Sex bias in the diagnosis of narcissistic,histrionic,sadistic and borderline personality disorders.

Abstract

Recently, considerable attention has been given to sex bias in the diagnosis of personality disorders. Research has shown that clinicians will assign different diagnoses to case histories of males and females that contain identical symptoms. The present study attempted to examine sex bias in the diagnosis of Narcissistic,Histrionic, Borderline,and Sadistic personality disorders. Psychologists were presented with a male or female version of each of three audiotaped simulated interviews: a Narcissistic/Histrionic case, a Depression/Anxiety symptom case used as a "filler case," and a Borderline/Sadistic case. It was predicted that psychologists would assign more diagnoses of Borderline and Histrionic to the female versions of the cases, and Sadistic and Narcissistic to the male versions. The results showed that, while sex of the patient did not have a significant effect on diagnoses assigned, there was a trend for more Narcissistic and Sadistic diagnoses to be assigned to the male interviews and Borderline to the female interview by male psychologists only. Limitations of this study and directions for future research are discussed.