A psychophysiological study of paranoid hostility and defensiveness in maximum security hospital patients

In this study male security hospital patients are compared against male students on L scores, and on the relationship between scores on Eysenck's P scale and an index of change in muscle tension on attending to perceptual discrimination tasks. In the student sample P score gave a significant positive correlation with the EMG index, while L scores were remarkably low. Results on the hospitalized population showed that the measure of increase in muscle tension was again very significantly correlated with P, but the correlation was negative. This switch is highly significant (P less than 0.0001). Also, with patients, a significant positive correlation occurred between L and the EMG index. The results are interpreted by reference to L scores, since the deviant population had significantly higher L scores than students (P less than 0.001). It is argued that many patients detained for an undefined period are highly defensive and fake socially good. It is proposed that those faking most may be the extreme paranoid and hostile types who, if they had nothing to lose by being honest, would normally endorse a large number of items on the P scale.