Journal of gambling behavior

, Volume 2, Issue 2, pp 69–80 | Cite as

Ego strength and achievement motivation in pathological gamblers

  • Julian I. Taber
  • Angel M. Russo
  • Bonnie J. Adkins
  • Richard A. McCormick
Articles

Abstract

This paper argues that there area priori reasons to extract measures of ego strength and achievement motivation from the psychometric data base routinely collected from inpatient pathological gambers in order to clarify the meaning of these constructs and to evaluate their roles in personality organization. A sample of 57 subjects engaged in an inpatient treatment program for pathological gamblers was studied using Barron's Ego Strength Scale (ES) from the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory and two measures of achievement motivation from the California Personality Inventory, Achievement via Conformance (Ac) and Achievement via Independence (Ai). Compared to the standardization group norms on these instruments, pathological gamblers are significantly deficient in both ego strength and one type of achievement motivation, Ac. Clinical impressions of gamblers in treatment suggest that narcissistic characteristics are a major problem in treatment and that future research should attempt further detailed studies of ego structure in order to refine treatment objectives.

Keywords

Treatment Program Data Base Clinical Impression Group Norm Pathological Gambler 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Copyright information

© Human Sciences Press 1986

Authors and Affiliations

  • Julian I. Taber
    • 1
  • Angel M. Russo
    • 1
  • Bonnie J. Adkins
    • 1
  • Richard A. McCormick
    • 1
  1. 1.V.A. Medical CenterReno

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