Ego Development and Personality Disorders in Prisoners vs Non-Prisoners

the personality disorders among 60 non-political pri- soners of Zanjan’s prison and a control group of 60 non-prisoners without a history of mental illness were assessed, using the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory- II (MCMI-II; Millon, 1987). The development of ego am- ong participants also was measured using a questionnaire that included four factors from Cattell’s 16 Personality Factor Questionnaire (Cattell, 1965). Results posited that the prisoners scored higher than the non-prisoner in all the subscales of personality disorders except for the obsessive personality subscale. Analysis of measurements of ego de- velopment showed that two groups were significantly dif- ferent in ego strength and emotional sensitivity that pri- soner group showed significantly lower level of ego deve- lopment. Among the prisoners, there were negative cor- relations between ego strength and avoidant, antisocial, masochistic, and schizotypal personality disorders and po- sitive correlations between emotional sensitivity and bo- rderline personality disorder. The highest scores of pri- soner group included the borderline personality disorder and schizoid. A more detailed discussion of the findings is presented.