Psyche, 23, Nos. 10–12, 1969: A. E. MEYER, H. OTTE, H.-J. SEEBERGER, H. SPEIDEL & R. ZENKER (Psychosomatic Clinic, II. Medizin. Universitätsklinik, Hamburg-Eppendorf). Die Inter-Beobachter-bereinstimmung für die psychoanalytische Einordnung von Charakter- und Verhaltensbeschreibungen (Inter-observer accordances on psychoanalytic descriptions of character and behaviour)

For the purpose of developing a multidimensional personality questionnaire on a psychoanalytic basis, a system of categories consisting of 29 (31) specific scales and four (five) superior global scale areas (oral, anal, phallic-oedipal, unspecific for the phase concerned, to be attributed to more than one phase) was set up. Three analysts placed 159 global (excerpted from the literature) personality items of a typical analytical nature and 687 special behaviour items into this system of categories. The following inter-observer accordances were found. (1) Global categories for global items: (a) three analysts in accordance with literature—31%; (b) at least two analysts in accordance with literature—55%; (c) three analysts in accordance with each other—43%; (d) at least two analysts in accordance with each other—89%; (2) Global categories for special behaviour items: (a) three analysts in accordance with each other—40%; (b) at least two analysts in accordance with each other—76%; (3) Specific categories for special behaviour items: (a) three analysts in accordance with each other—26%; (b) at least two analysts in accordance with each other—66%. This degree of accordance seems to constitute a questionable basis for a test construction; it corresponds, however, to the measure of agreement about the formation of diagnoses published in the field of clinical psychiatry.