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An analysis of alcoholics' perception of hostility before and after treatment
Journal of Subsronce Abuse Trearmenf, Vol. Primedin the USA. All rightsreserved.
TECHNlCAL
2, pp.
107-I
0740-5472/85 S3,CKJ + .OO Copyright0 1985 PergamonPressLtd
11, 1985
REPORT
An Analysis of Alcoholics’ Perception of Hostility Before and After Treatment SARA B. Moss, Eds AND JERRY L. WHITEMAN, PhD McNeese State University
Abstract- Volunteer alcoholics being treated in a chemical dependency unit (COW) were administered the Paired Hands Test-Adult to assess their perceptions of others before and after three weeks of treatment. This test assessed the perception of others along a friendliness-hostility dimension. Test data were compared to a non-alcoholic control group who were not receiving any form of therapeutic services. The main hypothesis tested was that alcoholics experience more hostility than non-alcoholics and project this hostility through perceptual defenses. A secondary hypothesis tested was that traditional short-term therapy reduces the alcoholic’s perception of hostility. Neither hypothesis was supported.
INTRODUCTION
For example, Fox (1967) found that alcoholics typically have difficulty handling anger and aggressive feelings. Yet, many of the alcoholics’ feelings of hostility are believed to be repressed, denied and resistant to change because he/she fears being rejected if these hostilities were openly expressed (Knight, 1937). Twenty-seven years ago, Knight described the “neurotic vicious circle” of alcoholics (Knight, 1973). In this cycle the alcoholic makes excessive demands from others which are inevitably frustrated. He/she then successively experiences disappointment and rage, hostile acts and wishes, guilt, self-punishing behavior, need for reassurance, excessive demands from others and the cycle continues. Following a review of research addressing the personality of the alcoholic, Barnes (1979) concluded that the alcoholic possesses the following characteristics: weak sexual identify, psychopathy, hostility, immaturity, impulsiveness, and a low tolerance for frustration. There are several beliefs regarding sources of hostility in people: (a) interference with goal-directed activity, (b) violations of ideals, and (c) withholding of desired need-object (Dworetzky, 1982). These are often unresolved conflicts producing hostility which a person may either repress or openly manifest if not reduced. Mead (1962) says the first step for constructively dealing with hostility is for a person to experience and recognize his hostility. Next, he/she must subject his/her hostile reactions to reality
THERE HAS BEEN AN ENDURING INTEREST in the personality traits of substance abusers. Many studies have examined the personalities of alcohol and drug dependent samples in comparison to “normal” and other clinical samples. Others have attempted to measure personality change following substance abuse treatments. Of course these efforts have produced mixed results and this area of investigation remains clinically interesting but experimentally unresolved. The paper presented by Moss and Whiteman represents another attempt to evaluate the role of personality factors in the etiology and treatment of alcoholism. These authors examined the personality characteristic of “hostility” in an alcohol dependent sample, prior to and following treatment. The contribution of this paper is in the use of projective techniques to measure personality indirectly through the perception of others. This procedure is potentially more sensitive than personality inventory assessments. No single effort will resolve this complicated issue but these authors have added important additional information regarding instruments and procedures that may offer new perspective in this area.
A. Thomas McLellan, Ph.D Poorly managed hostility is one of the factors believed to maintain alcoholics’ drinking behavior. ‘07
Sara B. Moss and Jerry L. Whiteman
testing. Such skills appear to be lacking in the alcoholic’s life style. One of the tenets of psychodynamic theory is that direct measures of personality traits, such as hostility, fail because people deny their deeper feelings. Projective techniques have been useful in investigating these deeper structures by assessing the quality of an individual’s perception of his/her environment. AlIport (1964) believes that perception, instead of being limited to stable qualities, dimensions, general laws of constancy, and association of elements, includes a predetermining dynamic component-the attitude of the subject. This feature, he says, varies with the situation and the personality of the subject. He further maintains that the personality characteristics of the individual predispose him to perceive things in a manner which is consistent with those characteristics of his personality. “The wide and successful use of projective techniques may be regarded as a confiiation of the proposition” (p. 316). Ittelson (1961) maintains that much of therapy deals with perceptions. The patient perceives the therapist with respect to his/her past experiences and especially with authority figures, and love objects. He/she brings to the therapy situation all his/her acquired assumptions about such figures. The patient’s perceptions are not a static quality but rather a constantly changing product of the environmental situation. The variation in perception emphasizes the fact that change is an indispensable condition for effective therapy. Perceptions provide the basis for action and changing perceptions brings about an accompanying mode of acting. All of this implies that focus of therpay is not inappropriate behavior but rather inappropriate modes of perceiving. Psychotherapy aims at changing perceptions, not changing ovat behavior. (p. 15)
The factors involved in one’s perceptions of others appear to emerge early in life and are largely an unconscious process. Most individuals change their perceptual style very little during their lifetime because interpretation of the behavior of others has been a part of the basic personality of the person for many years. This study compared the difference in perceptions, along a hostility-friendliness dimension, of alcoholics who were undergoing treatment with those of non-alcoholics who were not in a treatment program. There were two hypotheses to be tested in this study: (a) the scores of alcoholics made on the hostility pre-test would be greater than non-alcoholics, and (b) alcoholics’ perceptions of others would become more positive following short-term treatment tional chemical dependency unit.
in a tradi-
METHOD Subjects
There were 37 non-alcoholic (control group) subjects who completed both the pre- and post-tests within a three weeks period. There were 25 males, 12 females, 32 white and five black subjects in the control group. There were 12 from a low income bracket, 25 from medium and none from a high income bracket. The average age was 39.6. Their average education was 12.30 years. In the experimental group there were 35 alcoholics who completed the testing. Twenty six were males and nine were females. Thirty-one were white and four were black. Seven were from low income families, 28 from medium income, and none from high income brackets. Their average age was 36.3 and their average education was 11.10 years.
Procedures In order to identify an attitude of a perception and know whether it has changed, practitioners and researchers must have a reliable instrument to measure this change. The Paired Hands Test-Adult (PHT-A), a projective test based on the theoretical construct of the others-concept, was the instrument used to measure perceptions in this project. The others concept is defined as one’s general expectancies about other people (Barnett and Zucker, 1975). In all forms of the Paired Hands Test the subject observes a picture of two hands in a posed position depicting some ambiguous form of interaction. The subject is then asked to respond to the picture by choosing one of the multiple choice answers which he/she feels best describes what the hands are doing. These responses are then scored on a seven point scale which represents a continuum ranging from very negative to very positive. For example, “showing love” or “giving a present” would be positive scores, whereas “slapping someone” or “grabbing something before the other person gets it” would be scored as negative reponses. The score value is determined by an accumulation of positively scored responses (Zucker, 1982). A high score reflects both the frequency of positive statements chosen and also the magnitude of their responses (Barnett and Zucker, 1975). Peter Burzynski (1972) developed the adult form of the Paired Hands Test (PHT-A) in an attempt to identify those individuals experiencing problems in social adjustment. Burzynski felt the Paired Hands Test technique, as did Barnett and Zucker, reveals the personality of a person which includes positive and negative feelings of others. These feelings are largely unconscious and are acquired through early
109
Alcoholics’ Hostility
post-test, the PHT-A. A matched sample was sought with reference to age, sex, race, income, education, and number of subjects. The same administration procedure was used for their test. The only difference between the two groups was that one was receiving intervention treatment and the other was not. All subjects were unaware of the purpose of the test. Through the administration of tests, each subject earned a PHT-A score, and assessment of his othersconcept based on a friendliness-hostility dimension.
social experiences. Despite the assumption that many people could be expected to cover up their negative feelings, the findings do not support this inference (Burzynski, 1972). One of the aims of projective tests is to allow the subject to structure the situation so that it will reflect aspects of his unconscious needs, anxieties, and conflict and other fundamental aspects of psychological functioning. Another feature of the projective test is that the subject is rarely aware of the purpose of his responses. Since many alcoholics deny, project and rationalize their unconscious feelings of hostility, the PHT-A seemed an appropriate instrument for the identification of alcoholics’ hostility. All pre- and post-testing of the alcoholics in this research project was done with the PHT-A in a local chemical dependency unit, (CDU). The intervention program consisted of three weeks of concentrated individualized programming, therapy, education, family counseling, attendance of AA meetings, and an after-care program. All meetings and methods of rehabilitation were mandatory in order for the patient to remain in the unit. The researcher reported to the nursing station when entering the CDU in order to identify and approach patients that had completed detoxification. No subjects were used for this study until they completed detoxification. It was presumed that the drugs would have an effect on the subjects’ scores. During the six months of data collection, 146 patients were treated for alcoholism in the CDU. Of these 146 patients, 36 volunteered to complete both the pre and post-tests. One subject’s scores were invalid because his data were incomplete. Fourteen of the alcoholics who took the pre-test left the CDU before their treatment was over and never completed their post-test, eliminating themselves from the study. The control group was also given the same pre- and
RESULTS The PHT-A were scored by an IBM System 34 computer. It is possible to obtain a score as low as 26 or as high as 131 on the test. Any score below 80 indicates a somewhat negative others-concept, while any score above 80 indicates a somewhat positive others-concept. The higher the score numerically, the more positive is the subject’s others-concept. In the present alcoholic sample, the scores ranged from 71113 on the pre-test and 73-121 on the post-test. The difference between pre- and post-testing shows a slight increase but not enough for statistical significance. Table 1 shows the calculated and critical values for significance of results. The mean score for the alcoholics’ pre-test was 93.86 and the standard deviation was 12.80. The majority (81%) of the subjects scored in the 81.06-106.66 range. The mean score for the post-test was 94.57 with a standard deviation of 14.51. Eighty-one percent of the subjects also fell within the range of 80.06-109.09. Qualitatively, this means that most of the people in this alcoholic sample obtained a scored that fell in the mildly positive to highly positive range both on the pre-test and the post-test. The analysis in terms of comparison of alcoholics to non-alcoholics failed to yield any findings which
TABLE 1 Pairad Hands Test-Adult Scores
Non-Alcoholics (Controls) No. Total Sample Male Female Black White Low Income Medium Income High Income Age Mean Education Mean
x; 12 5 32
Alcoholics (Experimental)
Pre-Test
Post-Test
93.95 93.14 95.00 87.60 94.93
96.14 95.56 97.33 88.40 97.34
12
88.41
91.50
25 0 39.11 12.27
96.60 0
98.36 0
z: 9 4 31 2:
Pm-Test
Post-Test
93.86 93.38 95.22 92.00 94.10 89.00 95.07 0
94.57 93.19 98.55 87.80 95.45 91.14 95.43 0
3:30 ll:oo
Critical Value (.05) = 1.674
Calculated
No.
Value
= 1.3968
Critical Value (.05) = 1.690
Calculated
Value
= .0369529
110
Sara B. Moss and Jerry L. Whiteman
were statistically significant. (Critical value at .05 = 1.687, Calculated value = .0317635). Some trends occurred, however, which are worth noting. Females tended to score somewhat higher than males. The mean pre-test score for females (n = 9) was 95.22. The mean pre-test score for males (n = 26) was 93.38. It was also noted that the increase from pre- to post-testing in females’ scores was larger than for males. The post-test mean for females was 98.55 while the post-test mean for males was 93.19. The males’ post-test score is slightly lower than their pretest score. The black subjects’ mean scores decreased from a pre-test score of 92.0 to 87.80 on the posttest; whereas the white subjects’ mean scores showed a slight increase on the post-test (94.10 to 95.45). Fisher’s F-test was used to compare the two groups. The null hypothesis was that there would be no difference between the variances of two groups. The calculated F values was 1.4855 and the critical value was 1.88; therefore, the null hypothesis was accepted. DISCUSSION This investigation failed to corroborate the belief that alcoholics’ personality is notably more hostile than others. In addition, a traditional short-term therapy program using a combination of individualized and family counseling along with education and Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) participation failed to significantly alter the alcoholics’ perception of hostility during three weeks of treatment. However, a slight movement toward a more positive perception of others was observed among some subjects, especially white females. Many white and black males exhibited slight increases in hostility during and following treatment. It was noted that there was as much variation among the control group as there was among the experimental group. The alcoholics scores used in this study were those subjects who volunteered to participate in the research project. It seems possible that the sample was biased since it may be assumed that the more cooperative, therefore, more friendly alcoholics participated and completed the test than did hostile alcoholics. The absence of statistical significance may also be interpreted to suggest enduring characteristics of alcoholics’ personality. It may be that the defenses of alcoholics must be neutralized before rehabilitation is possible. It is possible that a carthartic episode characterized by increased hostility precedes personality reorganization. Should this be the case, therapists working with alcoholics should not only anticipate episodes for increases in hostile behaviors during treatment but could facilitate progress by helping the alcoholic understand and verbally express those hostile thoughts and feelings which have surfaced
during therapy. This could be followed by assertiveness training as a means to replace aggressive impulses. The results may also suggest that the alcoholic does not project hostile motives to others to any greater extent than does the non-alcoholic or that the alcoholic uses defense mechanisms other than projection in dealing with hostility, such as denial or repression. Many alcoholics maintain social skills which enabe them to deceive themselves and others with particular regard to the seriousness of their problem. Such a personality may have acquired techniques which either consciously or unconsciously mask their true feelings, altering their responses on projective tests. It has taken the alcoholic years to acquire his/her disease, as well as his/her style of coping. Three weeks of treatment may not be sufficient to induce the alcoholic to change his/her personality structure consisting of a network of attitudes, beliefs and perception of others. One of the funadmental problems in therapy is determining which factor in a person’s personality influence a change in his-behavior. This research was primarily concerned with an investigation in alcoholics’ perceptions of others along a friendlinesshostility dimension. Research conducted thus far has shown that short-term therapy has been only moderately successful in changing the alcoholics’ behavior, namely, their drinking patterns. It might be concluded that since short-term therapy has been somewhat unsuccessful in changing behavior, it has also been unsuccessful in changing perceptions. It also might be argued that the basic personality of alcoholics undergoing treatment does not include factors which cause him to perceive others significantly differently from non-alcoholics. The PHT-A has made it possible to test the alcoholics’ perceptions of others for this study. The reliability and validity of the test indicate that the test is a good measure of the perceptions of others along the friendliness-hostility dimension for other populations. It is, however, but one measure among many which help to evaluate the alcoholics’ personality. As the disease becomes less stigmatized and additional research is conducted about the alcoholic, more information will become available, allowing new insights into the problems which persently surround alcoholism.
REFERENCES Allport,
F. (l%S).
Theories
of perception
und rhe concept
of
York: John Wiley & Sons. Barnes, G.E. (1979) The alcoholic personality, a reanalysis of the literature. Journal of Studies on Alcohol. New Brunswick, structure.
New
Alcoholics’ Hostility
III
New Jersey: Copyright by Journal of Studies on Alcohol. Barnett, D., & Zucker, K. (1975). The others-concept and friendly and cooperative behavior in children. Psychology in the Schools, 12,495-501. Burzynski, P. (1972). The perception of social interactions and
social behavior among adults: An adult form of the paired hands test. Unpublished specialist thesis, Indiana State Univesity. Doworetzky, Company.
J. (1982).
Psychology.
St. Paul: West Publishing
Fox, R. (1967). Alcoholism.
New York: Springer
Publishing
Com-
pany. Ittelson, W. (Ed.) (1961). Perceptual changes in psychopathology. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press Knight, R. (1937). The psychodynamics of chronical alcoholism.
Journal of Nervous Mental Disorders, 86, 535-548. Mead, G. In C.W. Morris (Ed.) (1962). Mind, self, and society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Zucker, K. (1982) Others-concept research and its educational implications. Contemporary Education, 54, 53-58.
TECHNlCAL
2, pp.
107-I
0740-5472/85 S3,CKJ + .OO Copyright0 1985 PergamonPressLtd
11, 1985
REPORT
An Analysis of Alcoholics’ Perception of Hostility Before and After Treatment SARA B. Moss, Eds AND JERRY L. WHITEMAN, PhD McNeese State University
Abstract- Volunteer alcoholics being treated in a chemical dependency unit (COW) were administered the Paired Hands Test-Adult to assess their perceptions of others before and after three weeks of treatment. This test assessed the perception of others along a friendliness-hostility dimension. Test data were compared to a non-alcoholic control group who were not receiving any form of therapeutic services. The main hypothesis tested was that alcoholics experience more hostility than non-alcoholics and project this hostility through perceptual defenses. A secondary hypothesis tested was that traditional short-term therapy reduces the alcoholic’s perception of hostility. Neither hypothesis was supported.
INTRODUCTION
For example, Fox (1967) found that alcoholics typically have difficulty handling anger and aggressive feelings. Yet, many of the alcoholics’ feelings of hostility are believed to be repressed, denied and resistant to change because he/she fears being rejected if these hostilities were openly expressed (Knight, 1937). Twenty-seven years ago, Knight described the “neurotic vicious circle” of alcoholics (Knight, 1973). In this cycle the alcoholic makes excessive demands from others which are inevitably frustrated. He/she then successively experiences disappointment and rage, hostile acts and wishes, guilt, self-punishing behavior, need for reassurance, excessive demands from others and the cycle continues. Following a review of research addressing the personality of the alcoholic, Barnes (1979) concluded that the alcoholic possesses the following characteristics: weak sexual identify, psychopathy, hostility, immaturity, impulsiveness, and a low tolerance for frustration. There are several beliefs regarding sources of hostility in people: (a) interference with goal-directed activity, (b) violations of ideals, and (c) withholding of desired need-object (Dworetzky, 1982). These are often unresolved conflicts producing hostility which a person may either repress or openly manifest if not reduced. Mead (1962) says the first step for constructively dealing with hostility is for a person to experience and recognize his hostility. Next, he/she must subject his/her hostile reactions to reality
THERE HAS BEEN AN ENDURING INTEREST in the personality traits of substance abusers. Many studies have examined the personalities of alcohol and drug dependent samples in comparison to “normal” and other clinical samples. Others have attempted to measure personality change following substance abuse treatments. Of course these efforts have produced mixed results and this area of investigation remains clinically interesting but experimentally unresolved. The paper presented by Moss and Whiteman represents another attempt to evaluate the role of personality factors in the etiology and treatment of alcoholism. These authors examined the personality characteristic of “hostility” in an alcohol dependent sample, prior to and following treatment. The contribution of this paper is in the use of projective techniques to measure personality indirectly through the perception of others. This procedure is potentially more sensitive than personality inventory assessments. No single effort will resolve this complicated issue but these authors have added important additional information regarding instruments and procedures that may offer new perspective in this area.
A. Thomas McLellan, Ph.D Poorly managed hostility is one of the factors believed to maintain alcoholics’ drinking behavior. ‘07
Sara B. Moss and Jerry L. Whiteman
testing. Such skills appear to be lacking in the alcoholic’s life style. One of the tenets of psychodynamic theory is that direct measures of personality traits, such as hostility, fail because people deny their deeper feelings. Projective techniques have been useful in investigating these deeper structures by assessing the quality of an individual’s perception of his/her environment. AlIport (1964) believes that perception, instead of being limited to stable qualities, dimensions, general laws of constancy, and association of elements, includes a predetermining dynamic component-the attitude of the subject. This feature, he says, varies with the situation and the personality of the subject. He further maintains that the personality characteristics of the individual predispose him to perceive things in a manner which is consistent with those characteristics of his personality. “The wide and successful use of projective techniques may be regarded as a confiiation of the proposition” (p. 316). Ittelson (1961) maintains that much of therapy deals with perceptions. The patient perceives the therapist with respect to his/her past experiences and especially with authority figures, and love objects. He/she brings to the therapy situation all his/her acquired assumptions about such figures. The patient’s perceptions are not a static quality but rather a constantly changing product of the environmental situation. The variation in perception emphasizes the fact that change is an indispensable condition for effective therapy. Perceptions provide the basis for action and changing perceptions brings about an accompanying mode of acting. All of this implies that focus of therpay is not inappropriate behavior but rather inappropriate modes of perceiving. Psychotherapy aims at changing perceptions, not changing ovat behavior. (p. 15)
The factors involved in one’s perceptions of others appear to emerge early in life and are largely an unconscious process. Most individuals change their perceptual style very little during their lifetime because interpretation of the behavior of others has been a part of the basic personality of the person for many years. This study compared the difference in perceptions, along a hostility-friendliness dimension, of alcoholics who were undergoing treatment with those of non-alcoholics who were not in a treatment program. There were two hypotheses to be tested in this study: (a) the scores of alcoholics made on the hostility pre-test would be greater than non-alcoholics, and (b) alcoholics’ perceptions of others would become more positive following short-term treatment tional chemical dependency unit.
in a tradi-
METHOD Subjects
There were 37 non-alcoholic (control group) subjects who completed both the pre- and post-tests within a three weeks period. There were 25 males, 12 females, 32 white and five black subjects in the control group. There were 12 from a low income bracket, 25 from medium and none from a high income bracket. The average age was 39.6. Their average education was 12.30 years. In the experimental group there were 35 alcoholics who completed the testing. Twenty six were males and nine were females. Thirty-one were white and four were black. Seven were from low income families, 28 from medium income, and none from high income brackets. Their average age was 36.3 and their average education was 11.10 years.
Procedures In order to identify an attitude of a perception and know whether it has changed, practitioners and researchers must have a reliable instrument to measure this change. The Paired Hands Test-Adult (PHT-A), a projective test based on the theoretical construct of the others-concept, was the instrument used to measure perceptions in this project. The others concept is defined as one’s general expectancies about other people (Barnett and Zucker, 1975). In all forms of the Paired Hands Test the subject observes a picture of two hands in a posed position depicting some ambiguous form of interaction. The subject is then asked to respond to the picture by choosing one of the multiple choice answers which he/she feels best describes what the hands are doing. These responses are then scored on a seven point scale which represents a continuum ranging from very negative to very positive. For example, “showing love” or “giving a present” would be positive scores, whereas “slapping someone” or “grabbing something before the other person gets it” would be scored as negative reponses. The score value is determined by an accumulation of positively scored responses (Zucker, 1982). A high score reflects both the frequency of positive statements chosen and also the magnitude of their responses (Barnett and Zucker, 1975). Peter Burzynski (1972) developed the adult form of the Paired Hands Test (PHT-A) in an attempt to identify those individuals experiencing problems in social adjustment. Burzynski felt the Paired Hands Test technique, as did Barnett and Zucker, reveals the personality of a person which includes positive and negative feelings of others. These feelings are largely unconscious and are acquired through early
109
Alcoholics’ Hostility
post-test, the PHT-A. A matched sample was sought with reference to age, sex, race, income, education, and number of subjects. The same administration procedure was used for their test. The only difference between the two groups was that one was receiving intervention treatment and the other was not. All subjects were unaware of the purpose of the test. Through the administration of tests, each subject earned a PHT-A score, and assessment of his othersconcept based on a friendliness-hostility dimension.
social experiences. Despite the assumption that many people could be expected to cover up their negative feelings, the findings do not support this inference (Burzynski, 1972). One of the aims of projective tests is to allow the subject to structure the situation so that it will reflect aspects of his unconscious needs, anxieties, and conflict and other fundamental aspects of psychological functioning. Another feature of the projective test is that the subject is rarely aware of the purpose of his responses. Since many alcoholics deny, project and rationalize their unconscious feelings of hostility, the PHT-A seemed an appropriate instrument for the identification of alcoholics’ hostility. All pre- and post-testing of the alcoholics in this research project was done with the PHT-A in a local chemical dependency unit, (CDU). The intervention program consisted of three weeks of concentrated individualized programming, therapy, education, family counseling, attendance of AA meetings, and an after-care program. All meetings and methods of rehabilitation were mandatory in order for the patient to remain in the unit. The researcher reported to the nursing station when entering the CDU in order to identify and approach patients that had completed detoxification. No subjects were used for this study until they completed detoxification. It was presumed that the drugs would have an effect on the subjects’ scores. During the six months of data collection, 146 patients were treated for alcoholism in the CDU. Of these 146 patients, 36 volunteered to complete both the pre and post-tests. One subject’s scores were invalid because his data were incomplete. Fourteen of the alcoholics who took the pre-test left the CDU before their treatment was over and never completed their post-test, eliminating themselves from the study. The control group was also given the same pre- and
RESULTS The PHT-A were scored by an IBM System 34 computer. It is possible to obtain a score as low as 26 or as high as 131 on the test. Any score below 80 indicates a somewhat negative others-concept, while any score above 80 indicates a somewhat positive others-concept. The higher the score numerically, the more positive is the subject’s others-concept. In the present alcoholic sample, the scores ranged from 71113 on the pre-test and 73-121 on the post-test. The difference between pre- and post-testing shows a slight increase but not enough for statistical significance. Table 1 shows the calculated and critical values for significance of results. The mean score for the alcoholics’ pre-test was 93.86 and the standard deviation was 12.80. The majority (81%) of the subjects scored in the 81.06-106.66 range. The mean score for the post-test was 94.57 with a standard deviation of 14.51. Eighty-one percent of the subjects also fell within the range of 80.06-109.09. Qualitatively, this means that most of the people in this alcoholic sample obtained a scored that fell in the mildly positive to highly positive range both on the pre-test and the post-test. The analysis in terms of comparison of alcoholics to non-alcoholics failed to yield any findings which
TABLE 1 Pairad Hands Test-Adult Scores
Non-Alcoholics (Controls) No. Total Sample Male Female Black White Low Income Medium Income High Income Age Mean Education Mean
x; 12 5 32
Alcoholics (Experimental)
Pre-Test
Post-Test
93.95 93.14 95.00 87.60 94.93
96.14 95.56 97.33 88.40 97.34
12
88.41
91.50
25 0 39.11 12.27
96.60 0
98.36 0
z: 9 4 31 2:
Pm-Test
Post-Test
93.86 93.38 95.22 92.00 94.10 89.00 95.07 0
94.57 93.19 98.55 87.80 95.45 91.14 95.43 0
3:30 ll:oo
Critical Value (.05) = 1.674
Calculated
No.
Value
= 1.3968
Critical Value (.05) = 1.690
Calculated
Value
= .0369529
110
Sara B. Moss and Jerry L. Whiteman
were statistically significant. (Critical value at .05 = 1.687, Calculated value = .0317635). Some trends occurred, however, which are worth noting. Females tended to score somewhat higher than males. The mean pre-test score for females (n = 9) was 95.22. The mean pre-test score for males (n = 26) was 93.38. It was also noted that the increase from pre- to post-testing in females’ scores was larger than for males. The post-test mean for females was 98.55 while the post-test mean for males was 93.19. The males’ post-test score is slightly lower than their pretest score. The black subjects’ mean scores decreased from a pre-test score of 92.0 to 87.80 on the posttest; whereas the white subjects’ mean scores showed a slight increase on the post-test (94.10 to 95.45). Fisher’s F-test was used to compare the two groups. The null hypothesis was that there would be no difference between the variances of two groups. The calculated F values was 1.4855 and the critical value was 1.88; therefore, the null hypothesis was accepted. DISCUSSION This investigation failed to corroborate the belief that alcoholics’ personality is notably more hostile than others. In addition, a traditional short-term therapy program using a combination of individualized and family counseling along with education and Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) participation failed to significantly alter the alcoholics’ perception of hostility during three weeks of treatment. However, a slight movement toward a more positive perception of others was observed among some subjects, especially white females. Many white and black males exhibited slight increases in hostility during and following treatment. It was noted that there was as much variation among the control group as there was among the experimental group. The alcoholics scores used in this study were those subjects who volunteered to participate in the research project. It seems possible that the sample was biased since it may be assumed that the more cooperative, therefore, more friendly alcoholics participated and completed the test than did hostile alcoholics. The absence of statistical significance may also be interpreted to suggest enduring characteristics of alcoholics’ personality. It may be that the defenses of alcoholics must be neutralized before rehabilitation is possible. It is possible that a carthartic episode characterized by increased hostility precedes personality reorganization. Should this be the case, therapists working with alcoholics should not only anticipate episodes for increases in hostile behaviors during treatment but could facilitate progress by helping the alcoholic understand and verbally express those hostile thoughts and feelings which have surfaced
during therapy. This could be followed by assertiveness training as a means to replace aggressive impulses. The results may also suggest that the alcoholic does not project hostile motives to others to any greater extent than does the non-alcoholic or that the alcoholic uses defense mechanisms other than projection in dealing with hostility, such as denial or repression. Many alcoholics maintain social skills which enabe them to deceive themselves and others with particular regard to the seriousness of their problem. Such a personality may have acquired techniques which either consciously or unconsciously mask their true feelings, altering their responses on projective tests. It has taken the alcoholic years to acquire his/her disease, as well as his/her style of coping. Three weeks of treatment may not be sufficient to induce the alcoholic to change his/her personality structure consisting of a network of attitudes, beliefs and perception of others. One of the funadmental problems in therapy is determining which factor in a person’s personality influence a change in his-behavior. This research was primarily concerned with an investigation in alcoholics’ perceptions of others along a friendlinesshostility dimension. Research conducted thus far has shown that short-term therapy has been only moderately successful in changing the alcoholics’ behavior, namely, their drinking patterns. It might be concluded that since short-term therapy has been somewhat unsuccessful in changing behavior, it has also been unsuccessful in changing perceptions. It also might be argued that the basic personality of alcoholics undergoing treatment does not include factors which cause him to perceive others significantly differently from non-alcoholics. The PHT-A has made it possible to test the alcoholics’ perceptions of others for this study. The reliability and validity of the test indicate that the test is a good measure of the perceptions of others along the friendliness-hostility dimension for other populations. It is, however, but one measure among many which help to evaluate the alcoholics’ personality. As the disease becomes less stigmatized and additional research is conducted about the alcoholic, more information will become available, allowing new insights into the problems which persently surround alcoholism.
REFERENCES Allport,
F. (l%S).
Theories
of perception
und rhe concept
of
York: John Wiley & Sons. Barnes, G.E. (1979) The alcoholic personality, a reanalysis of the literature. Journal of Studies on Alcohol. New Brunswick, structure.
New
Alcoholics’ Hostility
III
New Jersey: Copyright by Journal of Studies on Alcohol. Barnett, D., & Zucker, K. (1975). The others-concept and friendly and cooperative behavior in children. Psychology in the Schools, 12,495-501. Burzynski, P. (1972). The perception of social interactions and
social behavior among adults: An adult form of the paired hands test. Unpublished specialist thesis, Indiana State Univesity. Doworetzky, Company.
J. (1982).
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