This study examined the personality and cognitive characteristics of morbidly obese patients seeking gastroplasty. Rather than seeking “modal” psychological characteristics for the group as a whole, this investigation attempted to identify potentially relevant sources of variability that might serve as psychological markers for later identifying patients at risk for poor surgical outcome. Results indicate that while the patients share many life concerns and normal‐range personality characteristics, they are quite heterogenous in terms of psychopathological features, with 72% of the patients falling into one of three modal personality types on the MMPI. Cognitively, the patients' general intellectual abilities were normally distributed, and a substantial portion of the sample evidenced significant deficits in new concept formation and capacity to follow sequential procedures in a prescribed manner, abilities that seem, at face value, to be related to issues of compliance and ability to make lifestyle changes. The possibility of generating multivariate templates associated with different surgical outcomes from this data is discussed.

Research evaluating various treatment approaches for bulimia relies heavily upon one form or another of self‐report of binges and purges. Questionnaire and summary estimates of bingeing and purging taken before and after treatment have been utilized in many cases, although daily eating diaries are now increasingly employed. The relative accuracy of these different self‐report formats has never been assessed, making it difficult to compare treatment outcomes across studies where different measures were used. In the present report participants in a 10‐week cognitive‐behavioral therapy group for bulimia maintained detailed daily eating diaries that were objectively evaluated using operational definitions of binges and purges. These diary scores were then compared with data collected via weekly summary report record sheets and the Hawkins and Clement (1980) Binge Scale Questionnaire. Results showed significant reductions in self‐reported binges, self‐reported purges, and total Binge Scale Questionnaire scores. However, binge and purge frequencies derived from objective ratings of eating diaries, questionnaire items from the Binge Scale that asked about binge frequecy and purge probability, and the number of calories consumed per binge remained essentially unchanged from before to after treatment. These results suggest that investigators/clinicians studying bulimia should use multiple measures of assessment, including objective analyses of self‐reported data using standard criteria.

The present investigation sought to further delineate the Type A coronary-prone behavior pattern and to elucidate the psychophysiological process through which this behavioral disposition is translated into heart disease. Type A and Type B male subjects engaged in tasks that required varying degrees of activity before an assessment of challenge-seeking tendencies. Type A participants sought greater degrees of challenge than did their Type B counterparts. In addition, the more active the person with Pattern A had been immediately before the challenge-seeking opportunity, the greater the degree of challenge sought. Precedent activity level did not significantly influence challenge seeking in the Type B population. The Type A subjects also had significantly faster heart rates during performance of a challenging task. Pattern A behavior may be translated into heart disease through the cumulative deleterious effects of chronic and excessive challenge-induced cardiovascular excitation.

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A method for improving the muscle incoordination associated with cerebral palsy was empirically tested. Relaxation exercises, involving the successive tensing and relaxing of the major muscle groups of the body, were performed by four adults with spastic quadraplegia. All four subjects were sheltered workshop employees. Their IQs ranged from normal to mentally deficient.