This study compared authoritarian traits as determined by MMPI-2 scores between inexperienced versus experienced police officers. The purpose of this comparison was to investigate whether experienced police officers possessed higher levels of authoritarian traits which may be related to years on the job. Results found that inexperienced and experienced police officers tend to be psychologically healthy and do not possess high levels of authoritarian traits. Some specific differences emerged with inexperienced police officers demonstrating higher scores on ASP (antisocial practices) but lower scores on HY (emotional reactions to stress). Possible reasons for these results are discussed.

Although global clinical rating scales have been a mainstay of clinical research, little is known about the relationship between these measures and other assessment modalities. The present study examined the Clinician's Severity Rating (CSR) from the Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule in a sample of 186 social phobics. It was hypothesized that the CSR would be related to higher fear of negative evaluation, behavioral avoidance, social anxiety, and dysphoria, and that four self‐report measures reflecting each of these common features of social phobia would contribute individually to predict clinicians' judgments of clinical severity using the CSR. Multiple regression analyses supported these hypotheses, accounting for nearly 33% of the variance in the CSR. The role of subtype of social phobia was also investigated. Overall, these results support the utility of the CSR for use with social phobics, but the relatively low proportion of variance accounted for raises further questions. Directions for future research are also discussed. Depression and Anxiety 4:120–125, 1996/1997.© 1997 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.

Previous research suggests that worry is primarily a verbal-linguistic activity that may serve as a method of cognitive avoidance of fearful imagery. The purpose of the present study was to examine cognitive avoidance in high worriers (N = 22) and low worriers (N = 24) using psychophysiological measures and a modified dichotic listening task. The task involved presenting neutral words into an unattending ear while worry or neutral scenarios were presented into the attending ear. Participants were given a surprise word recognition test of the words presented to provide evidence of cognitive avoidance beyond self-report. Contrary to the hypotheses, high worriers did not have less physiological reactivity than did low worriers. Low worriers recognized more words than did high worriers overall. High worriers remembered more words from the worry scenario than the neutral condition, as would be expected if they attempted to avoid the worry scenario. Implications for treatment of worry and the use of the dichotic listening task in researching worry are discussed.

Despite very successful treatments for social phobia, with many studies reporting as many as 75% of social phobics making clinically significant gains with 3 months of treatment or less, some social phobics fail to respond to treatment. This case presents a women with social phobia who received several trials of treatment for severe public-speaking fears but failed to improve, as demonstrated by persistent reports of fear and avoidance equal to those before treatment. With the assistance of a speech language pathologist, this client received combined therapy that included cognitive-behavioral therapy to treat her public-speaking fear and avoidance and voice therapy to treat excessive muscle contractions in the respiratory and phonatory systems. Overall, the combined treatment was successful, with the client's self-reported levels of fear and avoidance of public speaking decreasing dramatically. Specific improvements during voice therapy and implications for the treatment of social phobia are also discussed.

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