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Chalder & Godfry 2009 - CFS in adolescents: Do parental expectations of their child's IQ...

Sidereal

Senior Member
Messages
4,856
This cross-sectional pilot study focused on two hypotheses; firstly IQ will not be affected by CFS, and secondly that parental expectations of their child’s intelligence will be more unrealistic in CFS cases than healthy controls.

Results suggested that IQ was not affected by CFS.

On what basis did they conclude this if it's a cross-sectional study?
 

msf

Senior Member
Messages
3,650
'High expectations may need to be addressed
within the context of treatment.'

The only sense I can read into this is that parents should be encouraged to lower their expectations of their child's academic in the context of psycho-somatic, potentially harmful treatments that have no beneficial effects whatsoever.
 

Vic

Messages
137
This study is actually very interesting. I've seen several cases of people with CFS who have/had parents with high expectations. It causes the child (or adult) to have a tendency to push themselves very hard, past their limits, which makes them vulnerable to injury. They might grow up scared, overstimulated, and/or with poor sleep, among other things. I found a documentary with a guy in it who got almost the exact same injury as me before his chronic fatigue. It showed a clip of the man talking with his father, a douche-baggy golfer not looking at the camera and talking with a real "dominate or be dominated" attitude. His dad was just like my dad, hah! His mom was like my mom too, saying he "wasn't her son" (didn't like how he became a bodybuilder). My mother has said to me, "This is not the kind of relationship I imagined with my son." lol

Don't we often hear many people who come down with CFS/ME have a "Type A personality?"


Relevant parts at 3:00-6:30 and 27:00
 

alex3619

Senior Member
Messages
13,810
Location
Logan, Queensland, Australia
Type A personality has largely been forgotten as a cause of anything, from my reading. It never worked out. That does not mean that a patient with early or subclinical ME might not push themselves too hard if they are motivated, whether that motivation comes from within or is influenced by authority figures, or a perceived need. I probably did it myself loads of times.
 

Vic

Messages
137
I understood "Type A personality" as just a figure of speech. It fit me and a few others I've seen. Heard some researchers mention it and it just made sense to me.

However, it's not really "Type A personality." It's more like a narcissistic insecure type of personality that drives someone to push themselves, sometimes rooted in parenting.
 
Messages
13,774
I understood "Type A personality" as just a figure of speech

That about sums up the quality of a lot of research into personality types imo - able to generate the occasional turn of phrase.

It's more like a narcissistic insecure type of personality that drives someone to push themselves, sometimes rooted in parenting.

Uh-huh. I think that speculations and assumptions which can serve to stigmatise an already marginalised section of society need to be made with caution. There seem to be lots of problems with personality research generally, and there's lots of room for confounding factors if you're assessing people who are already ill, but so far I don't see much good evidence to support the notion that narcissism and insecturity are important causal factors in CFS.

An old thread discussed a paper on this: http://forums.phoenixrising.me/inde...hronic-fatigue-syndrome-a-controlled-s.19947/