This is an action research project designed to mutually assess needs and initiate projects in a broad range of culturally, ecologically and socially sustainable aspects of development, both in Mizoram and partnered areas of the United States and Canada. Researchers will have ample opportunities to observe in Mizoram, interact with people, and have discussions with a wide spectrum of Mizo people, from high officials to grass roots level individuals. This research project is focused on exploring issues surrounding the nexus of violence and justice in urban American society. We have designed a schema polarity assessment instrument that measures clinically derived schema continua, each with a negative inflexible pole, a positive inflexible pole, and an adaptive flexible point in-between. Contrary to other schema models, the schema polarity model considers both extreme poles within a personality domain as associated with maladaptation.
Adaptation is associated with having relatively few thoughts of either extreme type.
Theoretically, if disordered individuals have maladaptive schemas, well-functioning individuals must have adaptive schemas. At this time, no extant instrument has attempted to elucidate the nature of adaptive schemas. In addition, validity scales will be added to this iteration. Also, we plan to administer a Symptom Checklist 90 to determine if both types of maladaptive schemas are associated with increased report of maladaptive symptoms and whether the nature of those symptoms differs across the two poles. Finally, we plan to administer an abbreviated version of the SWAP 200, a new measure of clinically relevant personality domains.