title: Symptom overreporting and dissociative experiences: A qualitative review.
abstract: We discuss a phenomenon that has received little attention to date in research on dissociative phenomena, namely that self-reports of these phenomena overlap with the tendency to overendorse eccentric items. We review the literature documenting the dissociation-overreporting link and then briefly discuss various interpretations of this link: (1) overreporting is an artifact of measuring dissociative symptoms; (2) dissociative psychopathology engenders overreporting of eccentric symptoms through fantasy proneness or impairments in internal monitoring; (3) an overreporting response style as is evident in malingerers, for example, promotes reports of dissociative symptoms. These three interpretations are not mutually exclusive. Also, the dissociation-overreporting link may have different origins among different samples. Because overreporting may introduce noise in datasets, we need more research specifically aimed at disentangling the dissociation-overreporting link. We suggest various avenues to accomplish this goal.
authors.affiliation: Forensic Psychology Section, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands. Electronic address: H.Merckelbach@maastrichtuniversity.nl.
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Merckelbach
authors.affiliation: Forensic Psychology Section, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Boskovic
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Franziskus Hospital, Mönchengladbach, Germany.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Pesy
authors.affiliation: Forensic Psychology Section, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Dalsklev
authors.affiliation: Binghamton University - State University of New York, Binghamton, NY, USA.
authors.forename: S J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Lynn
mesh_terms: D004213:Dissociative Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D057566:Self Report
keywords: Alexithymia; Dissociative symptoms; Malingering; Overreporting