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Clinical Judgements of Self-Dramatisation

A Test of the Sexist Hypothesis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

P. R. Slavney
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Meyer 4–181, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 600 North Wolfe Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21205, USA
G. A. Chase
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Meyer 4–181, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 600 North Wolfe Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21205, USA

Summary

It has been claimed that the diagnosis of histrionic personality disorder is inherently sexist. To estimate the extent to which psychiatrists are influenced by sexist prejudice in their judgements about self-dramatisation (the central trait in the histrionic cluster), we conducted a study in which male and female subjects rated the degree of self-dramatisation portrayed in videotaped vignettes. The results did not support the sexist hypothesis that dramatic behaviour would more often be attributed to a woman than to a man, especially by male raters.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 1985 The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

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