Personality & Attitudes on Revenge in the General Population of Scotland

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Personality & Attitudes on Revenge in the General Population of Scotland.

Fantasies vary from person to person and are dependent on psychological condition. In a clinical population fantasies tend to last longer than in non-clinical populations.  Although overall each fantasy has been reported to last relatively short periods of time, the frequency of which they occur is usually the factor that determines whether they are of concern or not (Gellerman and Suddath, 2005).  There seems to be a limited quantity of research available on the general understanding of this topic however the literature that does exist appears to focus on three particular areas, sustaining fantasies - as a means of coping with painful and stressful situations in the general population but particularly in the clinical population (Zelin, Bernstein, Heijn, Jampel, Myerson, Adler, Buie & Rizzuto, 1983; Harder & Zelin, 1984; Greenwald & Harder, 1994; Greenwald & Harder, 1995 & Greenwald and Harder, 1997); aggressive fantasies - for pleasure or satisfaction in the general population but more often than not habitually involuntary for the clinical population and generally violent, sexual and sadistic in nature (Gellerman & Suddath, 2005; Egan & Campbell, 2009 & Selby, Anestis & Joiner (2007), and finally, revenge fantasies - concerning those who have experienced trauma (Mardi & Harowitz, 2007).  In search of material for this review surprise has it that homicidal fantasies on the whole is the one of which focuses on a more simple view of its apparent natural occurrence in natural surroundings of everyday life, and highlights the evolving acceptance that many normal law abiding citizens can and do have  fantasies.

Sustaining Fantasy

From a study conducted by Zelin et al (1983) the Sustaining Fantasy Questionnaire (SFQ) was developed to measure sustaining functions in psychiatric inpatients in comparison with non-patients.  This questionnaire was constructed specifically to measure fantasies of death, withdrawal, restitution, suffering, God, closeness, power and revenge, admiration of self, competition and aesthetics.  The questionnaire was then utilised to determine that psychiatric inpatients scored higher than non-patients on fantasies of death, withdrawal, restitution, suffering, God and closeness but fantasies of power and revenge, admiration of self, competition and aesthetics did not differentiate between groups.  Thus, suggesting that the questionnaire was able to differentiate the groups by fantasy factors such as death, withdrawal, restitution, suffering, God and closeness and highlighted associations of power and revenge, admiration of self, competition and aesthetics with an independent measure of psychology.  

It is said that experiencing Sustaining Fantasies is a familiar, consistent and repetitive conscious fantasy adopted to help cope with feelings of a painful and stressful situation.  According to Zelin et al (1983) the sustaining fantasy is a concept based on the observation that at times of extreme negative emotional states, caused by anger or narcissistic grievance, people often resort to this as a means of re-creating a more ideal situation than that of which stimulated the painful experience, fabricating a sense of satisfaction, restoring self-esteem and emotional equilibrium, and decreasing frustration.  Ultimately, the sustaining fantasy is based on the assumption that such fantasies signify and demonstration the basic construction and processes that have evolved in the course of efforts to adapt to painful situations.  We are reminded by Zelin et al (1983) that this fantasy is of a specific type called only into play when suffering increasing levels of stress, and should not be confused by those fantasies used as a disguised endeavour of pleasure or solutions to relatively un-stressful problems, such studies will be discussed later in the review.

One year on, Harder & Zelin (1984) furthered the study of Zelin et al (1983) accepting that the sustaining fantasy questionnaire was developed primarily with psychiatric inpatients, but recognising also, the potential for its use in testing correlates among a more general sample.  Assuming that everyone uses sustaining fantasies to aid or support themselves through highly stressful periods in life and presuming the importance of this factor in the capability to manage adaptively rather than maladaptively, Harder & Zelin (1984) extended interests and investigations into the personality functioning in the general population as well as with pathological persons.  They did this by examining the relationship between the 10 types of sustaining fantasies reported by Zelin et al (1983) and two dimensions of self-concept – self-derogation and stability of self-concept, suspecting that the type of sustaining fantasy that the person characteristically brings into play will be consistent with and in support of their self-concept, an important relation with psychological-social adjustment and even a potential determinant of psychological-social adjustment.  Successfully, the results demonstrated that the Sustaining Fantasy Questionnaire was reliable not only to differentiate between groups of psychiatric inpatients from normal controls, as Zelin et al (1983) demonstrated, but also to distinguish the group of college students used in this study.

Just over a decade later Greenwald & Harder (1994) followed on from Zelin et al (1983), attempting to examine the expected associations between psychopathology, almost replicating exactly, apart from their use of a student population primarily from a middle-class backgrounds.  In addition, Greenwald & Harder (1994) questioned if the sustaining fantasy scales associated with weaker functioning, reflects a more general pathology factor as proposed in the data of Zelin et al (1983) or, whether each reflects a particular maladaptive style that is signified by an exceptional construction of associations with the MMPI clinical scales.  Further support and reliability of Zelin et al (1983) is strengthened in Greenwald & Harder’s (1994) findings that power/revenge, death/illness, withdrawal/protection and suffering are all related significantly to two of the MMPI measures of overall psychopathology, therefore four of the six fantasy types that imply psychopathology in the inpatients (Zelin et al, 1983) were too the indicators of pathology in the study using the middle-class students.

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Considering all of the previously mentioned studies (Zelin et al, 1983; Harder & Zelin, 1984; Greenwald & Harder, 1994) it seems fair to say that ample evidence has been gathered to show that definite types of sustaining fantasy ideas, characteristically used to comfort the self when experiencing feelings of hurt and stress, are associated with indications of psychopathological adjustment.  The aim for Greenwald & Harder (1995) was then to examine to what extent there are parallels between them and the degree to which such content ideas may well point out psychopathology.  With reference to past research on daydreaming, where ...

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