical assessment were only marginally convergent. Furthermore, OCPD stands out from other disorders in that it correlates positively with health indicators and negatively with some of the other personality disorders. The highest agreement was observed in the description of Borderline PD.
Narrative identity allows various experiences to be integrated and incorporated into the concept ... more Narrative identity allows various experiences to be integrated and incorporated into the concept of the self. Recent studies indicate that being aware of developing the story about the self that brings cohesion and meaning may be adaptive. This paper presents preliminary findings across three studies (two quantitative methods and one mixed) aimed at exploring the phenomenon of awareness of narrative identity in terms of its relations to other aspects of narrative identity and meaning-making (meaning in life, self-esteem, and post-traumatic growth). The total number of participants in all studies was 840 (N 1 = 254, N 2 = 424, N 3 = 162). The results indicate that stronger awareness of narrative identity is related to higher self-narrative inclination and reflection and may be adaptive in terms of meaning-making and coping with traumatic events. People who were more aware of a narrative identity produced
Creating shortened versions of research tools is common and justified. Unfortunately, it is often... more Creating shortened versions of research tools is common and justified. Unfortunately, it is often performed without due methodological care and awareness of the consequences of such actions. Even though the errors committed during short form construction were collected by Smith and his collaborators in 2000, it did not distinctly affect the practice. The mistakes made by researchers still come down to two main faults: assuming the transferability of validity and reliability between the full and shortened versions, and lowering the validity and reliability requirements for short forms. These two problems manifest as 9 sins committed during the construction of short forms. This article intends to present procedures which prevent these mistakes and ensure creating possibly the most reliable short version of a research tool and assessing the costs of a selected shortening method. To this end, the work determined a priori the expected length of the tool, the benefit of reduced questionna...
The creation of abridged versions of research tools is a common, justifiable process, but unfortu... more The creation of abridged versions of research tools is a common, justifiable process, but unfortunately it is often carried out without due methodological care and regard for the consequences. Smith and collaborators (2000) have already written about the mistakes that can be made, but their article has not had much practical impact. There are two main mistakes commonly made by researchers: assuming the transferability of validity and reliability between the full and shortened versions and using less stringent criteria to assess the validity and reliability of short forms. These two problems manifest as nine sins committed during the construction of short forms. Here we present procedures designed to allow researchers to avoid these mistakes and create abridged versions of research tools that are as reliable as possible and to assess the costs of the various methods of abridging questionnaires. To this end we determine the expected length of the tool and weight the benefits of reduce...
Emilia Soroko Dlaczego metafora działa? Pytanie o skuteczność terapeutyczną w świetle wiedzy o me... more Emilia Soroko Dlaczego metafora działa? Pytanie o skuteczność terapeutyczną w świetle wiedzy o metaforze Wprowadzenie
The views, opinions, and/or findings contained in this report are those of the authors and should... more The views, opinions, and/or findings contained in this report are those of the authors and should not be construed as an official Department of the Army position, policy, or decision, unless so designated by other documents.
Self-narrative (as reporting one's own experience in a narrative form) is a significant sourc... more Self-narrative (as reporting one's own experience in a narrative form) is a significant source of information for a psychologist, because the self-narrative reflects an individual pattern of meaning-making, which is constitutive for the sense of identity. It is claimed that the usefulness of methods (instructions) aimed at generating self- narrative should be assessed. The moreuseful the instruction is, the highere level of narrativity it produces. It might be assumed, that there are some factors (intrapersonal and situational), which may modify the effects of self-narrative elicitation instructions. One of the intrapersonal factors is the self-narrative inclination - a dispositional tendency to story-telling about one's own experience. The book concerns the estimation of narrativity levels in the texts produced by the participants during three different self-narrative elicitation instructions (1. open-ended question; 2. photo-elicitation interview; 3. life-as-book metaphor)...
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2022
The article aims to show social capital resources in coping with distance education during the CO... more The article aims to show social capital resources in coping with distance education during the COVID-19 pandemic of Polish teachers working at different educational stages. The sample consisted of 1104 women (91.2%) and 107 men (8.8%) who described their remote professional experiences as valued positively during the pandemic. The collected verbal material was analyzed with quantitative content analysis based on theory-driven categories of social capital: Relationships, trust, commitment, and fulfilling obligations. Then, the frequency of words belonging to the categories in each participant’s utterance was assessed. The results indicate that when describing positive experiences (situations and events) during distance education, teachers referred mainly to social capital resources in terms of relationships and fulfilling obligations. The results indicate that teachers working in secondary schools in Poland put less emphasis on building social capital during distance education, espec...
The comment addresses issues concerning the importance of professional experience for various kin... more The comment addresses issues concerning the importance of professional experience for various kinds of assessment carried out in the field of clinical psychology. The influence of clinical experience is understood broadly and considered in connection with assessment procedure leading to differential and structural-functional diagnosis, with special attention to the context of the diagnostocians personality. The limitations that stem from monitoring focused exclusively on cognitive processes are also discussed.
The main goals of this study are 1) to explore whether internal relationship patterns are related... more The main goals of this study are 1) to explore whether internal relationship patterns are related to personality organization, and 2) to recognize the role that selected relationship patterns play in diagnosing personality organization levels. Internal relationship patterns were assessed according to the core conflictual relationship theme (CCRT) - about wishes (WS), responses from others (RO), and responses of the self (RS) - as identified from participants’ self-narratives about important relationships. Significant differences in the frequencies of patterns were found among participants with borderline personality organization (BPO), neurotic personality organization (NPO), and integrated personality (IPO). For example, the majority of negative RS responses were detected in the BPO sample. The study supports the thesis that relationship patterns might be related to personality organization, and that object representation complexity may be a good predictor of integrated personality...
Socio-therapy is a form of psycho-pedagogical help directed at children and adolescents from the ... more Socio-therapy is a form of psycho-pedagogical help directed at children and adolescents from the risk group or/and presenting the signs of disorders in psycho-social functioning. In the presented work it is assumed that a socio-therapeutic group is a social support context of delivering social support network, where helping factors are activated by the possibility of bonding, tightening social contacts and the sense of belonging to the group. There are many help-oriented social interactions in the socio-therapeutic group (functional social support). The following paper deals with selected aspects of social support in socio-therapy: 1) support as a response to developmental and other crises, 2) support in psychological problems, 3) support aimed at group dynamics and stages of group development, 4) support in self-help during group work and after the end of work, 5) support by creating conditions in offering help. The role of socio-therapists (and institutions where sociotherapy takes place) in the social support processes and areas were also analyzed.
Social therapy is a group form of psycho-pedagogical help directed at children and adolescents fr... more Social therapy is a group form of psycho-pedagogical help directed at children and adolescents from risk groups or/and presenting the signs of disorders in psycho-social functioning. The help includes intentional activating helping factors applying group processes. The study includes: an empirical investigation of helping factors, distinguishing the styles of socio-therapeutic group-work, the comparison of the styles with emotional and cognitive functioning of social therapists' and their professional background. Three socio-therapeutic styles were distinguished: 1) 'social therapist-focused style' (N = 22), 2) 'active group-focused style' (N = 21); 3) low activation of all groups of factors with a slight stress on C-'passive group-focused style' (N = 32). Interestingly, those groups differed significantly in terms of some aspects of professional experience of the social therapists as well as their hopeful thinking, pathway thoughts and agency but did not differ in terms of emotions that accompanied their work.
One of the main components of psychological conversation that influence communication is psycholo... more One of the main components of psychological conversation that influence communication is psychological defensiveness. In the paper I propose processual-situational understanding of defensiveness, and its measurement based on coding system. Preliminary results on link between personality traits and defensiveness in people's narratives are presented as well. participants and procedure To test proposed coding system, study was conducted with participants presenting different levels of personality organization's
The aim of this study was to test the usability of selected narrativity indices identified from a... more The aim of this study was to test the usability of selected narrativity indices identified from autobiographical accounts of important relationships in an assessment of neurotic (NPO) and borderline personality organization (BPO). Narrativity indices, both particular and generalized, were used to predict personality organization levels. Indices were derived from two separate layers of analysis: 1) lexical indices were counted with computer assistance; 2) evocative/reception indices dealing with coherence of the story were assessed using the competent judges method. It was found that the lexical narrativity index-the active "I"-was a good predictor of both BPO and NPO, while the human factor was a good predictor of BPO when low. Moreover, a generalized index was used to describe how stories are saturated with the narrativity indices of intentionality, concreteness, and active "I", but simultaneously deprived of human factor, and was found to be the best predictor ...
The relationship between self-and informant reports of personality using psychometric instruments... more The relationship between self-and informant reports of personality using psychometric instruments is constantly the focus of attention for researchers in the field of clinical assessment in psychology. The research shows weak agreement between clinicians and patients' assessments of personality disorders (PDs). The current study aimed at the convergence of measurement of PDs using the Shedler-Westen Assessment Procedure (SWAP-200), the self-report Character Styles Questionnaire-R (CSQ-R) and Borderline Personality Inventory (BPI). Paper-pencil questionnaires were administered to 102 inpatients (88.2% female, aged 18-64, M = 38.4) in a voivodeship hospital and outpatient health care centre. The SWAP-200 allowed us to gather expert (clinician) personality ratings basing on the intensive contact with patients. Results show that only a few SWAP-200 PD scales showed low positive correlations with corresponding self-reported PD scales from the CSQ-R. With the canonical correlation analysis, we identified two functions (borderline and internalising) that described similarities between the SWAP-200 and CSQ-R. SWAP-200 Obsessive-Compulsive PD correlated negatively with BPI scales. Consistent with previous studies, the self-report and the clinical assessment were only marginally convergent. Furthermore, OCPD stands out from other disorders in that it correlates positively with health indicators and negatively with some of the other personality disorders. The highest agreement was observed in the description of Borderline PD.
Narrative identity allows various experiences to be integrated and incorporated into the concept ... more Narrative identity allows various experiences to be integrated and incorporated into the concept of the self. Recent studies indicate that being aware of developing the story about the self that brings cohesion and meaning may be adaptive. This paper presents preliminary findings across three studies (two quantitative methods and one mixed) aimed at exploring the phenomenon of awareness of narrative identity in terms of its relations to other aspects of narrative identity and meaning-making (meaning in life, self-esteem, and post-traumatic growth). The total number of participants in all studies was 840 (N 1 = 254, N 2 = 424, N 3 = 162). The results indicate that stronger awareness of narrative identity is related to higher self-narrative inclination and reflection and may be adaptive in terms of meaning-making and coping with traumatic events. People who were more aware of a narrative identity produced
Creating shortened versions of research tools is common and justified. Unfortunately, it is often... more Creating shortened versions of research tools is common and justified. Unfortunately, it is often performed without due methodological care and awareness of the consequences of such actions. Even though the errors committed during short form construction were collected by Smith and his collaborators in 2000, it did not distinctly affect the practice. The mistakes made by researchers still come down to two main faults: assuming the transferability of validity and reliability between the full and shortened versions, and lowering the validity and reliability requirements for short forms. These two problems manifest as 9 sins committed during the construction of short forms. This article intends to present procedures which prevent these mistakes and ensure creating possibly the most reliable short version of a research tool and assessing the costs of a selected shortening method. To this end, the work determined a priori the expected length of the tool, the benefit of reduced questionna...
The creation of abridged versions of research tools is a common, justifiable process, but unfortu... more The creation of abridged versions of research tools is a common, justifiable process, but unfortunately it is often carried out without due methodological care and regard for the consequences. Smith and collaborators (2000) have already written about the mistakes that can be made, but their article has not had much practical impact. There are two main mistakes commonly made by researchers: assuming the transferability of validity and reliability between the full and shortened versions and using less stringent criteria to assess the validity and reliability of short forms. These two problems manifest as nine sins committed during the construction of short forms. Here we present procedures designed to allow researchers to avoid these mistakes and create abridged versions of research tools that are as reliable as possible and to assess the costs of the various methods of abridging questionnaires. To this end we determine the expected length of the tool and weight the benefits of reduce...
Emilia Soroko Dlaczego metafora działa? Pytanie o skuteczność terapeutyczną w świetle wiedzy o me... more Emilia Soroko Dlaczego metafora działa? Pytanie o skuteczność terapeutyczną w świetle wiedzy o metaforze Wprowadzenie
The views, opinions, and/or findings contained in this report are those of the authors and should... more The views, opinions, and/or findings contained in this report are those of the authors and should not be construed as an official Department of the Army position, policy, or decision, unless so designated by other documents.
Self-narrative (as reporting one's own experience in a narrative form) is a significant sourc... more Self-narrative (as reporting one's own experience in a narrative form) is a significant source of information for a psychologist, because the self-narrative reflects an individual pattern of meaning-making, which is constitutive for the sense of identity. It is claimed that the usefulness of methods (instructions) aimed at generating self- narrative should be assessed. The moreuseful the instruction is, the highere level of narrativity it produces. It might be assumed, that there are some factors (intrapersonal and situational), which may modify the effects of self-narrative elicitation instructions. One of the intrapersonal factors is the self-narrative inclination - a dispositional tendency to story-telling about one's own experience. The book concerns the estimation of narrativity levels in the texts produced by the participants during three different self-narrative elicitation instructions (1. open-ended question; 2. photo-elicitation interview; 3. life-as-book metaphor)...
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2022
The article aims to show social capital resources in coping with distance education during the CO... more The article aims to show social capital resources in coping with distance education during the COVID-19 pandemic of Polish teachers working at different educational stages. The sample consisted of 1104 women (91.2%) and 107 men (8.8%) who described their remote professional experiences as valued positively during the pandemic. The collected verbal material was analyzed with quantitative content analysis based on theory-driven categories of social capital: Relationships, trust, commitment, and fulfilling obligations. Then, the frequency of words belonging to the categories in each participant’s utterance was assessed. The results indicate that when describing positive experiences (situations and events) during distance education, teachers referred mainly to social capital resources in terms of relationships and fulfilling obligations. The results indicate that teachers working in secondary schools in Poland put less emphasis on building social capital during distance education, espec...
The comment addresses issues concerning the importance of professional experience for various kin... more The comment addresses issues concerning the importance of professional experience for various kinds of assessment carried out in the field of clinical psychology. The influence of clinical experience is understood broadly and considered in connection with assessment procedure leading to differential and structural-functional diagnosis, with special attention to the context of the diagnostocians personality. The limitations that stem from monitoring focused exclusively on cognitive processes are also discussed.
The main goals of this study are 1) to explore whether internal relationship patterns are related... more The main goals of this study are 1) to explore whether internal relationship patterns are related to personality organization, and 2) to recognize the role that selected relationship patterns play in diagnosing personality organization levels. Internal relationship patterns were assessed according to the core conflictual relationship theme (CCRT) - about wishes (WS), responses from others (RO), and responses of the self (RS) - as identified from participants’ self-narratives about important relationships. Significant differences in the frequencies of patterns were found among participants with borderline personality organization (BPO), neurotic personality organization (NPO), and integrated personality (IPO). For example, the majority of negative RS responses were detected in the BPO sample. The study supports the thesis that relationship patterns might be related to personality organization, and that object representation complexity may be a good predictor of integrated personality...
Socio-therapy is a form of psycho-pedagogical help directed at children and adolescents from the ... more Socio-therapy is a form of psycho-pedagogical help directed at children and adolescents from the risk group or/and presenting the signs of disorders in psycho-social functioning. In the presented work it is assumed that a socio-therapeutic group is a social support context of delivering social support network, where helping factors are activated by the possibility of bonding, tightening social contacts and the sense of belonging to the group. There are many help-oriented social interactions in the socio-therapeutic group (functional social support). The following paper deals with selected aspects of social support in socio-therapy: 1) support as a response to developmental and other crises, 2) support in psychological problems, 3) support aimed at group dynamics and stages of group development, 4) support in self-help during group work and after the end of work, 5) support by creating conditions in offering help. The role of socio-therapists (and institutions where sociotherapy takes place) in the social support processes and areas were also analyzed.
Social therapy is a group form of psycho-pedagogical help directed at children and adolescents fr... more Social therapy is a group form of psycho-pedagogical help directed at children and adolescents from risk groups or/and presenting the signs of disorders in psycho-social functioning. The help includes intentional activating helping factors applying group processes. The study includes: an empirical investigation of helping factors, distinguishing the styles of socio-therapeutic group-work, the comparison of the styles with emotional and cognitive functioning of social therapists' and their professional background. Three socio-therapeutic styles were distinguished: 1) 'social therapist-focused style' (N = 22), 2) 'active group-focused style' (N = 21); 3) low activation of all groups of factors with a slight stress on C-'passive group-focused style' (N = 32). Interestingly, those groups differed significantly in terms of some aspects of professional experience of the social therapists as well as their hopeful thinking, pathway thoughts and agency but did not differ in terms of emotions that accompanied their work.
One of the main components of psychological conversation that influence communication is psycholo... more One of the main components of psychological conversation that influence communication is psychological defensiveness. In the paper I propose processual-situational understanding of defensiveness, and its measurement based on coding system. Preliminary results on link between personality traits and defensiveness in people's narratives are presented as well. participants and procedure To test proposed coding system, study was conducted with participants presenting different levels of personality organization's
The aim of this study was to test the usability of selected narrativity indices identified from a... more The aim of this study was to test the usability of selected narrativity indices identified from autobiographical accounts of important relationships in an assessment of neurotic (NPO) and borderline personality organization (BPO). Narrativity indices, both particular and generalized, were used to predict personality organization levels. Indices were derived from two separate layers of analysis: 1) lexical indices were counted with computer assistance; 2) evocative/reception indices dealing with coherence of the story were assessed using the competent judges method. It was found that the lexical narrativity index-the active "I"-was a good predictor of both BPO and NPO, while the human factor was a good predictor of BPO when low. Moreover, a generalized index was used to describe how stories are saturated with the narrativity indices of intentionality, concreteness, and active "I", but simultaneously deprived of human factor, and was found to be the best predictor ...
The article is aimed at presenting the usability of some aspects of self-narrative analysis in cl... more The article is aimed at presenting the usability of some aspects of self-narrative analysis in clinical diagnosis. Clinical diagnosis concerns not only the identification of nosological categories, mechanisms of psychopathology, or etiology, but also familiarity with patients' self-experience. It is assumed that the patient's narrative is a psychological phenomenon in itself; it is a way of construing and re-experiencing his or her disorder. Therefore, self-narrative analysis is expected to lead to an understanding of how psychopathology is construed in language. As the leading theoretical approach, the model of narrative development proposed by
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