Journal or Consulting and Clinical Psychology Copyright 1982 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.

1982, Vol. 50, No. 2, 187-195 0022-006X/82/5002-0187$00.75

Reliabilities and Intercorrelations of Eight Measures of

Proneness to Psychosis
Loren J. Chapman, Jean P. Chapman, and Eric N. Miller
University of Wisconsin—Madison

Scales thought to measure psychosis proneness—Eysenck and Eysenck's Psy-

choticism Scale, Golden and Meehl's Schizoidia Scale, composite scales for the
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) 2-7-8 and 2-7-8-6 pro-
files, and our own research project's Physical Anhedonia, Perceptual Aberration,
Magical Ideation, and Nonconformity scales—were compared on their coeffi-
cient-alpha estimate of reliability and were intercorrelated, using samples of
college students (Ate = 5,567, 1,510 and 537) and outpatient clinic clients
(Ns = 120 and 220). Test-retest reliability was examined for five of the scales
using 511 college students. The Psychoticism and Nonconformity scales were
found to measure the same pathology, but the Nonconformity Scale did so more
reliably. The Schizoidia Scale was found to measure the same pathology as the
MMPI 2-7-8 and 2-7-8-0 scales, but the longer MMPI scales did so more reliably.
The Magical Ideation and Perceptual Aberration scales were highly correlated,
and both had a negative correlation with the Physical Anhedonia Scale. The
MMPI 2-7-8 and 2-7-8-0 scales correlated positively with all of the other,scales,
indicating that these MMPI composite scales are sensitive to more than one kind
' of pathology.

A number of true-false scales and scale
profiles have been developed in an attempt
to measure proneness to psychosis in general
and to schizophrenia in particular. The mea-
sures of interest in the present report are
scales representing the Minnesota Multi-
phasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) 2-7-
8 and 2-7-8-0 profiles, the Schizoidia Scale
(Golden & Meehl, 1979), the Psychoticism
Scale (Eysenek & Eysenck, 1975), and four
scales from our own laboratory. These latter
are the Physical Anhedonia Scale (Chap-
man, Chapman, & Raulin,. 1976), the Per-
ceptual Aberration Scale (Chapman, Chap-
man, & Raulin, 1978), the Nonconformity
Scale (Chapman.et al., Note 1), and the
Magical Ideation Scale (Eckblad & Chap-
man, Note 2). The present article reports a
study of the reliabilities of these measures
and of their intercorrelations.
Since psychosis appears to be heteroge-
neous, low intercorrelations of the scales of
This research was supported by Research Grant MH-
31067 from the National Institute of Mental Health.
Requests for reprints should be sent to Loren J. Chap-
man, Psychology Department, 1202 West Johnson
Street, Madison, Wisconsin S3706.
psychosis proneness need not be viewed as
suggesting poor validity of any of the mea-
sures. Low intercorrelations may instead re-
flect the presence of several syndromes of
psychosis proneness. Indeed, we developed
our own scales with the goal of finding such
distinct varieties of psychosis proneness. In
pontrast, Eysenck and Eysenck (1975) of-
fered their Psychoticism Scale as a measure
of the predisposition toward a broad range
of psychoses, and the MMPI 2-7-8 and 2-7-
8-0 profiles were developed as predictors of
schizophrenia at a time when schizophrenia
was broadly conceived in this country. Golden
and Meehl also appear to have used a rel-
atively broad concept of schizophrenia in
developing the Schizoidia Scale. The inter-
correlations will show the extent to which
the scales measure the same or different
characteristics of subjects. Among scales
that measure the same characteristics, the
comparison of scales will show which scales
do so more reliably.
Eight Measures of Psychosis Proneness
MMPI 2-7-8 profile. Although the
MMPI was not developed to identify the

187
188 L. CHAPMAN, J. CHAPMAN, AND E. MILLER
psychosis-prone individual, it frequently has
been used for that purpose. The MMPI
yields several measures that have been viewed
as possible indexes of psychosis proneness,
but the 2-7-8 profile has the best support
from validity data as well as the widest en-
dorsement by writers on the MMPI. This
profile includes a T score of at least 70 (or
two standard deviations above the mean) on
Depression (Scale 2), Psychasthenia (Scale
7), and Schizophrenia (Scale 8). Identifi-
cation of a 2-7-8 profile also requires that
several other criteria be met, with the list of
rules varying somewhat between writers.
Gilberstadt and Duker (1965) labeled the
2-7-8 profile as that of either chronic undif-
ferentiated schizophrenia or pseudoneurotic
schizophrenia. The latter refers to an ap-
parent neurosis that hides an underlying
schizophrenic disorder. The patient may
later develop a full-fledged clinical schizo-
phrenia. It follows that among persons who
are not already psychotic, the profile is seen
as identifying a group at heightened risk for
schizophrenia.
Peterson (1954) studied a group of 33
outpatients who had been given a diagnosis
other than schizophrenia (usually anxiety
reaction or psychoneurosis) but who were
later hospitalized and diagnosed as schizo-
phrenic. The mean prepsychotic MMPI pro-
file was 8-7-2. The MMPI profiles were dif-
ferent for 33 other patients who had received
similar initial diagnoses but who did not de-
velop schizophrenia. Using a set of signs to
derive a total MMPI "psychotic" score for
each patient, Peterson found that the best
cutoff on the total psychotic score yielded
a 74% correct retrospective prediction of
which patients were to become schizo-
phrenic, as compared to the chance value of
50%. Thus, the MMPI could be used with
only moderate success to diagnose these
cases retrospectively.
Fine (1973) interviewed college students
with the 2-7-8 profile and reported the
impression that half of them were "nonpsy-
chotic schizophrenics," as indicated by his
clinical evaluation of their thought disorder,
anhedonia, dependency, impaired compe-
tence, and vulnerable sense of self-regard.
Kelley and King (1979) examined the clin-
ical records of college students with this pro-
file and confirmed that the males (but not
the females) appeared to be latent schizo-
phrenics. Koh and Peterson (1974) and
Schulman (1976) have found schizophrenic-
like cognitive deviancies in college students
with 2-7-8 profiles.
MMPI Scales 2, 7, 8, and 0. This set of
MMPI scales, which was advocated by
Golden and .Meehl (1979) as a measure of
schizoidia or schizophrenia proneness, adds
Scale 0 (Social Introversion) to the list of
Scales 2, 7, and 8. Dahlstrom, Welsh, and
Dahlstrom (1975), reviewing nine published
studies, found that in all of the studies Scale
0 correlated higher with Scales 2, 7, and 8
than with any other clinical scale. Golden
and Meehl (1979) computed a factor anal-
ysis of the MMPI scales for 211 psychiatric
male inpatients with nonpsychotic diagnoses
(a group that is expected to include an ele-
vated number of cases of schizoidia). The
investigators found that these four scales
loaded on a single factor and that of the four
scales, Social Introversion had the highest
correlation with the factor. These data, as
well as Golden and Meehl's prior theoretical
orientation, led them to advocate the sum
of the standard scores of these four scales
as an index of schizoidia that "will work as
well as any other MMPI index" (Golden
& Meehl, 1979; p. 225).
Golden and Meehl's Schizoidia Scale.
Golden and Meehl (1979) developed a 7-
item MMPI scale for schizoidia. The 7 items
are: "I have not lived the right kind of life"
(true), "I have been disappointed in love"
(true), "My sex life is satisfactory" (false),
"I am more sensitive than most other peo-
ple" (true), "I am sure I am being talked
about" (true), "I usually work things out for
myself rather than get someone to show me
how" (false), and "I enjoy many kinds of
play and recreation" (false). In selecting
these seven items, Golden and Meehl relied
on the statistical power of the items to dis-
criminate between schizophrenics and non-
schizophrenics, and on an elegant taxometric
theory and method. Their theory led them
to seek items that have low interitem cor-
relations.
Examining hospitalized nonpsychotic pa-
tients, Golden and Meehl found that a
subgroup of subjects who scored high on the
 EIGHT MEASURES OF PSYCHOSIS PRONENESS
Schizoidia Scale showed a mean MMPI pro-
file almost exactly identical to the 2-7-8 and
that the score on the Schizoidia Scale cor-
related .81 with a single long scale consisting
of all the items from MMPI Scales 2, 7, 8,
and 0. Golden and Meehl interpreted these
findings as strong support for using the scale
as a measure of psychosis proneness,
Eysenck Psychoticism Scale. Eysenck
and Eysenck (1975) offered their Psychoti-
cism Scale as a measure of the predisposition
toward psychosis. They chose items in keep-
ing with the description of the prepsychotic
as interpersonally cold, hostile, and antiso-
cial. Illustrative items are: "I try not to be
rude to people" (false), and "People who
drive carefully annoy me" (true). The
Eysencks listed values for the coefficient-al-
pha measure of internal consistency between
.66 and .81 for various samples of subjects.
Stroh (1969,1971) found that high psycho-
ticism subjects were inferior to control sub-
jects on a vigilance task that required dis-
crimination of light flashes, and Kidner
(described by Eysenck & Eysenck, 1976)
found that such subjects were overinclusive
when checking from a list all those adjectives
that apply to a noun. Both decreased vigi-
lance and overinclusion have often been de-
scribed as characteristics of schizophrenics.
In contrast, Thompson (1973) found that
high psychoticism subjects were faster on a
reaction-time; task than control subjects, al-
though schizophrenics are well known to, be
slower: Bishop (1977) and Block (1977)
have severely criticized the claim that the
scale measures psychoticism, objecting that
schizophrenics do not score higher than
prison inmates, drug addicts, alcoholics, and
persons with personality disorders or sexual
problems.
Physical Anhedonia Scale. Chapman et
al. (1976) offered a 40-item scale for phys-
ical anhedonia, the lowered ability to expe-
rience pleasure. Illustrative items are: "I
have always had a number of favorite foods"
(false), and "Sex is okay but not as much
fun as most people claim it is" (true). Chap-
man and Chapman (Note 3) have recently
modified the scale to produce a more reliable
61-item version. These scales, as well as
other scales from our laboratory, were de-
veloped following Jackson's (1970) rational
189
system for personality scale development.
Coefficient alpha of the 61-item version was
found to be .83 for males (N = 420) and .78
for females (N = 501). Subjects scoring de-
viantly high on the Physical Anhedonia
Scale have been found to exceed control sub-
jects on schizophrenic-like thought disorder
on the Rorschach Inkblot Test (Edell &
Chapman, 1979), to show impaired social
skill as measured by a role-playing test
(Haberman, Chapman, Numbers, & Mc-
Fall, 1979), and to report, in an interview,
more schizotypal symptoms, greater social
isolation, and lower heterosexual interest
and activity than control subjects (Chap-
man, Edell, & Chapman, 1980). The schizo-
typal symptoms are those of Spitzer and
Endicott's (1977) Schedule for Affective
Disorder and Schizophrenia-Lifetime Ver-
sion (SADS-L) and are symptoms often re-
ported in preschizophrenics and in relatives
of schizophrenics.
Perceptual Aberration Scale. Chapman
et al. (1978) offered a 35-item Perceptual
Aberration Scale that consists of 28 items
measuring transient aberrations in the per-
ception of one's own body and 7 items mea-
suring other perceptual aberrations. Illustra-
tive items are: "Occasionally it has seemed
as if my body had taken on the appearance
of another person's body" (true), "My hands
and feet have never seemed far away"
(false), and "My hearing is sometimes so
sensitive that ordinary sounds become un-
comfortable" (true). Coefficient alpha was
found to be .88 for male college students
(N' = 631) and .90 for female college stu-
dents (N = 718). Subjects scoring high on
the scale have been found to show schizo-
phrenic-like thought disorder on the Ror-
schach Inkblot Test (Edell & Chapman,
1979), to show deviancies of communication
and speech, and to report in an interview
more schizotypal and psychotic-like experi-
ences and more depression, hypomania, and
social withdrawal than did control subjects
(Chapman et al., 1980). "Psychotic-like"
symptoms in the latter article refer to atten-
uated versions of Schneiderian first-rank
symptoms of schizophrenia and are rated
using Chapman and Chapman's (1980)
manual.
Magical Ideation Scale. Eckblad and
190 L. CHAPMAN, J. CHAPMAN, AND E. MILLER
Chapman (Note 2) reported the develop-
ment of this 30-item scale for measuring
magical ideation, a trait described by Meehl
(Note 4) as prominent in schizophrenia-
prone persons. Magical ideation is the belief
in forms of causality that, according to the
norms of our culture, cannot be valid. Illus-
trative items are: "Good luck charms don't
work" (false), and "Some people can make
me aware of them just by thinking about
me" (true). Coefficient alpha was found to
be .82 for males (N = 682) and .85 for fe-
males (N - 830). This scale was found to
correlate around .70 with the Perceptual
Aberration Scale for groups of college stu-
dents. In addition, college students who
scored high only on the Magical Ideation
Scale reported in an interview more psy-
chotic-like and schizotypal experiences than
a control group (Eckblad & Chapman, Note
2). Because of the substantial intercorrela-
tion, we often use the Magical Ideation Scale
with the Perceptual Aberration Scale to as-
sign high-scoring subjects on either scale to
a single group but in other analyses to sep-
arate the two kinds of subjects.
Nonconformity Scale. Chapman et al.
(Note 1) developed the 51-item Noncon-
formity Scale, which measures a lack of con-
cern for prevailing social and ethical stan-
dards, a lack of self-control, and a tendency
to act immediately on one's impulses. Illus-
trative items are: "I usually control my feel-
ings well" (false), "When I start out in the
evening I seldom know what I'll end up
doing" (true), and "I break rules just for the
hell of it" (true). The Nonconformity Scale
has been found to have coefficient alpha val-
ues of .84 for male college students (N =
2,500) and .83 for female college students
(N = 3,067).
High-scoring nonconformity subjects re-
ported, in an interview, more antisocial be-
havior, drug experiences, and heavy use of
alcohol than did control subjects and re-
ported more angry, emotionally distant re-
lations with parents, siblings, and friends. Of
even greater relevance to probable psychosis
proneness, nonconformity subjects also ex-
ceeded control subjects on schizotypal symp-
toms, psychotic-like symptoms, and affective
symptoms (Chapman et al., Note 1).
Method
Over a four-semester period from 1978-1980 we gave
the Physical Anhedonia, Perceptual Aberration, Mag-
ical Ideation, and Nonconformity scales during class
time to 5,567 students (2,500 male and 3,067 female)
enrolled in Introductory Psychology at the University
of Wisconsin. In one semester we also administered the
349 scored items of the MMPI (which includes Golden
& Meehl's Schizoidia Scale) to 443 male and 359 fe-
male students, and in another semester we gave the
Eysenck Psychoticism Scale to 682 male and 830 female
students. To maintain consistency of format, the items
of the Psychoticism Scale were rewritten in true-false
format rather than in the original yes-no format. The
scales were presented as a survey of attitudes and ex-
periences. Participation was optional, but more than
95% of the students attending class on the day of testing
chose to participate.
The scales were given together with a 17-item Infre-
quency Scale modeled after that of Jackson (1974). The
Infrequency Scale is a measure of nonmeaningful test
taking, and it consists of items that almost everyone
answers in the same direction (e.g., "On some mornings
I didn't get up immediately when I awakened"). Sub-
jects who answered as many as three Infrequency Scale
items in the unexpected direction were dropped from
the study. The subjects reported above were those re-
maining who completed the tests.
Since the 2-7-8 and 2-7-8-0 profiles derived from the
MMPI represent patterns of scores rather than single
scores, they do not readily lend themselves to the com-
putation of reliabilities and intercorrelations. We there-
fore use here two composite scores as approximations
for each profile. One composite is the meaty of the T
scores of the constituent scales, using the customary K
correction of scores on Scales 7 and 8. The other com-
posite, borrowed from Golden and Meehl (1979), is the
simple combination of all the items from the three (or
four) constituent scales into a single long scale. Both of
these approximations fail to incorporate the rule that
the constituent scales must be the highest for the subject,
as well as the several other rules found in various writers'
specifications of the profile. The use of a single long
scale has the added disadvantages that it lacks the usual
K correction for Scales 7 and 8 and that the three (or
four) scales are not equally weighted, but the single long
scale has the advantage that a measure of internal con-
sistency can be computed.
Results
Intercorrelations and Internal Consistency
of Scales
Table 1 shows the intercorrelations of the
several scales and the coefficient-alpha es-
timates of reliability on the diagonal. As can
be seen there, the coefficient-alpha values of
our four scales ranged from .79 to .89. These
coefficient-alpha values are high by the usual
 EIGHT MEASURES OF PSYCHOSIS PRONENESS 191

Table 1
Coefficient Alpha and Intercorrelations of the Measures of Psychosis Pronenessfor
College Students

Scale N Sex
1. Nonconformity 2,500 M .84
3,067 F .83
2. Magical Ideation 2,500 M .45 .84
3,067 F .45 .85
3. Perceptual Aberration 2,500 M .41 .68 .89
3,067 F , .44 .70 .88
4. Physical Anhedonia 2,500 M -.01 -.23 -.22 .82
3,067 F .03 -.17 -.15 .79
5. Psychoticism 682 M .68 .32 .33 .01 .52
830 F .67 .32 .34 .05 .58
6. Schizoidia 443 M .20 .25 .20 .07 —• .16
359 F .24 .26 .18 .07 — .27
7. Single Scale 2-7-8 443 M .41 .41 .41 .15 — .52 .88
359 F .47 .45 .36 .26 — .55 .89
8. Single Scale 2-7-8-0 443 M ' .31 .32 .35 .24 — .49 .95 .90
359 F .35 .33 .27 .34 — .51 .95 .91
9. Mean T 2-7-8 443 M .27 .27 .30 .10 — .47 .88 .83
359 F ' .34 .34 .29 .21 — .50 .91 .85
10. Mean T 2-7-8-0 443 M .24 .25 .29 .16 — .48 .90 .91 .98
359 F .30 .30 .24 .28 — .50 .92 .93 .97
* No data were gathered on the correlations of the Psychoticism Scale with any of the scales derived from the
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory.

standards of personality measurement. The
Magical Ideation and Perceptual Aberration
scales correlated about .70 with one another
but correlated in the .40s with the Noncon-
formity Scale. The Physical Anhedonia
Scale, however, had a low but significant
(p < .001) negative correlation with both the
Perceptual Aberration and Magical Ideation
scales. These values are consistent with those
reported in our previous publications.
The negative correlation between the
Physical Anhedonia Scale and both the Per-
ceptual Aberration Scale and the Magical
Ideation Scale is unusual for measures of
psychopathology. The question arose of
whether the finding of a negative correlation
might have resulted from a tendency for per-
sons high on both physical anhedonia and
the other traits to fail to make it to college,
rather than from a genuine tendency toward
incompatibility of the two traits. If the neg-
ative correlation arose from the selection
bias of using a college sample, there would
be a paucity of subjects with high scores on
both scales but not a paucity of subjects with
low scores on both scales. We therefore ex-
amined the bivariate frequency plot of scores
on the Physical Anhedonia Scale and the
Perceptual Aberration Scale to answer this
question.
Scores on both scales were strongly skewed
toward high scores, with many more low
scores than high. Therefore, we examined
high scores in terms of the proportion of sub-
jects with standard scores of 1.5 and above
on both scales. Altogether, 8.2% of the sub-
jects in the entire sample scored that high
on the Perceptual Aberration Scale, and
7.8% of the subjects scored that high on the
Physical Anhedonia Scale. Computing the
product of the two proportions shows that
one would expect that, by chance, 36 sub-
jects (.65%) would score that deviantly on
both scales if the scales were independent.
Actually only 18 subjects (9 males and 9
females) did so. This number was signifi-
cantly fewer than the chance expectation,
X 2 ( l ) = 10.53, p<. 01.
The analogous analysis of the frequencies
of subjects with low scores was performed
using a cutoff of .5 SD below the mean. The
expected incidence of low scores on both
192 L. CHAPMAN, J. CHAPMAN, AND E. MILLER
Table 2
Test-Retest Reliabilities of Five Scales
Males Females
Scale (N = 178) (N = 333)
Nonconformity .84 .84
Magical Ideation .80 .82
Perceptual Aberration .75 .76
Physical Anhedonia .78 .79
Schizoidia .44 .41
scales, assuming independence of scales, was
13.0% as compared to an observed incidence
of 10.3%. The difference between observed
and expected frequencies was highly signif-
icant, x 2 (0 = 73.39, p < .001. Apparently
then, the traits of physical anhedonia and
perceptual aberration are to some extent
mutually incompatible.
Coefficient-alpha values for the 7-item
Schizoidia Scale were very low, as intended
by Golden and Meehl. Coefficient-alpha val-
ues for the composite 2-7-8 and 2-7-8-0 scale
were all around .90. The correlations for
males between the Schizoidia Scale and the
single long composite 2-7-8 and 2-7-8-0
scales were slightly higher than the theoret-
ical upper limit of the square root of the
product of the two reliabilities (presumably
because of sampling error), and the analo-
gous correlations for females were almost
identical to the theoretical upper limit. Thus
our data, like those of Golden and Meehl
(1979), indicate that the Schizoidia Scale
and the long scales measure the same con-
struct. Nevertheless, by squaring the corre-
lations we see that the 2-7-8 and 2-7-8-0
scales account for only about 25% of their
variance with the Schizoidia Scale because
of its low reliability.
All four of our scales correlated signifi-
cantly, although modestly, with the 2-7-8
and 2-7-8-0 composite scales, despite the
negative correlation of the Physical Anhe-
donia Scale with both the Perceptual Ab-
erration and Magical Ideation scales. Except
for Physical Anhedonia, our scales corre-
lated similarly with the Schizoidia Scale.
The coefficient-alpha values for the Psy-
choticism Scale were rather low—in the .50s
for both males and females. Psychoticism
had an essentially zero correlation with the
Physical Anhedonia Scale, shared about
11% of its variance with both the Magical
Ideation Scale and the Perceptual Aberra-
tion Scale, and correlated approximately .67
with the Nonconformity Scale. The corre-
lations between the Psychoticism and Non-
conformity Scales are almost identical to the
theoretical upper limit of the square root of
the product of the two reliability values, a
finding which indicates that the two scales
for the most part measure the same con-
struct.
Test-Retest Reliability
In one semester the Schizoidia Scale was
administered in class with the Physical An-
hedonia, Perceptual Aberration, Magical
Ideation, and Nonconformity scales. Stu-
dents were also, invited to volunteer for an
additional study in exchange for extra course
credit. Altogether, 178 male and 333 female
students volunteered. These students were
given these five scales a second time. The
interval between testings was about 6 weeks.
Subjects were instructed not to try to be con-
sistent with their earlier responses but to
respond as they now believed was valid for
them. Table 2 shows the results. As can be
seen there, test-retest reliabilities were in
the .70s and .80s for the Perceptual Aber-
ration, Magical Ideation, Nonconformity,
and Physical Anhedonia scales. The test-re-
test reliability of the Schizoidia Scale was
found to be too low (r = .41 for males and
.44 for females) to envision use of the scale
to select deviant persons from among college
students.
Reliabilities and Intercorrelations of
Scales for Clients at an Outpatient Clinic
The reliabilities and intercorrelations of
scales of psychosis proneness might be ex-
pected to be higher for clinic clients than for
unselected college students because clinic
clients should include more persons who
score deviantly high on the scales. Over a 3-
year period we gave the Physical Anhedonia
Scale, the Perceptual Aberration Scale, and
the MMPI to 220 clients (74 male and 146
female) at the University of Wisconsin Psy-
chology Department Clinic. In addition, 120
of these 220 clients also received the Non-
 EIGHT MEASURES OF PSYCHOSIS PRONENESS 193

Table 3
Coefficient Alpha and Intercorrelations of Measures of Psychosis Proneness for Clinic Clients

Scale 1
• 1. Nonconformity 120 .86
2. Magical Ideation 120 .48 ,87
3. Perceptual Aberration 220 .39 .71 .91
4. Physical Anhedonia 220 .14 .02 -.02 .80
5. Schizoidia 220 .25 .28 .25 .14 .46
6. Single Scale 2-7-8 220 .40 .37 .46 .21 .62 .92
7. Single Scale 2-7-8-0 220 .36 .34 .43 .25 .60 .97 .94
8. Mean T 2-7-8 220 .27 .24 .36 .23 .54 .94 .88
9. Mean T 2-7-8-0 220 .28 .24 .35 .25 .55 .95 .94 .98

conformity and Magical ideation scales. Of Discussion

the 220 clients, 80% were college students
and the remainder were from the Madison Both the coefficient-alpha estimates of re-
community. Median age was 23 for both liability and the test-retest measures of re-
sexes. The presenting problem of 122 clients liability appear, by conventional psychomet-
was anxiety, depression, or phobia. The re- ric standards, to be adequate for using the
mainder had a variety of symptoms and Physical Anhedonia, Perceptual Aberration,
problems of adjustment—all but 3 or 4 of Magical Ideation, and Nonconformity scales
a nonpsychotic sort. The clients were given to identify deviant individuals. The coeffi-
the scales for research purposes soon after cient-alpha values for the Psychoticism Scale
their initial interview. are more modest than those reported by
Table 3 shows the coefficient-alpha values Eysenck and Eysenck (1975) and are low.
(on the diagonal) and the intercorrelations The coefficient-alpha values are good for the
of the scales. The data for the two sexes were single long 2-7-8 and 2-7-8-0 MMPI scales.
combined because the number of subjects Both the coefficient alpha and the test-retest
was not great and because the results were reliability for the Schizoidia Scale are so low
similar for the two sexes. The results are, for for college students that the scale cannot be
the most part, quite similar to those for the considered useful for that population. In
nonclient college student group, except that fairness, we should point out that Golden
most of the values of both coefficient alpha and Meehl (1979) specifically offered their
and the intercorrelations were slightly higher scale for use with psychiatric patients, not
for the clients. A difference from the non- with a college student population.
client college students was that the Physical The Schizoidia Scale shows a higher coef-
Anhedonia Scale correlated close to zero ficient-alpha value for the clinic sample than
with the Magical Ideation and Perceptual for college students. Nonetheless, the coef-
Aberration scales. ficient-alpha values are low. We agree with
Meehl's Schizoidia Scale, as well as the those critics, mentioned by Golden and
four composite MMPI scales, correlated Meehl (1979), who doubt that a 7-item
positively and Significantly with all four of MMPI subscale can be very useful. Squaring
our scales, despite the independence of Phys- the correlations, we find that the Schizoidia
ical Anhedonia from Perceptual Aberration , Scale and the 2-7-8-0 scale account for only
and from Magical Ideation. Thus these about 25% of one another's variance for col-
MMPI scores appear to measure a more lege students and 36% for clinic clients, even
general psychosis proneness than do our though the correlations between the two
scales, without distinguishing varieties of scales are of the magnitude permitted by
psychosis proneness. Schizoidia was found their reliabilities. Our findings confirm the
to correlate about as high with the long Golden and Meehl'contention that the two
scales of 2-7-8 and 2-7-8-0 as the reliabilities scales measure the same construct but dis-
of each allowed. courage use of the Schizoidia Scale for iden-
194 L. CHAPMAN, J. CHAPMAN, AND E. MILLER
tifying deviant individuals. Golden and
Meehl defend the validity of the Schizoidia
Scale on the grounds that its scores relate
substantially to the 2-7-8 profile and the 2-
7-8-0 scale. That being the case, why not use
the longer and far more reliable 2-7-8 or 2-
7-8-0 scales or profiles instead of the Schi-
zoidia Scale, or why not expand the Schi-
zoidia Scale or shorten the 2-7-8 or 2-7-8-0
long scales to obtain a practical scale of in-
termediate length?
The negative correlation between the
Physical Anhedonia Scale and both the Per-
ceptual Aberration Scale and the Magical
Ideation Scale for nonclient college students
continues to be a puzzling phenomenon. All
of these scales are to some extent subject to
acquiescence and social-desirability response
set. Since such shared-method variance tends
to produce a positive correlation, one must
assume that the pathologies measured by the
Anhedonia Scale and these other two scales
have an even stronger negative relationship
than is indicated by the correlation coeffi-
cients. Apparently, the scales identify some-
what incompatible characteristics in college
students. The disappearance of the negative
relationship for clinic clients parallels a sim-
ilar finding for schizophrenics (Chapman et
al., 1978). Perhaps the reason that the cor-
relation is no longer significantly negative
for either clients or patients is that persons
who score high on both Physical Anhedonia
and either Magical Ideation or Perceptual
Aberration tend more often than other peo-
ple to become clinic clients or hospitalized
patients.
The substantial overlap of systematic vari-
ance between the Magical Ideation and Per-
ceptual Aberration scales is consistent with
using these scales to assign subjects to a sin-
gle group but is not high enough to rule out
attempts to use the scales separately. The
Nonconformity Scale correlates low enough
with our other scales that it clearly has suf-
ficient independent variance to justify study-
ing high-scoring subjects as a separate group.
The Nonconformity Scale and Eysenck and
Eysenck's Psychoticism Scale appear to
measure the same pathology, since the cor-
relation between the two scales approaches
the theoretical limit imposed by their reli-
abilities. The advantage of the Noncon-
formity Scale lies, therefore, entirely in
its superior reliability. We cannot agree
completely with the criticism of Bishop
(1977) and Block (1977), who appeared to
dismiss completely the Psychoticism Scale
as a measure of psychosis proneness on the
grounds that schizophrenics, as a group, fail
to score higher on it than convicts, drug
abusers, and alcoholics. These groups should
be expected to contain a higher proportion
of persons with antisocial personality than
do schizophrenics, and antisocial attitudes
are to a large extent what the scale measures.
Schizophrenia and schizophrenia proneness
appear to be heterogeneous with respect to
antisociality as well as other traits. One
ought not to expect to find all or perhaps
even a majority of schizophrenics or schizo-
phrenia-prone subjects to be high on any
given trait. One should instead expect that
only a portion of psychotics and of the psy-
chosis-prone will be found to be higher than
control subjects on any trait that distin-
guishes the group from normal subjects.
Similarly, only a portion of the antisocial
persons who score high on these scales
should be expected to be psychosis-prone.
The scales measure more than psychosis
proneness. Nevertheless, a reasonable claim,
which is strongly supported by the clinical
and research literature, is that, compared to
the general population, a substantially higher
proportion of antisocial persons are prone to
psychosis, especially schizophrenia, and that
psychotics include a substantially higher
proportion of persons whose premorbid ad-
justment was antisocial than the proportion
of such persons in the general population.
It appears that Bishop's (1977) and Block's
(1977) negative reviews of the Psychoticism
Scale were stimulated in part by the
Eysencks' rather broad claims for the scale.
The Eysencks offered the scale as a measure
of predisposition toward psychosis in gen-
eral. A more reasonable speculation is that
the scale identifies a kind of antisocial per-
sonality that often presages later psychosis,
although most psychosis has other precur-
sors.
The positive correlations of all four of our
scales of psychosis proneness with the Schi-
zoidia Scale and with the two versions of
composite 2-7-8 and composite 2-7-8-0 scales
 EIGHT MEASURES OF PSYCHOSIS PRONENESS
may indicate that these MMPI measures
identify more than one kind of psychosis
proneness. It is especially striking that al-
though the Physical Anhedonia Scale has a
negative correlation with both the Percep-
tual Aberration and the Magical Ideation
scales, all three of these scales correlate pos-
itively with the Schizoidia Scale and with
the composite scales for clinic clients. Thus,
the Schizoidia Scale and the 2-7-8-0 scale
apparently fail to distinguish quite separate
pathologies. Since different pathologies usu-
ally have different causes, we believe that
investigators seeking to unravel the enigma
of psychosis might profitably measure and
study different varieties of psychosis prone-
ness independently, rather than combine
them all into a single group.
Reference Notes
1. Chapman, L. J., et al. Impulsive nonconformity as
a predictor of psychosis proneness. Manuscript sub-
mitted for publication, 1981.
2. Eckblad, M., & Chapman, L. J. Magical ideation
as an indicator of schizotypy. Manuscript submitted
for publication, 1981.
3. Chapman, L. J., & Chapman, J. P. Revised Physical
Anhedonia Scale. Unpublished test, 1978.
4. Meehl, P. E. Manual for use with Checklist of
Schizotypic Signs. Unpublished manuscript, Uni-
versity of Minnesota, 1964.
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!
Received August 14, 1981 •