A critical appraisal of self-report defense mechanism measures

Defense mechanisms have been a source of both fascination and frustration f or most personality researchers because they are conceptually intriguing bu t their assessment is often problematic. To aid personality researchers in integrating defense mechanism theory into personality research, we review a nd critique the major existing self-report defense mechanism measures: the Coping and Defending Scales (Joffe & Naditch, 1977); the Defense Mechanisms Inventory (Gleser & Ihilevich, 1969); the Life-Style Index (Plutchik, Kell erman, & Conte, 1979); and the Defense Style Questionnaire (Bond, Gardner, Christian, & Sigal, 1983). We conclude that no self-report measure adequate ly assesses the defining features of defense mechanisms. We offer a number of person and situation variables that must be considered when evaluating a ny defense mechanism measure, and we conclude that the comprehensive assess ment of defense mechanism use will likely require measures obtained from mu ltiple sources.