This study investigated the factor structure of the Boredom Proneness (BP) Scale. Previous research on boredom indicates the existence of at least five factors that comprise this construct. Data from 385 participants on the BP scale items were analyzed through a principal components factor analysis with a varimax rotation in which five factors were requested. The results supported the hypothesis that boredom proneness, and therefore the BP scale, consists of at least five factors that are conceptually similar to those discussed in the literature. The findings are discussed in terms of how they provide a more precise measurement of the construct, and how this may have implications for counseling, education, and industry.

A Factor Analytic Study of the Boredom Proneness Scale

The reliability of peer review of scientific documents and the evaluative criteria scientists use to judge the work of their peers are critically reexamined with special attention to the consistently low levels of reliability that have been reported. Referees of grant proposals agree much more about what is unworthy of support than about what does have scientific value. In the case of manuscript submissions this seems to depend on whether a discipline (or subfield) is general and diffuse (e.g., cross-disciplinary physics, general fields of medicine, cultural anthropology, social psychology) or specific and focused (e.g., nuclear physics, medical specialty areas, physical anthropology, and behavioral neuroscience). In the former there is also much more agreement on rejection than acceptance, but in the latter both the wide differential in manuscript rejection rates and the high correlation between referee recommendations and editorial decisions suggests that reviewers and editors agree more on acceptance than on rejection. Several suggestions are made for improving the reliability and quality of peer review. Further research is needed, especially in the physical sciences.

The reliability of peer review for manuscript and grant submissions: A cross-disciplinary investigation

Most instruments that assess personality disorder rely principally on self-report. However, there are major limitations to using self-report for the diagnosis of personality pathology. First, the self provides only one opinion. Second, like everyone else, people with personality disorders are frequently unable to view themselves realistically and are unaware of the effect of their behavior on other people. Using informant data, therefore, may improve the reliability and validity of diagnostic assessment. A review of the literature reveals that agreement between informant- and self-reports of personality disorder is modest at best, even though informants tend to agree with each other. Self-informant concordance appears to be higher for older subjects and for Cluster B traits (excluding narcissism). Further research should focus on methods of resolving discrepancies between self- and informant-reports of personality disorder and determining when self or informant data are more valid.

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Informant-Reports of Personality Disorder: Relation to Self-Reports and Future Research Directions

Background The assessment of personality disorder is currently inaccurate, largely unreliable, frequently wrong and in need of improvement.

Aims To describe the errors inherent in the current systems and to indicate recent ways of improving personality assessment.

Method Historical review, description of recent developments, including temporal stability, and of studies using document-derived assessment.

Results Studies of interrater agreement and accuracy of diagnosis in complex patients with independently established personality status using document-derived assessment (PAS-DOC) with a four personality cluster classification, showed very good agreement between raters for the flamboyant cluster B group of personalities, generally good agreement for the anxious/dependent cluster C group and inhibited (obsessional) cluster D group, but only fair agreement for the withdrawn cluster A group. Overall diagnostic accuracy was 71%.

Conclusions Personality function or diathesis, a fluctuating state, is a better description than personality disorder. The best form of assessment is one that uses longitudinal repeated measures using a four-dimensional system.

Critical developments in the assessment of personality disorder

Interviews and inventories for the measurement of personality disorders

The inter-rater reliability of a schedule used to assess personality disorders was examined. The Personality Assessment Schedule (PAS) involves an interview with both the patient and a close informant and the ratings for the informant are given most weight in the final scoring. Videotaped interviews with 23 psychiatric patients, most of whom had a clinical diagnosis of personality disorder, and a close informant were scored by seven raters, four in the United Kingdom and three in the United States. Overall inter-rater reliabilities (using the intraclass correlation coefficient, RI) were generally good to excellent for each of the 24 personality variables tested, ranging between .66 and .94 for informants and between .51 and .91 for subjects. Corresponding reliability coefficients for overall mean PAS scores were .82 and .75, respectively. Consistent with these findings, there was little bias between the scores of American and British raters, although there was some tendency for American raters to score higher for the trait of eccentricity and lower for the trait of conscientiousness than was true for British raters. There was less bias for informants' ratings than for those of subjects. In a second set of analyses, it was shown that inter-rater reliability levels (using the Kappa statistic) were also good to excellent (.6 to .8) for the categorical diagnosis of personality disorder. These results, taken together, demonstrate that abnormal personality can be reliably assessed by both British and American raters.

Cicchetti Dv

Papers

Cross-national reliability study of a schedule for assessing personality disorders.