The data provide further support for the hypothesis that serotonin dysfunction is associated with more lethal suicide attempts, and suggests that higher lethality suicide attempters or failed suicides resemble completed suicides both behaviourally and biochemically.

No abstract

The stigmatizing effects of negative expectancies were examined in observations of interactions between children with and without a behavior problem. Ss were 68 pairs of unacquainted boys in Grades 3-6. In each dyad, a normal boy was either told that his partner had a behavior problem or given no expectancy; this expectancy manipulation was crossed with the partner's actual diagnostic status with respect to hyperactivity. The perceivers' expectancy that their partner had a behavior problem as well as the actual diagnostic status of the target adversely affected the boys' interactions. Behavioral data suggest how the expectancies were communicated to the target. The processes underlying interpersonal expectancy effects and the ways in which a childhood stigma can act as a self-fulfilling prophecy are discussed.

No abstract

The Five-Factor Model of Personality (FFM) has been used to conceptualize personality disorders as maladaptive variants of normal personality traits. This study assessed the convergence of 6 lower order traits, or facets, of FFM agreeableness versus antagonism (trust, straightforwardness, altruism, compliance, modesty, and tender-mindedness) with antisocial, borderline, narcissistic, paranoid, and passive-aggressive personality traits. Interview-based scores for all of the antagonism facets except compliance demonstrated the expected relations with these personality disorder traits. Results for self-reported facet scores were less clearly supportive, only yielding convergence for straightforwardness and altruism with respect to antisocial traits. It is suggested that future investigations of the FFM, or other normal personality trait models, and personality disorder symptomatology include analyses at the lower order trait level.