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This paper suggests that the emphasis on personality has been responsible for the impasse in national character research. It is suggested that this emphasis rests only on research tradition and that national character need not be viewed exclusively in personality terms. A conception of modal attitude clusters is presented as a fully adequate supplement which overcomes many of the weaknesses which result from the personality perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is one of a series describing relations found between young children's physiques and their behavior characteristics as viewed by different observers in different settings. An earlier paper (10) outlined the general plan of research, reviewed pertinent literature, and described methods used in evaluating the children's physiques. It showed a number of significant associations between these physique ratings and ratings of the children's behavior by their nursery school teachers. The present paper descries relations between the physique variables and ratings of home behavior made by mothers on a form of adjective check list for the same nursery school children plus an additional year's class [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports that the Thurstone Personality Schedule, first described in 1929, is too well known to require extensive description at this time. Because of its comprehensiveness and practical value in the identification of neurotic personalities, it has stimulated extensive research into its nature and characteristics. These studies have demonstrated the fact that the questions composing the Schedule are of unequal value in the identification of the neurotic personalities. Indeed, in their original paper the Thurstones showed that the respective questions varied widely in ability to differentiate between the poorest and best adjusted subjects, and published a list of 42 statements which they found most differentiating. In a thorough and painstaking study, R. R. Willoughby treated rather incisively the closely related problems of the relative homogeneity or heterogeneity of the items composing the schedule and the degree to which fairly homogeneous phases or affects of the neurotic personality are over or under-represented in the schedule.

As a preparatory step towards the development of a complete habilitation program for children with congenital limb anomalies associated with maternal ingestion of thalidomide, the medical records of all patients with congenital limb anomalies referred to the Rehabilitation Institute of Montreal in the past decade were studied, and an examination and a thorough reassessment were made of 41 patients (21 males and 20 females). The medical and prosthetic aspects were dealt with in Part I of this paper. Part II describes, in a joint report, the results of psychiatric, psychological and educational assessments.There was no evidence of major emotional disorder in any of the patients, although conflicts were intensified by the presence of the physical anomaly. No relation was found between intelligence, emotional adjustment and disability. The patient's attitude towards his disability and prosthesis is definitely influenced by the degree of parental acceptance of the handicap and by the character of the emotional undertones in the total environment. In order to favour the occurrence of the healthiest modes of development in these children, the authors believe that the medical profession should be made fully aware of the physical and emotional problems which may arise after the birth of a deformed child. It is considered very important that the mother should receive psychotherapeutic support as soon as possible after the child is born.

The article explores the psychology that relates to a relationship of an individual's body experience to his cognition. Studies exist in which such variables as level of muscle tonus, position of body in space, degree of autonomic arousal, and body crippling have been shown to enter into the reception and elaboration of stimuli. This article assumes there are forms of body experience which serve as persistent signals to orient the individual to reception or rejection of classes of information. An author has explicitly defined body sensations as a background variable contributing to the general adaptation level influencing judgment. It is considered that body signals may introduce selectivity in dealing with a spectrum of stimuli. The study noted that atleast some of the afferent feedback impulses from the viscera have the properties of stimuli and so are capable of becoming conditioned stimuli and drive stimuli. Not only may visceral reactions become elicitable by external stimuli through classical conditioning, but also the visceral feedback stimuli may become cues for instrumental acts.

The article comments on a paper published in the "American Journal of Mental Deficiency," regarding the effect of motor development on the body image of retarded children. The statement of the paper's author regarding the Holtzman Inkblot Technique is unclear. The statement about the technique is hard for the authors to understand.

The article presents a discussion related the interaction of personality and political system in decisions to run for office. Efforts to ascertain the personality correlates of politicians' behavior have met with quite indifferent success. There are a number of reasons why there is so little empirical evidence of the impact of personality on the behavior of politicians. First of all it has been difficult to obtain measures of personality differences that are sufficiently sensitive to exhibit the connections between personal attributes of political actors and the actions they perform. Secondly, the impact of situations, for example, role requirements and other restrictions that political systems place on actors, further reduces the observed correlations between personality and political behavior. Politicians with similar personality characteristics may behave differently from community to community or from role to role simply because the situation in each case imposes different pressures and incentives.

The article classifies and predicts Presidential styles while referring to two U.S. Presidents, John Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Clark Hoover. In the U.S., no one can be president but the President. If he withholds his energies or fritters them away ineffectively, the citizens endure or enjoy a period of national stalemate. So one needs to know as much about why some presidents fail to lead as about why others succeed. But the dull presidents are a trial for the political analyst, particularly for the student of personality and political leadership. It is not just that they sap one's intellectual verve, but that their personality configurations are, on the surface, indistinct. They thus provide "hard-case" tests for the supposition that personality helps shape a president's politics. If a personality approach can work with Coolidge and Hoover, it can work with any chief executive. The author tries to show how these two men illustrate some recurrent dynamics of presidential style and how these dynamics can be caught in a theory with predictive possibilities.

The concept of body image has been used to designate one's perception and evaluation of his own body. The present study has attempted a limited definition of body image in terms of relative accuracy in recognizing one's own face and shoulders under ambiguous conditions. A variable mirror, capable of providing a series of graduated distortions, was used to provide data concerning Ss' judgments as to the true proptions of their own faces and other stimuli. Specifically, the ability to recognize one's own true facial proportions from among a graded series of distorted images was compared with ability to recognize the true proportions of another person's face, and eight inanimate objects. It was hypothesized that greater errors would occur in self estimation than in the other recognition tests, on the assumption that the ability to recognize one's own face would be affected by the presence of self attitudes and values that do not attach to other persons or objects. Also, it was hypothesized that accuracy of self estimation would be related to Rorschach factors H%, Hd%, and M%, insofar as these signs might be thought of as betokening a general interest in people, and, possibly, in the self perceived as a social stimulus. Data provided by 42 Ss indicated that only the men were significantly less accurate in recognizing their own faces, as compared with the face of another person (E's wife). Female Ss failed to show such a trend. Possibly, if the Other-Face Test had included a male stimulus-face, in addition to a female, a definite answer might have been reached concerning the prediction that self-estimation would prove more difficult than estimating the appearance of another person. The pree diction that self-estimation would prove more difficult than estimating the proportions of objects was borne out for the group as a whole, but again was more marked in the case of the male Ss. In the self-recognition test, the latter characteristically selected as true representations of the self images that were disproportionately wide and "husky4ooking." The female Ss tended to err in the direction of selecting self images that were too long and "slender-looking." These findings are valid, of course, only within the limitations of the procedures employed, and general theoretical inferences may be drawn only with the greatest caution. No relationships were obtained between accuracy in the various mirror situations and frequency of Rorschach determinants. Presumably, judging from our results, a person's knowledge of his facial appearance cannot be equated with whatever it is that our Rorschach factors represent. In sum, the results with the mirror technique though inconclusive, suggest that the problem of self perception can be approached in a concrete and fairly naturalistic way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the body image problems of brain damaged children and the behavioral results of such problems. It notes that the body image arises from biologic laws of growth and the integration of new experiences, physical and psychological, arising from one's self and from relationships and attitudes of others, into a gestalt. This image is continually modified at various levels of development, perception or of integration and may result from either organic or psychological changes. The body image of the brain damaged child is disturbed by tonus pulls, equilibrium problems, perceptual and integrative difficulties and social inadequacy. It is by recognizing the disability, understanding his body image needs and satisfying them, that the prognosis of the brain damaged child is improved.

This article is an introduction to the concept of body image. The development of body image is discussed and an operational definition of body image is provided. Methods of assessing body image are discussed and a case example demonstrating the treatment of distortions of body image is given. This case study also serves to illustrate the complexity of problems with body image. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

3 age groups of males (5-6 yr, 14-15 yr, 19-20 yr) served as Ss in a study of some parameters of body-build stereotype development. Each group included 30 chubby and 30 average build males. In session 1, Ss were asked to: (1) attribute each of 56 items from a specially constructed verbal checklist to either a picture of an endomorph, a mesomorph, or an ectomorph; (2) judge the items as having either a "good" or a "bad" evaluative connotation; and (3) judge the items as being like or not like themselves. In session 2, Ss made body-build identification and preference response, and stated why they wanted to look like the preferred physique. The results indicated that at all age levels Ss held a predominantly favorable view of the mesomorph, a markedly unfavorable view of the endomorph, and a somewhat less negative but still unfavorable view of the ectomorph. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the use of body measures to predict diverse phenomena of behavior. Characteristics of individual patterns of physiological reactivity; Observation of degree of definiteness ascribed by individuals; Variation of attitude towards various sectors of the body.

The article discusses the situated strategy used by dormitory residents to maintain their moral identities in two bathroom situations requiring nudity. The two bathrooms have no partitions between facilities and no privacy when more than one person is in either room. Those girls with similar bathroom arrangements at home reacted to the situation as routine and taken-for-granted, and with little or no self-consciousness, while those with no prior experience either at home or in another dormitory found the situation foreign and were self-conscious. One girl stated that bathroom exposure contradicted her notion of the feminine role, while another stated that a favorable body image enabled her to function adequately in what might have been an awkward situation.

The article reports that an army of young psychologists has grown up with faith in the creed that anything that exists exists in some quantity, and that quantity can be measured. Possibly a few would take issue with the first part of this battlecry, some would deny that all traits are susceptible of quantitative measurement, and many would agree that not all that we attempt to measure exists. With the present diversity in theories of how personality is put together, it is plain that it is very difficult to establish proof that a hypothetical trait does or does not reside in an individual. Part of the difficulty may perhaps be escaped when researchers attend to just those aspects of personality which Mark May has called the person's "social stimulus values," as shown in the reactions of other persons to the individual. However, these social stimulus values represent a very circumscribed area of the total personality; moreover, they would appear to be merely derivatives which cut through aspects of personality which are more basic.

The article presents information on the selective memory effects produced by stimulation of body landmarks. It has been proposed by scholar S. Fisher that the body image is a series of peripheral landmarks from which emanate sensations that can reinforce or inhibit central cognitive processes. Several studies have shown that the individual distributes his attention differentially to various sectors of his body and that selective modes of cognition are associated with the highlighting of such sectors. Illustratively, there are data indicating that the higher an individual's awareness of the front as compared to the back of his body the more he selectively recalls words pertaining to front versus other areas of the body. Similarly, relative awareness of exterior versus interior regions of one's body is correlated with selective recall of words referring to exterior versus interior body sensations and also words depicting or not depicting body mutilation. The presence of symptoms in a region of one's body has been shown to have an inhibiting effect upon the recall of words pertaining to the functions of that region. Degree of awareness of one's stomach has proven to be linked with subsequent tendencies to create words with oral connotations.

The article focuses on psychological aspects of circumcision. According to the author, man has never been satisfied with his physical body. Circumcision is one instance of those strange and varied ritual mutilation which express vividly his intense desire to conform to an ideal image. The author presents discussion on significance of major themes evident in varying contents of a young man's preoccupation with circumcision. Features of the preoccupation are described as they were revealed in psychoanalysis.

In this article the author presents the hypothesis of dynamic stratum of the collective unconscious which is tentatively termed "magical." This magical layer is constellated through the archetype of a phallic chthonic magician, an early primitive stage of the archetype of maleness. The magical dynamism is encountered in body imagery, particularly of the type previously known as erogenous zones. It is characterized by a fundamental one-dimensional unity, pars pro tow exchangeability and non-separation of opposites as well as intense affectivity and compulsiveness.

This article presents some descriptive notes on the concepts of body image and schema in the field of psychological imagery. The author describes that the schema, or body image, is both a concept and an image and at the present time it has grown to have connection with many branches of modern knowledge. Being introduced first in the field of neurology, these concepts has been increasingly used in experimental psychology, neurology, psychiatry, and in analytical psychology. The author tries to relate these concepts with standards or constants in self-perception and personality.

This article focuses on the changes in the structure and function of the body of the young girls growing from childhood to maturity. It points out that the basic focus for studying projection of the personality and developing a detailed system of interpretation of the body language was a phase of graphic projection. Likewise, it is postulated that reaction to body and to experience that reaction to body and to experience creates a unique postural model which constitutes to image expressed in motor and temperament dispositions.

Chapter 13 of the book "Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development" is presented. It discusses the different techniques and methods in studying postural development in children. It enumerates and offers details on the different approaches that have been employed by psychologists in evaluating the posture of an individual.

The article cites a study that assessed both the intensity and prominence of the roles played by the body and the self in the learning process of the member of Alcoholics Anonymous as he endeavors to restructure his personality and stabilize his acceptance by his world. The sample consisted of 104 male members of Alcoholics Anonymous selected from the roster of the Niagara Frontier Group, Buffalo, New York and a roster in a metropolitan area in California. Ages ranged from 19 to 63 years, mean 40.1 years. Mean education was ten years of schooling. The sobriety interval ranged from ten days to 17 years.

Zero firing or single-motor-unit firing in large forearm muscle bundles was achieved in less than twenty minutes, in seven out of twenty-one subjects, through the use of a feedback meter which showed the subject his own electromyographic tension level. Five of these seven subjects reported body-image illusions. The behavior of single motor units under these conditions indicates the existence of a reflex-type neural oscillator in the striate neuromuscular domain, whose operation is gated or controlled from the central nervous system. The electronic system needed to operate the feedback meter can be assembled from standard amplifiers but standard EMG Integrator (rectifier) couplers usually must be modified in order to detect single motor unit firing. The final system is considerably more sensitive than those commercially available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses body type and figure drawing. In the battery of projective tests, the figure drawings ordinarily play a role as a complementary technique, providing support for findings by other tests, and suggesting new areas for study. It is common to refer to the figure drawings as related in some manner to "body image." According to one concept, the body image is a dynamic, acquired, continuously-changing structuralization to which the entire perceptual-motility apparatus, and its parallel in the libidinous and emotional fields, contribute to build up an inner postural model of the body.

Comments on the article titled "Bodily Experience in Psychotherapy," by J.W.T. Redfearn. Implications for psychotherapy of the body-image as it is related to a functioning ego; Psychosomatic medicine; Danger of body-mind splitting.

The article presents a study of the relationships among verbal and nonverbal measures of self-acceptance. The first nonverbal technique was the standard human figure drawing test, which has been used clinically to represent conscious and unconscious components of the subject's body image. It was reasoned that individuals who demonstrated conflicts in their body images on this test would score poorly on independent measures of self-adjustment. The second technique was a novel one in which a photograph was made of the silhouette cast by the subject. Scores based upon the Bill's Index of Adjustment and Values, a silhouette sorting task, and human figure drawings were obtained from high school subjects.

The article presents information on an exploratory study that examines the degree of differentiation of the self and the body image. Fifty-one female and 48 male college students were tested with body-cathexis and self-cathexis questionnaires. Women showed greater variability in cathexis-responsiveness to the body than men, but the sexes did not differ in mean variance for self-cathexis. Men showed more variability in cathecting their selves than their bodies, while the women did not display this difference. It was concluded that women have more highly differentiated body-images than men, that among women, the self-concept and the body-image are differentiated to an equivalent degree.