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Michael A Thalbourne

Publications and source records attributed to Michael A Thalbourne.

8 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2005

Transliminality and the Oxford-Liverpool inventory of feelings and experiences.

Transliminality is a hypothesized tendency for psychological material to cross thresholds into or out of consciousness. The 29-item Revised Transliminality Scale was administered to 186 students and members of the general population in Australia and the UK along with the Oxford-Liverpool Inventory of Feelings and Experiences, a multidimensional measure of schizotypy. As predicted, scores on transliminality correlated .78 with those on Unusual Experiences, suggesting that the scales measure the same factor. Transliminality scores also correlated (.18, p=.008) significantly but weakly with scores on Impulsive Nonconformity, as predicted, and weakly (but not predicted) (r=.25, p<.001) with Cognitive Disorganization scores but not with Introvertive Anhedonia or the Lie scale.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2003

Comparison of two alternative measures of the boundary construct.

'Mental boundaries' is a traditional concept in psychology, although attempts to conceptualize and measure such boundaries empirically have only recently been pursued. Two major efforts in this respect are Hartmann's Boundary Questionnaire and the Revised Transliminality Scale of Lange, Thalbourne, Houran, and Storm. We administered both along with the Briggs-Nebes Handedness Scale to a convenience sample of 268 participants to assess the convergent validity of the two boundary measures and to replicate previous evidence that the boundary construct involves body boundaries as well, such as a tendency toward mixed-handedness. As predicted, scores on the Revised Transliminality Scale correlated .66 positively with total scores on the Boundary Questionnaire, but neither measure was associated with the handedness scale. Each of the 12 domains of the Boundary Questionnaire correlated significantly with total scores on the Transliminality Scale, yet only five domains contributed significantly to the prediction of variance in transliminality scores in a standard multiple regression analysis. Analysis suggests that transliminality is related to specific domains of the Boundary Questionnaire, and we hypothesize that the other domains of the Boundary Questionnaire represent higher levels of the boundary construct than what is measured by the Revised Transliminality Scale. This idea is discussed within the context of Werner's 1948 theory of syncretic versus symbolic cognition.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2003

Transliminality correlates positively with aberrations in memory.

During the course of a larger study on sensory thresholds and transliminality, 22 men and 28 women (M = 23.1 yr., SD = 2.9) mostly composed of students selected from a snowball sampling approach completed the Revised Transliminality Scale and a brief measure of everyday aberrations in memory. Scores on the measures correlated .59 (p < .001), and this result was not due to the confounding effects of age or sex. These preliminary results are consistent with the hypothesis that transliminality involves a state of increased activation that can induce a loss of conscious experience, thereby lending support to the definition of transliminality as the tendency for psychological material to cross thresholds into or out of consciousness.

Adult↗
PubMed2003

Childhood trauma as a possible antecedent of transliminality.

Previous theoretical and empirical work leads to a prediction that the developmental sequelae of childhood trauma may be risk factors in the development of transliminality. 106 undergraduate students completed the Revised Transliminality Scale and the Survey of Traumatic Childhood Events. In support of the prediction, scores on the Revised Transliminality Scale correlated .39 (p<.001) with the total scores on the index of childhood trauma. Follow-up analyses suggested that various sorts of childhood trauma could be interpreted for this group as related to transliminality: having one's house destroyed, robbed, or vandalized; being struck by someone within or outside the family; being yelled and screamed at by a caregiver; witnessing the physical abuse of a parent; and sexual abuse. Longitudinal study is required to sharpen evidence.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2002

Relation of transliminality and sensation seeking.

The Revised Transliminality Scale and Zuckerman's Sensation Seeking Scale (Form V) were administered to 83 psychology undergraduates. Weak positive correlations suggested that participants scoring high on the Transliminality Scale tended to be more experience seeking and, overall, more inclined to score sensation seeking.

Consciousness↗
PubMed2002

Preliminary validity data on the Rasch Manic-Depressiveness Scale.

The 18-item Manic-Depressiveness Scale was revised via a Rasch top-down purification' procedure to provide a new 12-item scale with no significant age or sex bias. Application of this scale to previously collected data indicated that patients with manic-depression and schizophrenia receive comparable scores, which are significantly higher than those of a control group of students. Moreover, for a subgroup of patients with manic-depression, scores correlated .55 (p<.001) with number of manic-depression-relevant medications being taken. These findings lend support to the validity of the Rasch Manic-Depressiveness Scale as a general measure of psychoticism and psychiatric status.

Bipolar Disorder↗
PubMed2002

Rasch scaling paranormal belief and experience: structure and semantics of Thalbourne's Australian Sheep-Goat Scale.

Research on the relation between demographic variables and paranormal belief remains controversial given the possible semantic distortions introduced by item and test level biases. We illustrate how Rasch scaling can be used to detect such biases and to quantify their effects, using the Australian Sheep-Goal Scale as a substantive example. Based on data from 1.822 respondents, this test was Rasch scalable, reliable, and unbiased at the test level. Consistent with other research in which unbiased measures of paranormal belief were used, extremely weak age and sex effects were found (partial eta2 = .005 and .012, respectively).

Adolescent↗