Similarities in self-depictions of female alcoholics and psychiatric outpatients: examination of Eysenck's dimension of emotionality in women.

The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) item response rates of samples of female alcoholics and of nonsubstance-abusing female psychiatric outpatients were compared with those of three samples of putative psychiatric normals--female adults, medical outpatients and college students--to find items to which the two psychiatric patient samples would respond similarly to each other, but differently from normals. A total of 25 items were located that satisfied a stringent set of selection criteria. The responses of additional samples of alcoholics, psychiatric outpatients and putative normals to these 25 items remained impressively large on cross-validation. A principal factors analysis of the 25 X 25 item intercorrelation matrix yielded four factors that were labeled Agitated Depression, Familial Dissatisfaction, Hypersensitivity and Irreligiosity.