Personality correlates of dissociation : benign characteristics or predilections to mental illness? : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology at Massey University, Albany, New Zealand
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Date
2005
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Massey University
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Abstract
The purpose of this study was to examine dissociative experiences and general mental health in a non-clinical population and to determine how the associated personality characteristics of fantasy proneness and absent-mindedness impacted on this relationship. A self-report questionnaire consisting of the Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES), the Creative Experiences Questionnaire (CEQ), the Cognitive Failures Questionnaire (CFQ), and the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) was administered to a sample of 96 volunteer university students, most of who were enrolled in undergraduate psychology courses. Positive and significant correlations were found between all four of the variables of interest; the most robust relationships being between dissociative experiences and fantasy proneness on the one hand, and dissociative experiences and absent-mindedness on the other hand. With the exception of absent-mindedness, with Asians scoring lower than both NZ European and Maori, there were no significant differences between ethnic groups, or between men and women, on any of the other variables. Consistent with previous research, age was found to be inversely related to both dissociative experiences and absent-mindedness. A hierarchical regression analysis revealed that dissociative experiences and absent-mindedness were both directly predictive of poor general mental health. However, when the variance associated with fantasy proneness was extracted, only absent-mindedness continued to make a unique contribution to general mental health scores. In conjunction with previous studies, these findings suggest that the so-called "benign" phenomenon of fantasy proneness is an artefact of dissociative experiences as indexed by the DES. Although this suggests that there may be limitations to the DES's utility as a screening instrument for dissociative pathology, further systematic study is clearly warranted in this area.
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Dissociation (Psychology), Dissociative disorders