Defense mechanisms are patterns of feelings, thoughts, or behaviors that are relatively

involuntary. They arise in response to perceptions of psychic danger or conflict, or to

unexpected change in the internal or external environment, or in response to cognitive
dissonance (American Psychiatric Association 1994). They obscure or diminish
stressful mental representations that if unmitigated would give rise to depression or
anxiety. They can alter our perception of any or all of the following: subject (self?),
object (other person), idea, or emotion. In addition, defenses dampen awareness of and
response to sudden changes in reality, emotions and desires, conscience, and
relationships with peoples. As in the case of physiological homeo-stasis, but in contrast
to so-called coping strategies,defense mechanisms are usually deployed outside of
awareness. Similar to hypnosis, the use of defense mechanisms compromises other
facets of cognition.
General Description of Defense Mechanisms Phenomenology and pathophysiology both
play an important role in our understanding of disease. Whereas nineteenth century
medical phenomenolo-gists viewed pus, fever, pain, and coughing as evidence of
disease, twentieth century pathophysiologists learned to regard such symptoms as
evidence of the body’s healthy efforts to cope with physical or infectious insult. In
parallel fashion, much of what modern psychiatric phenomenologists classify as
disorders can be reclassified by those with a more psychodynamic viewpoint as
homeostatic mental mechanisms to cope with psychological stress.
The use of defense mechanisms usually alters perception of both internal and external
reality. Awareness of instinctual ‘wishes’ is usually diminished. Alternatively, as is the
case with reaction formation, antithetical wishes may be passionately adhered to.
Mechanisms of defense keep affects within bearable limits during sudden changes in
emotional life, such as the death of a loved one. They can deflect or deny sudden
increases in biological drives, such as heightened sexual awareness and aggression
during adolescence. Defenses also allow individuals a period of respite to master
changes in self-image that cannot be immediately integrated. Examples of such changes
might be puberty, an amputation, or even a promotion. Defenses can mitigate inevitable
crises of conscience (e.g., placing a parent in a nursing home). Finally, defenses enable
individuals to attenuate unresolved conflicts with important people, living or dead. In
each case the individual appears to deal with a sudden stress by ‘denial’ or ‘repression.’
But used indiscriminately, these two terms lose their specificity. For example, the denial
of the conflict laden realization T hate my father’ might become transformed by defense
to: ‘My father hates me’ (maladaptive projection); T love my father so much’
(compromising reaction formation); or T beat my father at tennis’ (adaptive
sublimation).
Defense mechanisms involve far more than simple neglect or repression of reality. They
reflect integrated dynamic psychological processes. Like their physiological analogues
of response to tissue injury rubor, calor, dolor, and turgor defenses reflect healthy, often
highly coordinated responses to stress rather than a deficit state or a learned voluntary
defensive strategy. Thus, a defense mechanism has more in common with an opossum
involuntarily but skillfully playing dead than with either the involuntary paralysis of
polio or the consciously controlled evasive maneuvers of a soccer halfback.
Implicit in the concept of defense is the conviction that the patient’s idiosyncratic
defensive response to stress shapes psychopathology. For example, physicians no longer
classify a cough as disease, but as a coping mechanism for respiratory obstruction.
There is increasing evidence that choice of defensive styles makes a major contribution
to individual differences in response to stressful environments (Vaillant 1992). For
example, some people respond to danger or loss in a surprisingly stoic or altruistic
fashion, whereas others become phobic (displacement) or get the giggles (dissociation)
or retreat into soothing reverie (autistic fantasy). These responses can be differentiated
by assigning different labels to the mechanisms underlying the responses. While cross-
cultural studies are still sorely needed, socioeconomic status, intelligence, and education
do not seem to be causal predictors of the maturity of an individual’s defenses (Vaillant
1992).
Despite problems in reliability, defenses provide a valuable diagnostic axis for
conceptualizing psycho-pathology. By including defensive style as part of the mental
status or diagnostic formulation, clinicians are better able to comprehend what is
adaptive as well as maladaptive about their patients’ unreasonable behavior. By
reframing patients’ irrational behavior in terms of defense mechanisms, clinicians learn
to view qualities that initially seemed most unreasonable and unlikeable about their
patients as human efforts to cope with conflict.
Taxonomy of Defense
Unfortunately, there is as much disagreement about the taxonomy of defense
mechanisms as about the taxonomy of personality types, but progress is being made.
First, adaptation to psychological stress can be divided into three broad classes. One
class consists of voluntary cognitive or coping strategies which can be taught and
rehearsed; such strategies are analogous to consciously using a tourniquet to stop one’s
own bleeding. The second class of coping mechanisms is seeking social support or help
from others; such support seeking is analogous to seeking help from a doctor in
response to bleeding. The third class of coping mechanisms are the relatively
involuntary defense mechanisms. Such coping mechanisms are analogous to depending
on one’s own clotting mechanisms in order to stop bleeding.
Anna Freud (1936), Sigmund Freud’s daughter, was the first investigator to introduce a
formal taxonomy of defenses. By the 1970s due to the protean and ephemeral nature of
defensive mental phenomena, other competing taxonomies arose (e.g., Kernberg 1975,
Thomae 1987, Beutel 1988, Lazarus and Folkman 1984).
Since the 1970s, several empirical studies have suggested that it is possible to arrange
defense mechanisms into a hierarchy of relative psychopathology (e.g., projection
(paranoia), to displacement (phobia),to sublimation (art)), and also place them along a
continuum of personality development (Vaillant 1977, Perry and Cooper 1989). With
the passage of decades, a sexually abused child’s defenses could mature from acting out
(e.g., rebellious promiscuity to reaction formation (Tjoining a convent where sex is bad
and celibacy is good) to altruism (as a nun in midlife counseling pregnant teenage
mothers). The most recent American diagnostic manual (American Psychiatric
Association 1994) provides a glossary of consensually validated definitions and
arranges defense mechanisms into seven general classes of relative psychopathology
(Table 1).
All classes of defenses in Table 1 are effective in ‘denying’ or defusing conflict and in
‘repressing’ or minimizing stress, but the mechanisms differ greatly in the severity of
the psychiatric diagnoses assigned to their users and in their effect on long-term psycho-
social adaptation. At level I, the most pathological category, are found denial and
distortion of external reality. These mechanisms are common in young children, in our
dreams, and in psychosis. The definition of such denial in Table 1 is a far more narrow
but more specific use of the term than many writers who use the term denial
interchangeably with defense mechanisms. Level I defenses rarely respond to simple
psychological intervention. To breach them requires altering the brain by neuroleptics or
waking the dreamer.
More common to everyday life are the relatively maladaptive defenses found in levels
II-V. These categories are associated with adolescence, immature adults, and
individuals with personality disorders. They externalize responsibility and allow
individuals with personality disorders to appear to refuse help. Such defenses are
negatively correlated with mental health. They profoundly distort the affective
component of human relationships. Use of such defenses cause more immediate
suffering to those in the environment than to the user.
Defenses in these categories rarely respond to verbal interpretation alone. They can be
breached by confrontation often by a group of supportive peers. These maladaptive
defenses can also be breached by improving psychological homeostasis by rendering the
individual less anxious and lonely through empathic social support, less tired and
hungry through rest and food, less intoxicated through sobriety, or less adolescent
through maturation.
Level VI defenses are often associated with anxiety disorders and with the
psychopathology of everyday life. Level VI include mechanisms like repression (i.e.,
deleting the idea from a conscious emotion), intel-lectualization (i.e., deleting the
emotion from a conscious idea), reaction formation, and displacement (i.e., transferring
the emotion to a more neutral object). In contrast to the less adaptive defenses, the
defenses of neurosis are manifested clinically by phobias, compulsions, obsessions,
somatizations, and amnesias. Such users often seek psychological help, and such
defenses respond more readily to interpretation. Such defenses cause more suffering to
the user than to those in the environment.
High adaptive level (VII) defenses still distort and alter awareness of and emotional
response to conscience, relationships, and reality, but they perform these tasks
gracefully and flexibly writing great tragedy (i.e., sublimation), for example, is
financially rewarding, instinctually gratifying, and sometimes life saving for the author.
The ‘distortion’ involved in stoicism (suppression), humor, and altruism seems as
ethical and as mentally healthy to an observer as the immature defenses seem immoral
and antisocial.
Historical Background
That emotions were significant to humans had been known since ancient times, but it
was difficult to develop a concept of defense until psychology could conceptualize the
interaction and/or conflict between ideas and emotions. For example, in their influential
textbooks the two greatest psychologists of the nineteenth century, Wilhelm Wundt
(1894) and William James (1890) discuss a psychology that consisted almost entirely of
cognition, not emotion.
Appreciation of the likelihood that it was distortion of ideas and emotions via
unconscious mechanisms of defense that led to psychopathology originated with
Sigmund Freud (1894). Late in the nineteenth century neurologists had obtained a
clearer understanding of the sensory and motor distribution of the nerves. They could
appreciate that it was impossible for an individual to have ‘glove anesthesia,’ and
certain common paralyses due to neurological damage. Thus, it became possible for
neurological science to appreciate that patients could experience anesthesia to pin prick
based on their mind’s ‘defensively’ or ‘adaptively’ to distort sensory reality. Trained in
both neurology and physiology, Freud was able to appreciate the importance of the
phenomena to psychopathology. He suggested that upsetting emotions and ideas could
be cognitively distorted in a manner similar to pain and motor behavior. Freud (1894)
observed not only that emotion could be ‘dislocated or transposed’ from ideas (by
involuntary mechanisms like dissociation, repression, and intellectualization), but also
that emotion could be ‘reattached’ to other ideas (by the mechanism of displacement).
Later, Freud expanded his theory to suggest that no experience ‘could have a have a
pathogenic effect unless it appeared intolerable to the patient’s ego and gave rise to
efforts at defense’ (Freud, 1906/1964, p. 276). In other words, much mental illness like
coughing and fever might be due to psychological efforts of homeostasis.
Over a period of 40 years, Freud described most of the defense mechanisms of which
we speak today and identified five of their important properties, (a) Defenses were a
major means of managing impulse and affect, (b) Defenses were involuntary, (c)
Defenses could be distinguished from each other, (d) Defenses reflected states, not
traits. They were dynamic and reversible, (e) Finally, defenses could be adaptive as well
as pathological. Freud conceived of a special class of defense mechanisms
’sublimations’ that could transmute psychic conflict not into a source of pathology, but
into culture and virtue (1905/1964, pp. 238-9).
From the beginning, however, defenses posed a problem for experimental psychology.
First, there is no clear line between character (enduring traits) and defenses (shorter-
lived responses to environment). For example, what is the difference between paranoia
and projection. There is no clear line between symptoms of brain disease and
unconscious coping processes. For example, sometimes one’s obsessions are due to
genetic factors alleviated by serotonin reuptake inhibitors and sometimes obsessions are
efforts at conflict resolution via the defenses of intellectualization, displacement,and
reaction formation. Sometimes the symptoms of neuropathology are wrongly imputed to
be due to conflict-driven adaptive aberrations of a normal brain. In addition, behaviors
associated with level VII defense can arise from sources other than conflict. For
example, altruism can result from gratitude and empathy as well as from conflict.
Thus, in the 1970s both the demands for rater reliability and advances in
neuropsychiatry led to psychodynamic explanations for psychopathology falling from
favor. As was true in the pre-Freudian era, phobias and paranoia were again attributed
more to brain pathology than to adaptive displacement and projection of conflict. Very
recently, the limitations of such a purely descriptive psychiatry has led at least
American psychiatrists to return defenses to their diagnostic nomenclature (Table 1).
Since the 1970s, several empirical studies well reviewed by Cramer (1991), Vaillant
(1992), and Conte and Plutchick (1995) have clarified our understanding of defenses
with experimental and reliability studies. This led to a tentative hierarchy and glossary
of consensually validated definitions of defense being included in DSM-IV (American
Psychiatric Association 1994), the American psychiatric manual for diagnosis.
Future Research A major danger in using psychodynamic formulation as an explanatory
concept in psychopathology remains unwarranted inference and subjective
interpretation. The hierarchy of defenses presented in Table 1 is no more than a system
of metaphors, and is not readily susceptible to experimental proof. But several empirical
strategies permit placing defense mechanisms on a firmer footing than say handwriting
analysis, phrenology, and astrology.
In the future, psychology needs to take advantage of recent advances in neuroscience to
achieve further reliability, objectivity, and validity for the study of defenses.
First, we can identify defenses much as we measure the height of mountains that we
cannot climb by triangulation. We can contrast a patient’s symptoms (or a healthy
person’s creative product) with his own self-report or mental content and with someone
else’s objective report, biography, or medical record. In this way an unconsciously
motivated slip of the tongue can be distinguished from a simple mistake, a true paralysis
can be distinguished from paresis due to psycho-genie illusion, and a paranoid delusion
can be distinguished from true political persecution.
The second method is predictive validity. Phrenology and astrology fail to predict future
behavior assessed by independent observers. In contrast, choice of defense mechanisms
robustly predicts future behavior (Vaillant 1992). Third, the increasing use of videotape
to evaluate complex human process offers the same opportunity for reliability in
assessing defense mechanisms (Perry and Cooper 1989).
In the future, there is a need to study defense choice cross-culturally and to clarify the
social basis for defense choice and familial transmission. As techniques for brain
imaging become perfected, functional magnetic nuclear resonance (FMNR) also offers
promise. So does genetics, for there is increasing evidence that personality disorders,
which are often characterized by a dominant mechanism of defense, run in families. The
demonstration of genetic influences upon defense choice will offer another advance that
may make defenses more tangible. Finally, integrating advances in cognitive
psychology and evolutionary psychology with advances in our understanding of neural
networks may offer still another potential means of studying defense mechanisms with
greater scientific rigor.
Defence Mechanisms The Modern Conceptualisation and Measurement MA
Dissertation submitted in part fulfilment of the regulations for the degree of

Master of Arts in Psychology, Jagiellonian University in Krakow

Tutor: Janusz Pałczyński, PhD

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Konrad Banicki
Defence Mechanisms
The Modern Conceptualisation and Measurement
MA Dissertation submitted in part fulfilment of the regulations for the
degree of
Master of Arts in Psychology, Jagiellonian University in Krakow
Tutor: Janusz Pałczyński, PhD
– Kraków 2007 –
-2-
Contents
PART I – THE CONCEPT
Chapter 1 – Defence Mechanisms. The History
5
Sigmund Freud: Or Setting the Stage
5
Anna Freud and the Classical Approach to Defence Mechanisms
11
Subsequent Dynamic Approaches and the Changes in the Concept
13
Empirical Results and the Crisis of Concept
19
The Reasons for Resigning from Empirical Studies of Defences
22
Chapter 2 – The Modern Revival of Defence Mechanisms
28
Cognitive Psychology
28
Developmental Psychology
30
Social Psychology
31
Clinical Psychology
32
What about the Personality Psychology?
35
Chapter 3 – Few Modern Conceptualisations of Defence Mechanisms
39
Introductory Remarks
39
Behavioural Approach to ‘Defence Mechanisms’
41
Defence Mechanisms as Cognitive Processes
44
The Structural Model of Defence Mechanisms
46
Defence Mechanisms versus Coping Processes
50
Developmental Approach to the Study of Defences – the Basic
Principles
64
Developmental Approach to the Study of Defences – the Empirical
Results
70
Developmental Approach to the Study of Defences – the Conclusion
80

-3-
DSM-IV-TR: Or the Eclectic Approach
81
PART II – THE MEASUREMENT
Chapter 4 – Defence Mechanisms Measurement. The Review of the
Methods
86
Self-report Techniques – the Rationale
87
Self-report Techniques – the Defense Mechanism Inventory
90
Self-report Techniques – the Life Style Index
96
Self-report Techniques – the Defense Style Questionnaire
101
Self-report Techniques – the Splitting Index
 105
Self-report Techniques – the Others
110
Self-report Techniques – the Conclusion
117
Observational Techniques – the Introduction
121
Interview-based Techniques – the Review
123
Projective Techniques – the Rorschach-based Methods
131
Projective Techniques – the Specific Content-based Methods
136
Projective Techniques – the Short Conclusion
143
Chapter 5 – Defence Mechanism Manual. The Preliminary Polish
Validation
144
Defense Mechanism Manual – the First Approximation
144
Defense Mechanism Manual – Hibbard’s Validation Studies
151
Defense Mechanism Manual – the Method of Preliminary Polish
Validation
157
Defense Mechanism Manual – the Results of Preliminary Polish
Validation
163
Defense Mechanism Manual – the Discussion of Preliminary Polish
Validation 182
References
187

- 20 -
scientifically understood psychology. First empirical studies – focused
mainly on the
manoeuvres of repression and projection – appeared in the 1930s
(Cramer, 2000).
Researches into the defence of repression were mainly concentrated on
the experiments on learning and memory as well as on the perceptual defence
(Grzegołowska- Klarkowska, 2001). Within the latter one it is possible to
distinguish three main kinds of studies (Byrne, 1961):
1. attempts to demonstrate the differences in the recognition thresholds for
matched pairs of neutral and emotionally-toned stimuli. It could involve
laboratory paradigms trying to measure three main kinds of simple phenomena
(Holmes, 1990; in: Parker & Endler, 1996):
a. differential recall of unpleasant and pleasant experiences,
b. differential recall of uncompleted and completed tasks,
c. changes in recall associated with the introduction and elimination
of the
stress,
2. efforts to explain (or often explain away) the data obtained in the
above,
3. the investigation of the individual differences in responding to
perceptual defence
tasks and of the correlates of such differences.
According to Byrne (1961), the data obtained in the first and second group of
studies (for review see Grzegołowska-Klarkowska, 2001) should be regarded as
controversial. The third kind of investigation, however, was a source of
consistent and growing body of evidence. Such a consistence could be, for
example, found in the researches focused on so called repression-sensitisation
dimension (for review see Byrne, 1961).
The inspiration of this current of studies was the basic observation that
people differ in the way they react to the threatening stimulus and that their
reactions can be placed on a specific continuum. Namely, the way of
responding within a population range from the behaviours of avoiding type (e.g.
denying, repressing) to those that are more approaching in character (e.g.
intellectualisation, obsessional behaviours). People that are more prone to react
in the first way were called repressors – they have high perceptual threshold
and thus the high tendency to perceptual defence and disruption. The second
group – sensitisers – are the opposite. They have low perceptual threshold and
behave in a way that can be characterised

- 21 -
by vigilance and threatening stimuli facilitation. Soon after the introduction of
this dimension it appeared that many behavioural (and others) variables
correlated with it in a meaningful way (for review see Byrne, 1961).
The basic – definitional and paradigmatic – method to measure the place
of a given individual on the repression-sensitisation continuum was the
measurement of his/her perceptual thresholds. However, many more
sophisticated and complex methods had been constructed. Some of them were
based on the projective techniques (Rorschach, TAT, Blacky Defense
Preference Inventory, Sentence Completion Task), some others referred to
behavioural ratings. In 1958 Ulman (see Nishimura 1998) suggested that it
might be useful to measure repression-sensitisation through Minnesota
Multhiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI). Two years later Altrocchi and
colleagues (see Nishimura 1998) elaborated on this idea and proposed to
combine MMPI scales. Byrne judged that the way suggested by Ulman and
Altrocchi was the most promising one and by making his own combination
prepared new, repression-sensitisation scale of the MMPI (Repression-
Sensitisation Scale, Byrne 1961; cf. Nishimura, 1998; Parker & Endler, 1996).
Regardless the validity of his evaluation of the other repression-sensitisation
measurement techniques, the further history of the discipline proved that his
prediction of the new scale’s potential was absolutely true. Namely, his method,
though sometimes considered as “psychometrically suspect” (Cooper & Kline,
1986, p. 25), soon became very popular and widely used.
The crucial assumption of Byrne’s scale was that those who would not
acknowledge having many symptoms could be described as repressors while
the group that would do the opposite could be called sensitisers. The
measurement based on this assumption, nevertheless, resulted in many
essential problems (Parker & Endler, 1996). First of all, it appeared that the R-S
scale correlated quite highly with the measures of anxiety and social desirability.
It led to the suggestion that it is primarily not a measure of the intended
dimension but of undifferentiated anxiety.
Furthermore soon it had been noticed (Holmes, 1990; cited in: Parker &
Endler, 1996, p. 8) that there “is no way to distinguish between individuals who
actually have symptoms and do not report them (‘repressors,’ or more likely
deniers) and individuals who do not have symptoms and therefore cannot report
them (nonrepressors)”. Weinberger, Schwartz, and

- 22 -
Davidson (see Parker & Endler, 1996; Weinberger, 1998) tried to solve these
problems by a new operationalisation of repressors that referred to self-report
scales of both anxiety and social desirability (defensiveness) (usually to
Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale). It was proposed that repressors
should be understood as those individuals who have low scores on anxiety
scale together with high scores on social desirability scales. These people who
are placed low on anxiety dimension but who are at the same time low on social
desirability dimension should be classified as real low-anxious (low symptoms)
ones. Soon number of researches appeared that supported the construct
validity of such procedure’s utilisation for repressive style measurement (for
review see Weinberger, 1998).
The history of the Byrne’s Repression-Sensitisation Scale shows that
experimental studies of repression has some potential for valuable and inspiring
results. However when ones recalls three kinds of investigation into this defence
distinguished by Byrne (1961) it should be emphasised that it was only the third
one that had led to such promising data. Researches from the first and second
group turned out to be much less conclusive and often controversial. As is was
noted by Cramer (2000, p. 637) – among others – “by the end of 1970s the
laboratory study of repression had virtually disappeared”.
The same was the case of the second most popular current of
experimental studies of defence mechanisms – the one of projection studying.
These researches involved an examination of either an attribution of personal
characteristic to ambiguous stimuli or an attribution of traits to self and others
(self-other paradigm) (see Cramer, 2000). Although some results in these fields
had been obtained, they were very strongly criticised in terms of their logic and
experimental design. As a result in 1968 Holmes (see Cramer, 2000) concluded
that there was no evidence for unconscious projection and explained previous
results away by the reference to attribution processes as a more parsimonious
explanation.
The Reasons for Resigning from Empirical Studies of Defences
The history of first experimental investigations into defence
mechanisms summarised
above led to the withdrawal from all empirical researches into
defence mechanisms

- 23 -
– withdrawal that has been, in a bigger or smaller degree, lasting till today. The
failures of these studies, however, are not strictly speaking one and the only
reason why defences are neglected in the modern academic and experimental
psychology.
In his commentary to a special issue of “Journal of Personality” devoted to
the defence mechanism issues George Vaillant (1998; cf. Cramer, 1998a)
enumerated some problems of empirical study of this subject matter which,
according to him, are responsible for the relatively small number of researchers
interested in them.
The first problem is the simple fact that defence mechanisms are
“currently taboo (...) out of fashion because they are tarred with the brush of
psychoanalysis” (Vaillant, 1998, p. 1148). In the same manner Cramer (1998a,
p. 880) calls words such as “defence mechanisms” and “unconscious mental
functioning” “taboo terms” by which she means “words that acquire such a
strong negative valence that to utter them, in the absence of some derisive
qualifier, invites expulsion from the community of academic researchers”. Such
an attitude towards the notion of defences is partly due to the logical
(neo-)positivism and learning theory inspired by it with their insistence on “if you
can’t see it, it doesn’t exist” (Cramer, 1998a, p. 882) position.
If one reminds that neopositivism is not one and the only methodological
position possible another reasons (dimensions) of such an aversion appears.
Namely, these are psychological attitudes of dominant current researchers that
can account for at least part of reluctance to undertake defence mechanism
issues. Such attitudes involve general aversion towards psychoanalysis and
psychoanalysis-derived approaches that is sometimes based on a
misidentification of any dynamic view with and early, Freudian psychoanalysis
(Cramer, 1998a) and a complete ignorance about its more up to date versions.
These and similar psychological factors might be associated with ideology –
religion and politics – rather than mere science (Vaillant, 1998) and therefore
cannot be dealt with by a simple argumentation. However, that far as the
problems are really substantive it is possible to at least attempt to cope with
them by methodological consideration as well as by the demonstration of
reliability and validity of studies in question (cf. Vaillant, 1998). As soon as
ideological issues are concerned it may be a good advice to just ignore them in
content-related investigations.

- 24 -
The next problem of empirical studies of defences mentioned by Vaillant
is undoubtedly more substantive and it concerns their reliability. As Vaillant
(1998, p. 1148) remarks: “Because defences rest in the eye of beholder, their
identification is subject to observer countertransference and projection” – this
kind of biases may influence the evaluation of such definitional feature of
defence mechanisms as the lack of voluntary and conscious decision (the
difference from coping mechanisms) as well as the ‘measurement’ of their level
of adaptive appropriateness. For such reason it is very difficult to obtain
accepted level of reliability in this area of investigation. Vaillant (1998, p. 1148)
observes that “in the past reliability in the study of defenses has been bought at
the price of validity and clinical relevance”. Such a shortcoming, however, does
not seem to be the most reasonable and promising.
It can be probably quite well shown by the example of self-report
measures of defence mechanisms. Namely, in many researches self-reports
had been chosen – among other reasons – to gain acceptable reliability and
they didn’t fail to come up to these expectations. The techniques used,
however, thought reliable didn’t succeed in providing convergent validity, i.e. in
showing that they measure what they were intended to estimate. In extreme
cases it made the whole data obtained completely irrelevant for the defence
mechanism study.
Further issues pointed out by Vaillant (1998) as relevant are more
conceptual and formal in character. They concern the definitions of defence
mechanisms which are “vague, overlapping and ambiguous” (Vaillant, 1998, p.
1149). Vaillant notices that “Everybody has a different name for defenses”
(Vaillant, 1998, p. 1149) and his remark should be strengthen by an additional
information that everybody has also a different name for the very concept of
defence mechanisms. It can lead and actually leads to ridiculous situations, like
that in which within 50 miles of San Francisco one can find “six competing,
nonoverlapping nomenclatures for involuntary coping mechanisms” each used
by “a distinguished investigator of stress” (see Vaillant, 2000, p. 90). Such a
situation has obvious consequences for the future development of defence
processes theory because it simply hinders it. The very fact that two
researchers refer to the same name of defence doesn’t really mean that they
are considering the same phenomenon and thus that their results are
comparable. Furthermore even if two researchers are investigating into two
differently named processes (one of which doesn’t have to be

- 25 -
named a defence) one cannot be sure whether they are not describing and
explaining the same mechanism. This feature of the defence mechanism study
may be a good reason for claiming that it still stays in a pre-paradigmatic stage
of its development. Such a diagnosis would imply a clear and urgent
prescription for necessary steps to be undertaken.
A particular example of conceptual confusion connected with analysis of
defence mechanisms is the fact that they are defined in terms of both trait
(stable personality trait of defensiveness) and state (individual defensive
behaviour or dynamic process). Furthermore also their measurement is often
respectively ambiguous. It should be emphasised that such a problem cannot
be completely solved be a mere definitional clarity. This is for the reason that
the very phenomenon of defence mechanism is equivocal. On the one hand, it
always expresses itself through the individual and specific defensive behaviour.
On the other hand, however, every time it appears, it is based on a relatively
constant defensive organisation that makes a person prone to one group of
defences (defensive behaviours) rather than to another. Such a constancy
cannot be explained away by a purely environmental variables.
 When one arrives at the final problem enumerated by Vaillant (1998) it
seems to be appropriate to classify it as the one of ‘last but not least’ kind.
Namely, Vaillant (1998, p. 1150) notes that many researchers avoid the issues
of defence mechanisms because they “raise the whole problem of ‘conscious’
versus ‘nonconscious’”. In the most extreme and consequent form it means
nothing less than the problem of consciousness and the meaningful way of
talking about it and verifying hypotheses concerning it. The classical solution
offered in this matter by logical positivism is not very optimistic and although
one does not have to confine himself to Vienna circle it would be a reliable step
to at least refer to problems discussed by it in anything claiming to the title of
comprehensive view of defence mechanisms. Unfortunately, the crucial problem
of consciousness and its measurement lies well behind the scope of this thesis.
However, it cannot be passed over in silence and will emerge in many of more
narrow issues discussed in the following chapters.
The problems discussed by Vaillant may lead and often led to the
complete resignation from the study of defence mechanisms. Such a decision,
however, would be both pitiful and unnecessary. Firstly, as Vaillant remarks
(1998, p. 1150), “if the study of defenses is problematic, their greatest value is
validity. Thus as often as Freud’s of adaptive

- 78 -
second one – more important – that psychological upset of an individual at the
particular age correlates with the usage of defence mechanism predominant at
this age, is theoretically reasonable but hadn’t been empirically studies yet.
These two premises are the logical foundation of the following reasoning:
“Although we do not have information on the boys' defense use during their
preschool years, previous research indicates that denial would be a prominent
defense at this time. It thus appears that, in an attempt to reduce anxiety and
maintain self-esteem, these boys relied heavily on the defense of denial”
(Cramer & Block, 1998, p. 166).
Only when the above is presumed to be true one may conclude that the
results of study conducted by Cramer & Block (1998) support the thesis that
those boys “subsequently continued to use this defense to reduce psychological
distress” (Cramer & Block, 1998, p. 166). In case of female participants the
general hypothesis in a predicted form had gained only a “minimal support”
(Cramer & Block, 1998, p. 166) – the psychological upset at age 3 or 4 years
was only very modestly related with the use of denial at age 23 years. However,
the “exploration of nonpredicted relations” led the authors to the “tentative” (but
stillpos t
hoc) “suggestion that those female participants who rely on the
defense of Denial as young
adults presented an early personality picture that was coherent but different
from that of the male participants. As preschoolers, female participants showed
both withdrawal from their environment and involvement in fantasy activity
rather than in real relationships” (Cramer & Block, 1998, p. 166). Such a
suggestion seems to deserve some attention (an analysis). Nevertheless, at the
moment it cannot be treated as supportive of the original thesis.
As a final conclusion of this research it may be said that it had supported
the general hypothesis – that the childish overuse of denial carry on and persist
in the adulthood – only in case of males. The possible reasons for this may be:
“greater male vulnerability to stressors, greater continuity in male personality
development (...) and differences in boys' and girls' patterns of interaction with
their social environment” (Cramer & Block, 1998, p. 166). Whatever the real
reason is, in case of males the study had confirmed the ‘Eriksonian’ character of
defence mechanisms development. When the life conditions in the childhood
are not good enough (“excessive stress, conflict, painful affect, or other
negative conditions”, Cramer & Block, 1998, p. 167) and – as had been
presumed – cause the overuse of

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predominant defence of denial such an ego functioning pattern begins to be
fixed and may last till the adulthood. Because of the lack of consistent findings
in case of females as well as a relative locality of this study it is still necessary
to gain further evidence of a similar kind. However, the results already obtained
seem to have proven that new efforts are worth making.
 The empirical results reviewed in the above subchapter are only a small
sample of researches made to verify Phebe Cramer’s developmental theory of
defence mechanisms (for much fuller review see Cramer, 2006). Nevertheless,
it should be emphasised that they are generally supportive of it. The early study
in which Cramer (1987) showed a predicted pattern of defensive functioning for
ages from 5 to 16 years old had been – in big part – replicated by Porcerelli and
colleagues (1998). Also few parts of the Defense Mechanism Manual validation
studies confirmed that the hierarchy of denial, projection and identification is in
a theoretically predictable way connected with psychopathology (Hibbard et al.,
1994) and defensive functioning of undergraduate students (Hibbard &
Porcerelli, 1998). The drawback of all of these studies was their cross-sectional
setting. Very fortunately, however, there are also some longitudinal studies
which confirm implications of the developmental theory. One example of such a
study – the research conducted by Cramer (1997) showed the theoretically
expected change between predominance of denial and projection occurring
between the ages of 6 and 9 years old. Another longitudinal study (Cramer &
Block, 1998) confirmed that in males the overuse of denial at age 3 or 4 years
old – measured through the psychological upset scale – is positively correlated
with such an overuse – measured directly, by the Defense Mechanism Manual
– at age of 23.
It should be emphasised that the researches summed up above
represent only those which had been based on the measurement with the
Defense Mechanism Manual (cf. Chapter 5). For the sake of theoretical and
conceptual consistency the studies using other measures, like the very popular
Defense Style Questionnaire (cf. Chapter 4, examples of such studies are:
Nasserbakht et al., 1996; Thienemann et al., 1998) and Defense Mechanism
Inventory (cf. Chapter 4, an example of such studies is: Levit, 1991) had not
been discussed. They all contribute to the investigation into issues studied by
Cramer like age and sex differences in the defence mechanisms utilisation
(Nasserbakht et al., 1996 and Levit, 1991, respectively) or early life antecedents
of adult defensive functioning (Thienemann et al. 1998). However, they
- 80 -
cannot be treated as a direct verification of Phebe Cramer’s theses. Instead,
they can be referred to them only after a metatheoretical consideration of the
relation between alternative measurement methods and concepts. A part of
such a consideration, considering especially the differences between
observation-based (including projective) and self-report-based methods will be
presented in Chapter 4.
Developmental Approach to the Study of Defences – the Conclusion
The developmental view of defence mechanisms which most mature and
consequently developmental form has been proposed by Phebe Cramer is an
approach that seems to be eclectic in its theoretical inspirations. Although its
theory is often based on the modern psychoanalytic writings it does not avoid
referring to cognitive psychology and empirical studies. Although its most often
used method of measurement is projective, it does all but ignore psychometric
issues (cf. Cramer, 2006 and Chapter 5).
The first place, when such an eclectism can be found is the definition of
defence mechanism proposed by Cramer. Although she understands them as
“mental mechanisms” or even “cognitive operations” (genus proximum) she
emphasises that they are unconscious. While delineating their specific features
(differentia specifica) and function she refers to dynamic approaches (in its early
and up to date form) as well as to social psychology. She says that defence
mechanisms are directed against both internal (unacceptable thoughts and
wishes) and external pressures. They protect an individual from the threats to
the structure of the self and his self-esteem. As such they protect from the
experience of excessive anxiety and other disruptive emotions (like e.g. guilt).
This kind of heterogeneously inspired definition cannot distinguish
between the approach of Phebe Cramer and others clearly. Instead of this, one
should refer to the central notion of development. It is the one that can be
definitional of this view of defensive functioning. Out of at least few meanings of
the concept of development applied to the study of defences there are two
which are crucial for Cramer’s model. They are expressed in so called “two
basic tenets”. According to first of them different defences become predominant
- 81 -
at different ages. Some of them are crucial in the early childhood (denial), some
become important in the late (projection), the role of other is not big till the
adolescence (identification). The second “basic tenet” claims that for each of the
defence mechanisms it is possible to find its “life history”, starting from the
neurophysiologic reflex as its predecessor. While ageing such a reflex becomes
voluntary and thereafter internalised (becoming a proper defence mechanism).
Subsequently it can become more and more cognitively complex. According to
Cramer such a general pattern can be applied to all three main defences she
studied – namely, to denial, projection and identification.
While presenting her model of defence mechanisms development Phebe
Cramer put great emphasis on the empirical body of evidence supporting it. It
cannot be neglected that such an evidence is possible only because of the fact
that there are measurable implications of the theory. It is for this reason that her
theory can be called verifiable and – thus – scientific. Furthermore, there is a
measurement method – the Defense Mechanism Manual that is both valid and
reliable (cf. Chapter 5) – which conceptual consistency with Cramer’s theory
makes it directly applicable for its verification.
The number of researches conducted with the reference to
developmental model of defence mechanisms is still increasing (cf. e.g. Cramer,
2007). At the moment it can be said that the empirical confirmation of it – both
cross-sectional and longitudinal, both made by Cramer and independent – that
has been already gained is considerable. For sure, it makes the further
researches and theoretical consideration worth undertaking.
DSM-IV-TR: Or the Eclectic Approach
Although the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders” (APA,
2000) contains only a modest reference to defence mechanisms and nothing
that can be called a theory of them it still deserves some attention here because
of its importance for both practical and academic psychology. Before the most
up to date edition of this classification will be discussed it may prove useful and
interesting to review shortly its older versions (cf. Cramer, 2000; Vaillant, 1994,
1998). These outdated editions, namely, appear to be
- 82 -
a good example of defence mechanism concept and theory
vicissitudes – of their exile and
slow rediscovery (cf. Chapter 1).
As far as the DSM-III (APA, 1980) is concerned defence mechanisms had
been planned to be included in it as a separate axis. However such plans were
abandoned for two kinds of reasons (apparently). The meta-theoretical problem
was that “defense mechanism implied unconscious etiology” (Vaillant, 1984;
cited in Cramer, 2000, p. 641), which was not only a theoretical element – on
which atheoretical DSM is not that keen on – but also a questionable – at least
then and at least for some – theoretical element. The second reason for the
resignation from the axis of defence mechanisms inclusion was more practical –
“even psychoanalysts could not agree on their definitions” (Vaillant, 1998, p.
1153).
7 years after, nevertheless, as a result of the “interdisciplinary
negotiation” (Vaillant, 1998, p. 1153) there was a glossary of defensive
manoeuvres which was included in the DSM-III-R (APA, 1987). The definitions
included in it had been validated consensually (Vaillant, 1994). DSM-III-R was
not a revolution. However – as George Vaillant (1994, p. 45) worded it – it was
a “step forward”.
In comparison to this edition of the classification the DSM-IV (APA, 1994)
was, if not a giant leap, at least few further steps forward. Namely, there was a
hierarchically ordered Defensive Functioning Scale included as one of the
Proposed Axes for Further Study. As an addition to this scale there was a
glossary of defence mechanisms. The ratings on the Defensive Functioning
Scale had been shown to be independent of those made on Axes I, II and V
(see Cramer, 2000). The same defence mechanism scale and the glossary
were included in the most up-to-date version of the American Psychiatric
Association classification.
The defences in question were “conceptually and empirically” (APA,
2000, p. 807) divided into 7 Defense Levels which are – from the least to the
most mature – level of defensive dysregulation (delusional projection, psychotic
denial, psychotic distortion), action level (acting out, apathetic withdrawal, help-
rejecting complaining, passive aggression), major image-distorting level (autistic
fantasy, projective identification, splitting of self-image or image of others),
disavowal level (denial, projection, rationalisation), minor image-distorting level
(devaluation, idealisation, omnipotence), mental inhibitions (compromise
formation) level (displacement, dissociation, intellectualisation, isolation of

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repression, neurotic denial, grandiosity, turning against others, idealisation)
representing mature, immature, neurotic, borderline and narcissistic levels of
functioning (partly derived from DSM-III-R and Vaillant’s studies ) as well as the
ego strength. For each of the scored defence mechanism the manual offers: a
formal operational definition, case examples, a process to code, possible
behaviours indicating presence/absence of defence, similar defence
mechanisms, and differentiating features. It is designed in such a way that an
extensive clinical training should not be required.
The interview being a base for the ratings should consist of a series of
standardised questions (on academic and occupational interactions, expression
of emotions, competitiveness, and interactions with others) posed in the
interpersonally stressful structured interview (see Davidson & MacGregor,
1996). It usually takes approximately 15 minutes. The very process of making
the ratings consist of the watching of the video-recorded interview (notes on
defences and emotional conflict are made) and a subsequent rank-ordering of
25 defences based on the predefined (roughly normal) distribution. Each
defence is represented by one card. Cards have to be sorted into 7 piles from
least characteristic to most characteristic in such a way to obtain the piles of: 1,
2, 5, 9, 5, 2, and 1 cards. In an effect of such forced choice ordering the
distribution as close to normal as possible is obtained.
Apart from the individual defence scores the Defense-Q involves the 3-
item scale to access the ego strength. Items on the subjects such as typical
effectiveness, typical need for defences, and typical defensive activation are
scored on a 7-point Likert scale from 1 (poor/low) to 7 (good/high). The single
index of ego strength calculated by simple summing ranges then from 3 to 21.
Internal consistency of this scale (Davidson & MacGregor, 1996) ranges from .
71 to .89.
Q-sort methodology used in the Defense-Q is not only characteristic to
this instrument but also rich in – theoretical and practical – consequences
(Davidson & MacGregor, 1996). Its advantages involve some kind of person-
focus – actually, it “compares an individual to himself or herself” (Davidson &
MacGregor, 1996, p. 631). In such a way it may preserve subtle and unique
qualities of individuals and, thus, seems to be good for accessing complex
phenomena such as defence manoeuvres. Furthermore, it allows relatively
untrained individuals to make ratings and – due to the predetermined number of
defences in each pile –

- 129 -
is relatively less dependent of the rater (see Davidson & MacGregor, 1996).
However, there is also a serious disadvantage of this kind of measurement.
Namely, the scores obtained are ipsative and there is no possibility of referring
them to any normative data. They may also require a special statistic
procedures to be conducted.
The basic data on the psychometric properties of the Defense-Q can be
found in the original study of Davidson and MacGregor (1996, p. 637) which
was based on a sample of 30 “relatively psychologically healthy individuals” (15
females). All of these subjects undergone an interpersonally stressful interview
(cf. above) with one men interviewer and were then independently rated by 11
trained coders (women undergraduate students) for their use of 25 defence
mechanisms and the ego strength.
The Cronbach coefficients alpha for individual defences ranged from .28
(undoing) to .92 (humour), with an average of .73. 88% of defences had
reliability bigger than .50, 64% of them were more reliable than .75, and only 5
defences (dissociation, splitting, identification, psychotic denial, undoing) had
coefficients alpha smaller than .60. As the authors suggest these lowest
estimates could have been either due to the restricted use of the defences in
question in the studied sample or/and difficulties of measuring them.
Apart from the standard reliability estimates for the individual defence
scores Davidson and MacGregor calculated also an averaged coder reliability
(across all defence mechanisms) for each participant which ranged from .55 to .
77 with an average of .69 – “no one participant was anomalous or difficult to
code” (Davidson & MacGregor, 1996, p. 636) – and a coder reliability (across all
participants and across all defence mechanisms) which ranged from .63 to .73
with an average of .69. These two results showed that the Defense-Q can be
applied to a relatively heterogeneous sample and that it can be used by
relatively untrained coders8.
These reliability concerning results may be supported by those estimating
the construct validity (see Perry & Ianni, 1998). Namely, after an introduction of
the Psychological Health Similarity score – being a correlation of actual scores
with an ideal model of psychological functioning (based on Vaillant) – there was
some evidence of
8The former conclusion is somewhat confined for the reason that all coders used here
were females (Davidson &
MacGregor, 1996).

- 130 -
construct validity obtained. The PHS correlated negatively with level of self-
reported hostility and depression, friend-rated hostility, resting systolic blood
pressure, and positively with level of observer-rated ego strength,
supportiveness and job competency. Furthermore there has been found a
positive correlation of profiles scored by raters and by therapists (concurrent
validity). The convergent validity with other measures of defences has not been
estimated yet (Perry & Ianni, 1998).
Q-sort by Roston, Lee, and Vaillant. Apart from the method reviewed
above there is also a Q-sort rating system developed by Roston, Lee, and
Vaillant, (1992, cf. Perry & Ianni 1998). It consists of 51 statements representing
15 defences (3-6 cards per defence) designed in a way to eliminate rater bias
while being able to use less experienced raters. While rating is made each of
these statements should be attributed to one of 9 distinct piles. The piles are
ordered from most to least characteristic in a defensive functioning and have a
predetermined numbers of statements. Once again, such a forced choice gives
– roughly – normal distribution together with advantages and disadvantages of
Q-sort methodology scrutinised above.
After the 51 cards have been attached to the 9 piles it is possible to rank
order 15 defences measured. It is done by a calculation of a mean rank of cards
connected with the respective defence mechanism. It gives the ipsative (not
normative) scale ranging from 1 to 9. A similar scale can be used for the
assessment of the overall maturity score which is calculated by a weightening of
defences based on whether they are mature, neurotic or immature (neurotic
ones are omitted from the calculation).
An interrater reliability for individual defences ranges from .10 to .73 and
has a median of .55. The least agreement is attained for the neurotic defences .
41. A reliabilities of the overall maturity score are .64 (between two Q-sorters), .
83 (between a Q-sorter and a clinician), or .93 and .83 (between two clinicians)
(see Perry & Ianni, 1998). It shows then that the clinician rating process is more
reliable.
Similarly to the situation with the Defense-Q there are some studies
showing the concurrent and construct validity of the Q-sort of Roston, Lee, and
Vaillant (1992, in: Perry & Ianni, 1998). Namely, the concurrent validity
(estimated be a comparison with clinical ratings) ranged from .05 to .82 with a
median of .57. It should be emphasised that once again

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the lowest estimates had been gained for the neurotic defences. Also the
overall maturity score showed a significant correlations with measures of global
functioning such as GAS and HSRC (it was .56 in case of gifted girls’ sample
and .65 in case of inner-city boys’ one). However, the fact that these coefficients
increased to .82 and .72, respectively, when defences where rated by clinicians,
may show that more training than intended is required.
Projective Techniques – the Rorschach-based Methods
 The first group of projective techniques that will be review here is based
on a set of ambiguous stimuli delivered by Rorschach (for fuller review see:
Cooper, Perry, & Arnow, 1988; Perry & Ianni, 1998). As the authors of one of
these methods notice there are 3 general strategies of using Rorschach to
measure defence mechanisms – formal Rorschach scoring, analysis of thematic
content, and some mixture of these both (Copper, Perry, & Arnow, 1988; cf.
Perry & Ianni, 1998).
The first system of the formal ratings developed by Haan (1964, cf.
Copper, Perry, & Arnow, 1988; Perry & Ianni, 1998) showed few relations to
clinical measures of coping and defence. However, it was achieved only after
the post hoc inclusion of “phenomenology of the Rorschach situation” (Cooper,
Perry & Arnow, 1988, p. 189) into the scoring criteria. Two years later Bahnson
and Bahnson (1966, cf. Copper, Perry, & Arnow, 1988; Perry & Ianni, 1998)
suggested 16-item index of repression including card rejections, long reaction
times, and numerous determinant ratios. Unfortunately, it is not possible to draw
any definite conclusions about its usefulness due to the inappropriate control
groups’ selection (Copper, Perry, & Arnow, 1988; Perry & Ianni, 1998). Perry
and Ianni (1998, p. 995) conclude as follows: “In general, exclusive reliance on
formal scores has proven disappointing”.
The second possible strategy is based on the analysis of thematic
content and is usually based on the theoretical work of Schafer (see Copper,
Perry, & Arnow, 1988). Baxter, Becker, and Hooks (1963, cf. Copper, Perry, &
Arnow, 1988; Perry & Ianni, 1998), for example, prepared a set of criteria for
scoring 5 defence mechanisms such as: denial, projection, isolation, undoing,
and displacement. Their criteria were based on response

- 132 -
dynamics, characteristic imagery, test-taking attitudes, and card rejections. This
coding system was able to detect differences between parents of good and bad
premorbid schizophrenics, but not between these two groups and neurotic
patients’ parents group. Levine and Spivack (1964, cf. Copper, Perry, & Arnow,
1988; Perry & Ianni, 1998), in turn, developed a complex manual for the
assessment of repressive defence styles. It was suggested, however, that its
validity can be lowered by the extensive focus on the verbal expressive style
that may be affected not only by defences but also by intellectual ability,
depression, low motivation, and guardedness (see Copper, Perry, & Arnow,
1988). The third system based on the content analysis was developed by Holt
(1969, cf. Copper, Perry, & Arnow, 1988; Perry & Ianni, 1998) as a part of a
primary process thinking assessment. It involved definitions of some of the
classical (e.g. projection, isolation, negation, rationalisation) and non-classical
(e.g. minimisation and repuditation) defences as well as an important category
of defence effectiveness.
The limitations of the exclusive reliance on either the formal or the
content analysis led the researchers to the idea of using both of them together.
A very early system of Gardner, Holzman, Klein, Linton, and Spence (1959, cf.
Copper, Perry, & Arnow, 1988; Perry & Ianni, 1998), for example, assessed
repression and isolation as defensive counterparts of cognitive styles of
levelling and sharpening. Apart from the formal scores it was based on very
general content variables, e.g. childlike material, poor integrative effort, and little
variety of content as indicative of repression. This system led to some
interesting findings such as relations between perceptual styles and defences.
Luborsky, Blinder and Schimek (see Copper, Perry, & Arnow, 1988; Perry &
Ianni, 1998) found relationships between isolation and venturing to look around
more (as measured by eye fixation) as well as between repression and
tendency to look around less. The next rating method was proposed by Bellak,
Hurvich and Gediman (1973, cf. Copper, Perry, & Arnow, 1988; Perry & Ianni,
1998) and consisted of global criteria to study ego functioning (repression,
isolation, projection) in schizophrenics, neurotics and, normals. However, it
must be emphasised that criteria used by these authors were not objectively
given but based on the intuitive judgements of highly experienced Rorschach
clinicians.

- 133 -
 The scoring system that was more systematic in that matter was the
Lerner Defense Scales (LDS, Lerner & Lerner, 1980, cf. Copper, Perry, &
Arnow, 1988; Perry & Ianni, 1998) being an attempt to use modern dynamic
object relations theory (Kernberg, 1975) in the context of Rorschach. It consists
of a manual to access 5 defence mechanisms related to borderline personality
organisation. The fact that it is based on only human responses can be a
problem for those individual who have few human responses, e.g. for
schizophrenics. The interrater reliability of the LDS is very high and ranges from
.94 to .99 for individual defences (see: Perry & Ianni, 1998). It also has some
important differentiating properties. For example, it may differentiate between
borderline patients and neurotic ones (see Cooper, Perry, & Arnow, 1988),
schizophrenics, and those diagnosed on cluster C of personality disorders (see
Perry & Ianni, 1998). To sum up, it may be said that results are generally
consistent with personality disorders theory and, thus, supportive of the
construct validity of the LDS.
The review of the Rorschach-based scoring methods made by Cooper,
Perry, and Arnow (1988) and repeated in a big part by Perry and Ianni (1998)
led them to the following conclusion. The measures based on the exclusive
reference to the formal qualities have low validity and concern more cognitive
style than defensive functioning. The techniques of content analysis only are
connected with the dangers of focusing on the verbal material9. Furthermore it
is not certain what should be their basic unit of analysis – all responses or only
human ones. Cooper, Perry and Arnow (1988) emphasise also the need of
keeping a balance between objective-subjective methodology and assessing
more than a narrow range of defences.
Rorschach Defense Scales. The above conclusions led Cooper, Perry
and Arnow (1988, cf. Perry & Ianni, 1998) to an idea of a new method
developing. After the initial reliability study conducted on a sample of 50
individuals from wide range of diagnostic groups (borderline PD, antisocial PD,
bipolar Type II affective disorder, paranoid schizophrenics, and neurotics) and
using 4 blind to diagnosis raters (2 experienced Rorschach clinicians, 2 1-year
graduate students in clinical psychology) the Rorschach Defense Scales (RDS)
was developed. Its manual includes 15 defences from the range of psychotic
(massive denial and hypomanic denial), borderline (splitting, primitive
idealisation, devaluation,
9 Cf. the Defense Mechanism Manual (Chapter 5).

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Defense Mechanism Manual – the Results of Preliminary Polish
Validation
Descriptive Statistics
The analysis of the reliability and validity data concerning the DMM
should not be started before the inspection of the most basic descriptive
statistics is done. Such statistics are provided in Table 4.
TABLE 4
Descriptive Statistics for the DMM Scales
M
Mdn
Mode
SD
Kurtosis Skew
Min
Max Range
DEN
11.32 10.00 Multiple
5.14
-.71
.65
5.00 22.00 17.00
PRO
7.36
7.00 Multiple
5.77
5.99
1.98
1.00 28.00 27.00
IDE
9.00
9.00 Multiple
6.20
.99
1.01
0 24.00 24.00
OVR
27.68 24.00
24.00 11.64
.70
1.14 12.00 56.00 44.00
DENO 43.15 38.64
33.33 18.48
1.37
1.35 19.15 91.67 72.52
PROO
24.78 27.27
33.33 11.81
-.40
-.22
4.17 50.00 45.83
IDEO
31.66 35.00
40.00 16.92
-.87
-.26
0 60.00 60.00
DENL
2.09
1.82 Multiple
1.01
4.53
1.72
.85
5.54
4.69
PROL
1.25
1.10 Multiple
.78
-.42
.60
.17
2.95
2.78
IDEL
1.63
1.70 Multiple
1.04
-.74
.27
0
3.83
3.83
OVRL
4.97
4.84
4.84
1.61
1.57
1.02
2.56
9.38
6.82
DENR
8.56
7.49 Multiple
5.25
4.19
1.94
1.97 24.15 22.18
PROR
4.37
4.21 Multiple
2.53
-.57
.47
.63
9.56
8.93
IDER
6.34
5.55 Multiple
4.71
3.18
1.37
0 21.43 21.43
OVRR 19.45 17.06 Multiple
6.50
-.04
.71 9.755 35.71 25.96
Note. N = 25.
The first thing worth considering here is the distribution of the
variables within four possible
scoring procedures. What is especially important is its normality
which is an assumption of
- 164 -
most common statistic procedures that one may want to employ (so called
parametric statistics). Although the Monte Carlo experiments have shown that
the violation of this assumption is not that serious in terms of its consequences
(biases and errors obtained) as it had been previously thought it still seems to
be a reliable practice to try to avoid it.
TABLE 5
Shapiro-Wilk W Test for the DMM Scales
Shapiro-Wilk W
P
DEN
.92
.04
PRO
.83
.0006
IDE
.91
.03
OVR
.89
.01
DENO
.87
.004
PROO
.95
.23
IDEO
.96
.48
DENL
.86
.002
PROL
.95
.21
IDEL
.96
.44
OVRL
.93
.08
DENR
.79
.0002
PROR
.96
.34
IDER
.90
.02
OVRR
.93
.08
The first inspection of skewness and kurtosis shows that the variables such as
Absolute Projection (PRO), Identification (IDE) and Overall (OVR), Relative to
Overall Denial (DENO), Relative to Length Denial (DENL) and Overall (OVRL),
and Relative to Both Denial (DENR) and Identification (IDER) may not have a
normal distribution. To verify such a hypothesis Shapiro-Wilk W tests of
normalities were conducted which results are showed in
- 165 -
Table 5. The inspection of the W significance illustrated that not only are all
variables enumerated above (PRO, IDE, OVR, DENO, DENL, DENR, and
IDER) but also that absolute denial (DEN) are not normally distributed. Overall
scores Relative to Length (OVRL) and Relative to Both (OVRR) are borderline
cases.
The above results concerning the normality of distribution led to the
conclusion that in case of the Absolute scores and scores Relative to Both
overall score and the length the parametric statistics should be replaced by the
non-parametric ones. In case of variables Relative to either Overall score or the
Length parametric statistics seemed to be appropriate (denial scores – DENO
and DENL – had been treated liberally).
After the descriptive statistics of main variables and the normality issues
have been discussed one my turn to the scores obtained on the particular TAT
cards – the scores which are an equivalent of individual item’s scores in the
conventional questionnaires (cf. Hibbard et al., 1994). The presentation of
means (item difficulties) and standard deviations will be ordered by the main
defence mechanisms distinguished by Cramer. It will enable to make a direct
comparisons between four alternative scoring systems. The first amount of data
concerns denial and is showed in Table 6. The first thing that should be noticed
is the fact that all 4 scoring systems yielded almost equivocal distribution of
‘item difficulty’ across all 12 cards. Namely, Card 8BM has the highest load on
denial scale in all four cases which is also a case of Card 3BM being the
second. Card 6GF, on the other hand, had the lowest score on denial in all four
of its operationalisations.
- 166 -
TABLE 6
Mean DMM Denial Scores on 12 TAT Cards
Absolute
Relative to overall Relative to length
Relative to both
Card
M
SD
M
SD
M
SD
M
SD
1
.60
.82
2.11
3.08
.11
.15
.42
.69
2
1.28
.94
5.49
4.80
.27
.26
1.24
1.42
3GF
.84
.85
3.25
3.68
.15
.15
.59
.64
3BM
1.68
.80
6.54
2.51
.31
.12
1.28
.60
6GF
.24
.43
1.03
2.08
.05
.10
.24
.54
6BM
.64
.76
2.27
2.58
.11
.13
.41
.48
8GF
.60
.82
1.76
2.41
.11
.14
.42
.63
8BM
2.56
1.58
9.80
6.62
.45
.28
1.84
1.55
10
.44
.77
1.42
2.69
.07
.14
.25
.52
13MF
.76
.83
3.15
4.00
.15
.18
.67
1.06
15
.88
1.39
3.12
5.46
.16
.31
.59
1.29
18GF
.80
.96
2.91
3.36
.15
.20
.61
.83
Sum
11.32
5.14
43.15
18.48
2.08
1.01
8.56
5.25
As far as the Card 8BM is concerned such a result should not be a
surprising one for the reason of threatening picture content and DMM manual’s
instruction concerning it. This drawing, namely, depicts the scene of an
operation and involves items such as – not highly apparent – gun and knife. If
the author of the story evoked by this picture does not mention them (or any of
two main characters present) he is scored Denial which should make a high
mean score obtained understandable. The similar situation may be found in
case of Card 3BM (which has the highest score in the study of Hibbard and
colleagues, 1994) showing a gun or a knife which is not that easy to be noticed
but which is necessary to be mentioned in order to avoid being scored for
Denial. Card 6GF (young woman and older man), on the other hand, may not
seem that threatening and contains only 2 objects (man and woman) which
should be
- 167 -
mentioned according to the DMM manual. The fact of its lowest score
is one again
a replication of Hibbard and team (1994) results.
The second defence that should be studied in terms of its ‘item
difficulty’ is projection
which detailed descriptive statistics are showed in Table 7.
TABLE 7
Mean DMM Projection Scores on 12 TAT Cards
Absolute
Relative to overall Relative to length
Relative to both
Card
M
SD
M
SD
M
SD
M
SD
1
.24
.52
.94
2.29
.056
.131
.23
.60
2
.20
.82
.38
1.48
.020
.081
.04
.15
3GF
1.12
1.64
3.64
3.75
.181
.200
.66
.68
3BM
.68
1.07
2.40
3.57
.121
.191
.46
.77
6GF
.48
.92
1.51
2.96
.070
.136
.23
.49
6BM
.60
.76
2.04
2.54
.095
.127
.33
.45
8GF
.12
.33
.44
1.29
.024
.069
.09
.30
8BM
.44
.82
2.71
6.98
.079
.138
.29
.53
10
.20
.41
.56
1.18
.034
.073
.09
.21
13MF
.80
1.00
2.73
3.23
.140
.170
.51
.68
15
1.40
1.29
5.15
5.25
.254
.232
1.01
1.09
18GF
1.08
1.22
3.45
3.57
.174
.193
.59
.64
Sum
7.37
5.77
24.78
11.81
1.247
.776
4.37
2.53
The results are once again very consistent across 4 possible coding systems. In
case of all of them Card 15 and Card 3GF – in such order – obtained the
highest projection scores. In case of all relative scoring systems Card 2
obtained the lowest projection score which was the case of Card 8GF for
absolute scores.
The highest projection score for Card 15 depicting a man in a graveyard
is understandable because of its direct content and death themes evoked by it
(every mentioning of death in a story is scored for Denial). The second high
score for Card 3 GF (being
- 168 -
a replication of Hibbard’s team study) may be not that easy to be explained but
is still comprehensible. Namely, the picture of young woman with a head looking
down could suggest (and actually suggests) her sadness which may be – quite
directly – caused by somebody’s death scored as a projection. Cards 2 and
8GF – respectively – shows countryside scene and a young woman in such a
way that is usually interpreted as neutral or positive (in case of Card 2 even
very positive). It is for this reason that their Projection scores are not that high.
Table 8, in turn, shows descriptive data for the identification which is
the last
individual defence score in the DMM.
TABLE 8
Mean DMM Identification Scores on 12 TAT Cards
Absolute
Relative to overall Relative to length
Relative to both
Card
M
SD
M
SD
M
SD
M
SD
1
1.28
1.17
4.55
4.05
.231
.228
.88
.94
2
1.20
1.41
4.29
4.79
.201
.240
.76
.89
3GF
.28
.68
.80
1.82
.045
.099
.14
.33
3BM
.64
.95
2.14
3.15
.116
.197
.41
.69
6GF
.44
.65
1.76
2.77
.083
.123
.37
.68
6BM
.76
1.05
2.48
3.15
.139
.193
.51
.72
8GF
.96
1.10
3.87
4.26
.201
.265
.86
1.18
8BM
.48
.77
1.99
3.86
.101
.183
.47
1.03
10
1.44
.96
5.69
4.34
.269
.206
1.12
1.00
13MF
.84
1.14
2.60
3.63
.144
.204
.51
.99
15
.20
.50
.53
1.27
.026
.063
.07
.18
18GF
.48
1.05
1.39
2.62
.075
.148
.23
.44
Sum
9.00
6.21
31.66
16.92
1.632
1.039
6.34
4.71

- 169 -
Once again all four coding procedures were consistent – they yielded Card 10
as the highest in identification score and Card 1 as the second one in row.
Another unanimous result concerned the fact of Card 15 being the lowest on the
identification scale.
The high identification as measured by Card 1 (also showed in validation
by Hibbard and team, 1994) is very easily understandable because of its
content. The picture, namely, shows a boy with a violin which very often evokes
themes of learning to play the latter and generally striving for life aims. Such
themes are subsequently scored as Identification. Card 10, in turn, – not
involved in Hibbard’s study – shows a woman with her head on man’s shoulder
which might have easily provoked stories involving affiliation elements which
are also coded as Identification. On the other hand, the man in a graveyard –
Card 15 – probably evoked death themes (hence projection, cf. above) rather
than stories on love and friendship.
Table 6, 7 and 8 showed that there were quite big and apparent
differences between denial, projection, and identification as measured by
different cards. In order to evaluate an importance of such a fact the following
procedure had been conducted. Namely, for each of the individual scale
(Denial, Projection, and Identification) and for each of the scoring systems
(Absolute, 3 kinds of relative) the significance of differences between all
possible cards pairs were measured (66 comparisons per scale per scoring
system). In case of scores Relative to either Overall score or to the Length t
tests were computed. In case of Absolute scale and the one Relative to Both
overall score and length it was replaced by the non-parametric sign test. All
cards that turned out to be significantly different from more than 8 of the other
cards will be mentioned in the following passage.
Namely, Card 8BM was not only the highest in terms of denial but also
higher than any other card as measured by whatever Absolute system (p < .04),
Relative to Overall (p < .02), Relative to Length (p < .02), or Relative to Both
one (p < .04). The same was the case of Card 3BM significantly higher than all
cards apart from Cards 8BM and 2 (p < .01, p < .01, p < .03, p < .01,
respectively). Card 6GF while being the smallest on denial was significantly
smaller (p < .02, p < .03, p < .03, p < .03, respectively) than only 7 other cards.
As far as projection is concerned the highest Card 15 was significantly
higher than only 9 (Relative to Length score, p < .04) or 7 cards (Absolute, p < .
02; Relative to Overall, p < .04; Relative to Both, p < .03). Card 8GF having the
smallest Absolute score was

- 170 -
significantly smaller (p < .05) than only 6 cards which was also the case of Card
2 having the smallest scores Relative to Overall, to Length, and to Both of them
(p < .01, p < .02, p < .03, respectively).
In case of the most mature defence of identification there were no strong
results for scales evaluated by non-parametric sign test. Namely, Card 10 – the
highest on identification – was significantly higher than only 7 (Absolute score, p
< .03) or 6 cards (Relative to Both score, p < .03). The lowest Card 15, on the
other hand, differed significantly from only 6 other cards (p < .03 for both
Absolute and Relative to Both score). The results of t test were a little bit more
apparent. Namely, Card 10 was significantly higher than 9 (Relative to Overall
score, p < .04) or 8 (Relative to Length, p < .04) other cards. Card 1 was
significantly higher (p < .04) than 8 cards but only when measured as Relative
to Overall score. Card 15, at last, was significantly lower than only 7 cards (p < .
02 for Relative to Overall, p < .04 for Relative to Length).
Psychometric considerations
As soon as the most elementary descriptive statistics of the DMM has
been done the reliability of this measure can be estimated. Such an estimation
may be started from a consideration of item-total correlations for the scales of 4
different scoring systems. These correlations are depicted in Tables 9, 10, and
11 and had been computed for twelve 12-item tests involving Denial, Projection,
and Identification, each measured by the utilisation of 4 possible coding
procedures. In addition to this data the correlations between items and Overall
scores – apart from the Relative to Overall coding system which does not yield
such a variable – had been calculated.
The results concerning Denial are shown in Table 9. The first thing that
should be underlined is the fact that there were no items – in whatever scoring
system – that correlated significantly and positively with a scale inappropriate
for it. There were some significant negative correlations with Identification and
Projection but only in case of scores Relative to Overall and Relative to Both. It
may suggest than the Absolute and Relative to Length scales of denial are
relatively clear (independent) variables. The nextimportantissueisthefactthat
- 171 -
coding systems differed between each other in terms of the number of
significant item-total correlations and their strength. The scoring system
Relative to Length turned out to be the most reliable (7 significant correlations
with mean r = .61), whereas the one Relative to Both the least reliable (5
significant correlations with mean R = .51). Generally, it can be said that only
about a half of items (23 out 48) correlated significantly with their theoretically
expected total scale and that strengths of these correlations were moderate.
TABLE 9
Item-total Correlations for the DMM Denial Scales
Absolute
Relative to overall
Relative to length
Relative to both
D P
I
O D P
I
D P
I
O D P
I
O
1
.50*
.31
-.13
.42*
.59*
-.05
-.59* .64*
.11
-.27
.28
.26
-.06
-.49* .04
2
.21
-.24
-.16
-.10
.36
-.27
-.17
.42*
.05
.08
.34
.58*
.28
.13
.65*
3GF
.24
-.07
.12
.20
.18
-.12
-.09
.28
0.03
.04
.19
.26
.02
.20
.15
3BM
.38
.31
.06
.41*
.19
.02
-.25
.13
.28
.05
.25
.52*
.23
.16
.60*
6GF
.42*
-.06
-.35
.12
.71*
-.20
-.66* .68*
.05
-.29
.26
.50*
.07
-.44* .31
6BM
.28
.35
-.04
.32
.06
.16
-.19
.13
.34
-.05
.21
.06
.26
.01
-.02
8GF
.41*
.39
-.03
.36
-.01
.26
-.16
.21
.30
.08
.32
.16
.28
-.15
.11
8BM
.75*
.16
-.10
.49*
.64*
-.15
-.58* .60*
-.08
-.32
.13
.51*
-.02
-.42* .16
10
.56*
.13
-.04
.43*
.47*
-.21
-.35
.61*
-.22
-.25
.12
-.00
-.51* -.45* -.35
13MF.3 5
-.07
-.14
.10
.33
-.45* -.04
.21
-.34
.05
-.00
.43*
-.50* -.20
.13
15
.62*
-.06
-.14
.41*
.63*
-.33
-.45* .74*
-.30
-.35
.09
.08
-.22
-.33
-.27
18GF.3 2
-.09
.15
.30
.35
-.49* -.02
.60*
-.20
.11
.36
.32
-.42* .16
.21
Note. D = Denial, P = Projection, I = Identification, O = Overall, N =
25.
Pearson product-moment correlation r or non-parametric Spearman
rank R used, * p < .05.
Table 10, in turn, depicts item-total correlations of Projection tests’ items.
In opposition to the scale discussed previously, it should be noticed that there is
one positive and significant correlation between the projection-item and other-
defence-scale. Namely, the projection measured on the card 18GF by the
Absolute scoring system quite strongly correlates with Absolute Identification
score (r = .51, p < .05). Onemayrememberthat it the
- 172 -
study of Hibbard’s team (1994) Projection assessed with Card 3BM had
significantly and positively correlated with Denial (cf. above). This result,
however, was not replicated in this study. Card 3BM, namely, turned out to be a
good Projection item for Relative to Length (r = .49, p < .05) and Relative to
Both (r = .50, p < .05) scoring systems. When it was coded as Absolute or
Relative to Overall it didn’t yield any significant correlations.
TABLE 10
Item-total Correlations for the DMM Projection Scales
Absolute
Relative to overall
Relative to length
Relative to both
D P
I
O D P
I
D P
I
O D P
I
O
1
.17
.10
-.22
.06
.07
.13
-.15
.32
.25
-.01
.32
.32
.25
-.07
.34
2
.35
.29
.27
.43*
-.14
.38
-.11
-.07
.35
-.08
.08
-.41* -.05
-.19
-.45*
3GF
.04
.62*
.34
.43*
-.20
.63*
-.26
-.09
.71*
.06
.32
-.17
.51*
-.13
.14
3BM
-.03
.31
.06
.23
-.19
.39
-.07
-.10
.49*
.08
.23
-.11
.50*
.17
.05
6GF
.34
.52*
-.14
.32
-.03
.46*
-.27
-.08
.34
-.11
.05
-.24
.03
-.41* -.46*
6BM
.19
.51*
.15
.38
-.17
.37
-.08
-.13
.31
.13
.15
-.38
.12
-.23
-.33
8GF
-.02
.09
.23
.11
-.16
.05
.14
-.07
.19
.25
.21
-.12
.14
.24
.12
8BM
.07
.17
.22
.21
-.15
.42*
-.12
.08
.31
.21
.34
-.04
.07
.26
-.02
10
.39
.36
.17
.51*
.18
.03
-.20
.31
.40*
.26
.55*
.05
.04
-.15
-.15
13MF-.0 2
.64*
.22
.34
-.39
.49*
.10
-.13
.57*
.26
.36
-.25
.48
.10
.00
15
.14
.50*
.19
.38
-.04
.29
-.18
-.07
.41*
.23
.30
.18
.36
.05
.24
18GF.1 2
.67*
.51*
.61*
-.45* .40*
.14
-.18
.57*
.34
.38
-.43* .21
.21
-.13
Note. D = Denial, P = Projection, I = Identification, O = Overall, N =
25.
Pearson product-moment correlation r or non-parametric Spearman
rank R used, * p < .05.
Going further it may be said that – like in the case of Denial – there were some
negative and significant correlations with not appropriate scale, but – also again
– it was only in case of Relative to Overall (1 correlation) and Relative to Both (3
correlations) scales. As far as the differences between the coding systems are
concerned the Absolute scores seemed to be the most reliable (6 significant
correlations with mean R = .58) and the Relative to Both one was
- 173 -
– once again – the weakest. In sum, item-total correlations are even a
bit weaker than in case
of Denial and not that numerous (20 out of 48 expected correlations
found).
The item-total correlations of four alternative Identification tests are
illustrated in
Table 11.
TABLE 11
Item-total Correlations for the DMM Identification Scales
Absolute
Relative to overall
Relative to length
Relative to both
D P
I
O D P
I
D P
I
O D P
I
O
1
.01
.26
.53*
.39
-.40* -.01
.45*
-.17
.20
.52*
.33
-.24
-.00
.49*
.10
2
-.20
.18
.62*
.26
-.42* -.08
.50*
-.30
.11
.51*
.20
-.50* -.17
.39
-.11
3GF
.25
.20
.33
.36
-.11
-.03
.15
.04
.08
.31
.26
-.15
.00
.17
-.11
3BM
.11
.43*
.38
.37
-.27
.23
.15
.07
.49*
.32
.49*
-.24
.22
.13
-.04
6GF
-.24
.08
.40
.05
-.37
-.14
.49*
-.32
-.11
.45*
.03
-.30
-.20
.41*
.08
6BM
.16
.13
.70*
.44*
-.23
-.40* .55*
.12
.06
.62*
.50*
.02
-.26
.55*
.15
8GF
-.41* -.05
.52*
-.03
-.43* -.17
.60*
-.09
.21
.59*
.42*
.07
.11
.69*
.43*
8BM
-.17
-.02
.34
.04
-.11
-.39
.38
.03
-.22
.38
.16
-.02
-.22
.33
.21
10
-.27
.25
.42*
.11
-.42* -.04
.48*
-.30
.26
.45*
.23
.01
.19
.59*
.27
13MF.1 7
.41*
.57*
.55*
-.35
-.07
.45*
-.03
.19
.67*
.50*
-.24
-.13
.27
-.10
15
.09
.43*
.32
.44*
-.25
.21
.07
-.22
.17
.12
.02
-.43* .00
-.12
-.38
18GF-.1 4
.26
.51*
.26
-.41* .10
.33
-.23
.31
.44*
.28
-.39
.09
.24
-.01
Note.D = Denial, P = Projection, I = Identification, O = Overall, N =
25.
Pearson product-moment correlation r or non-parametric Spearman
rank R used, * p < .05.
This time there were four significant and positive correlations that are
theoretically unexpected and psychometrically inappropriate. Namely, there
were 3 Absolute Identification items (3BM, 13MF, 15) that correlated positively
with Absolute Projection and one Relative to Length Identification item (3BM)
correlating positively also with Projection. Card 3GF that had been found by
Hibbard and colleagues as correlating positively with Denial did not yield any
significant correlation here. As far as negative and significant correlations
between items and different scales are concerned there were some of them
found. The biggest number of such correlations – namely six – was found in
Relative to Overall Identification test. If one

- 174 -
wants to compare between alternative scoring systems it should be said that
Absolute and Relative to Length ones were the best (7 or 8 significant positive
correlations with mean R = .55 or mean r = .53, respectively) and Relative to
Both the worst (5 significant positive correlations with mean R = .55). In general,
the presence of 27 positive and significant correlations (out of 48 expected) was
a bit more than in case of Denial and Projection but still seemed to be not
enough.
The results shown in Tables 9, 10, and 11 should now be concluded in
terms of the four alternative scoring systems reliabilities (internal consistencies).
Such a conclusion is attempted in Table 12 which illustrates the number of
significant correlations (NoS) and the mean of their strength (MoS) for each
scale of each coding procedure as well as their summary and respective
Cronbach alpha coefficients. The general conclusion that can be drawn is that
Relative to Length and Absolute scoring systems are the most internally
consistent and that Relative to Both scores are the least reliable in this aspect.
This evaluation, however, should be strongly confined when one
remembers that it is based on the data (NoS, MoS, NoSW+, MoSW+) derived
from only those correlations that were significant. As such it does not take into
account about a half of relations depicted in the above table. It is for this reason
that conventional alpha coefficients should be more final and decisive here. As
soon as they had been computed, namely, it appeared that Absolute scales of
Denial (α = .64), Projection (α = .72), Identification (α = .76), and Overall
defensiveness (α = .77) were the most internally consistent ones. The
respective scales for Relative to Length (α = .63,α = .57,α = .66,α = .57) and
Relative to Both (α = .69,α = .28,α = .70,
α = .48) were less reliable with Relative to Both Projection completely
useless (α = .28). The
Relative to Overall scoring procedures turned out to have the
smallestα coefficients here
(Denialα = .48, Projectionα = .40, and Identificationα = .54).
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