January 1986
·
30 Reads
·
65 Citations
Sixty-five licensed clinical psychologists independently diagnosed 18 written case histories on the basis of 10 DSM-III categories. The results showed that females were rated significantly more histrionic than males exhibiting identical histrionic symptoms. There was no comparable sex bias to diagnose males showing antisocial pathology as more antisocial than females. The explanation proposed is that the antisocial category is behaviorally anchored whereas the histrionic category is trait dominated. Thus, the findings suggest that vague diagnostic descriptions promoted sex stereotyping and sex bias in diagnosis.