Search

Provides information on the problem that any division of appeal and speech into conviction and persuasion is unsound from the point of view of psychology. Application of rhetoric and composition as a science; Methods of influencing human thought; Refusal to be content with a two-fold division.

Discusses the use of psychological terms in speech. Manipulation of ideas and concepts for purposes of theorizing; Concept of the intellect; Word-tools which need to be handled most carefully.

Presents a psychological approach to the rhetoric of speech composition. Translation of each of the ends of speech into the terms of the conservative psychology of James and Pillsbury; Examination of volition; Conditions indispensable to the state of belief.

The article presents a study that aims at obtaining a fairly reliable index of the neurotic tendencies of university freshmen. The neurotic personality is one, which fails somehow in the relation between imagination and external social reality. In order to avoid an unfavorable attitude on the part of the subject the inventory was called "A Personality Schedule." It was compiled mostly from several shorter lists already published. The compilation was done by making a list of over 600 questions, which were typewritten on separate cards. These were sorted into groups in accordance with the central idea of the question. When several questions were found which were aimed at the same information, the one was retained which seemed to be best edited for the purpose of the schedule. Duplication was allowed in some instances where an item of information, regarded as important, was incorporated in several questions that were differently phrased. However, the authors hope that such duplication of information in several questions has not been so extensive as to load the list seriously with any one narrow trait.

The article reports that it is important for theoretical and practical psychology that it should be told as nearly as possible whether a given activity is due to something innate, to something acquired, or to a combination of the two and also to know to what extent the two are involved, if neither can be singled out as the sole cause of the activity. In order to make any factual statement concerning the relative importance of nature and nurture, the first thing required is a large amount of careful experimentation by unbiased investigators, a revamping of existing terminology, discrimination in the use of inference from animal behavior and controlled genetic studies of human beings. This is a lengthy and difficult task for the experimentalist. Unfortunately, however, there is so little agreement among the psychologists and educators as to just what is original and what is acquired that a study of the various present-day instinct theories leaves the student wondering about the value of any of them as a guide to educational procedure.

The article presents a discussion related to instinct, heredity and social tradition. Like most terms imported from current speech into the language of psychological discussion, the word instinct has brought with it a persistent trail of misleading connotations. If it be restricted to the denoting of inherited behavior patterns, it has no application in human psychology. For of complex chains of action fixed in hereditary structure, similar to the instinctive activities of insects or of nesting birds, there exists in human behavior no example. Yet, instinct, which not long since was known only as the miraculous sagacity of the brutes, and to which the last classic of the old academic psychology devotes one reluctant page of generalities, disguised though it may be under new aliases recognized as the mainspring of the human psychical mechanism. Directly or indirectly the instincts are the prime movers of all human activity; by the conative or impulsive force of some instinct . Every train of thought, however cold and passionless it may seem, is borne along towards its end and every bodily activity is initiated and sustained.

The article presents a discussion related to the psychological description of leadership. A lack of adequate leadership for local groups is felt by those engaged in rural social work. To assist in meeting this need the Department of Rural Social Organization of Cornell University is attempting to make a psychological description of leadership. The work is being done in the hope that such a description of leadership, with the addition of those from other points of view, may form a body of knowledge in the light of which leadership may be stimulated and its development guided. Although the work is not sufficiently advanced to draw any very specific conclusions, some general trends may be pointed out. The terms leader and leadership, like many other terms one has to deal with in the social sciences, antedate the science of psychology. So far as the author was able to find, neither term has any standing in any of the sciences. The literature under "leadership," and similar captions, is legionary, and its variance in point of view is proportionate only to its size.

The article presents a quantitative comparison of certain mental traits of Negro and white college students. Current opinion tends to regard the American Negro as a distinct type and to assume that he has definite social, physical, and mental traits different from those of the white man. Such possible racial dissimilarities in specific mental traits have received some attention in scientific literature, the range and nature of which may be observed from the summary given in the article. Racial traits are popularly conceived to be obvious, consistent, and habitual behavior patterns or physical peculiarities that are characteristic of particular groups. Usually these observed types are more or less extreme categories into which it is difficult to fit all members of a group. For example, it is hard to fit all men of any racial group into categories of tall and of short men. In fact, variations in the measurement of a single trait center around the average, about which there is ordinarily a considerable spread.

Copyright of Journal of Social Psychology is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article focuses on utilizing opinion for character measurement. In the field of character research, in which any overt expression of the individual may reveal inner measurable values, it appears that opinions are in themselves facts and for certain purposes highly significant. A man's opinion about prohibition, international affairs, married life, etc., while of no great value in settling any of these particular problems, may be very useful in telling us whether the man himself is radical or conservative, social or unsocial, pessimistic or optimistic, enthusiastic or otherwise. For several months the writer has been experimenting with an "opinion" technique as a means of measuring various characteristics, having originally in mind the trait of conservatism. This technique consists simply of presenting the subject with a number of controversial statements to which he is asked to indicate his agreement or disagreement by making a plus or minus sign before each statement. Since the original purpose was to measure radicalism and conservatism, statements were chosen which would involve this characteristic.

In this article the author informs American professional psychologists about developments in Czechoslovak psychology. Very few know what has been accomplished in this field in the new republic of Czechoslovakia. This condition is largely due to the fact that no article or chapter on the above topic, so far as the author is aware, has as yet been published in the American psychological journals or books. The only informational review of Czechoslovak psychology ever published in the English language appeared in the 1924 issue of the journal "Scandinavian Scientific Review." The review was written by F. Seracky and J. Kozak, Professors of Psychology and Philosophy, respectively, at the Charles University of Praha, Czech Republic, and is a very brief and general one covering only three printed pages. In the past decade Czechoslovak psychology has undergone considerable development. Books and articles on psychology have been written and published in Czech language. Institutes have been founded either entirely or partly for promoting psychological science.

The article presents a study on the relationship between knowledge and a measure of autistic thinking on certain international problems. Autistic thinking has been variously defined as uncritical, unreal, emotional, prejudiced, or wishful thinking. It has been one of those generalized concepts, coming from an older psychology, which the authors had difficulty in making specific. Autistic thinking, as it occurs in pathological cases, is easily discernible. However, if the term is to have any value for an objective psychology, it must be objectively discernible and, if possible, measurable. Autistic thinking is essentially wishful in nature. It is the lonesome child who creates an imaginary playmate. It is the neurotic with definite inferiorities who has delusions of grandeur. By saying that the thinking is wishful, we mean that its conclusions are satisfying to the organism. The unreal conclusion is accepted, because it fits in comfortably with certain preconceptions. It is probable that a great majority of the widely accepted thinking on topics of general social interest is autistic.

In this article the author discusses the book "A Handbook of Child Psychology," by John E. Anderson, Charlotte Buhler, Anna Freud, Arnold Gesell, Florence L. Goodenough, Leta S. Hollingworth, Susan Isaacs, Harold Ellis Jones, Mary Cover Jones, Vernon Jones, C.W. Kimmins, Heinrich Kluver, Kurt Lewin, Helen Marshall, Dorothea McCarthy, Margaret Mead, Joseph Peterson, Jean Piaget, Rudolf Pintner, Lewis M. Terman, Beth L. Wellman, Helen T. Woolley and edited by Carl Murchison. It is a manual, which contains twenty-two chapters dealing with twenty-two different topics pertaining to child psychology. The topics themselves cover a wide range: from the extremely descriptive and practical chapter on "Eating, Sleeping, and Elimination," by Helen T. Woolley, to one on "The Eidetic Child," by Heinrich Kluver, which, by contrast, is theoretical and evaluative; from "The Gifted Child," by L.M. Terman, on the one hand, to "Psychoanalysis of the Child," by Anna Freud, and "Children's Dreams," by C.W. Kimmins, on the other.

The article presents information about various books related to psychology. Some of the books are: "Psychology at Work," edited by P.S. Achilles, "Animal Aggregations: A Study in General Sociology," by W.C. Allee, "Systematic Sociology," by H. Becker and "The Wholesome Personality: A Contribution to Mental Hygiene," by W.H. Burnham.

Copyright of Journal of Social Psychology is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Journal of Social Psychology is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Journal of Social Psychology is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Journal of Social Psychology is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article presents information on a study which is an effort to measure the comparative degree to which three age groups are susceptible to the influence of two forms of suggestion. The groups selected were 300 high-school seniors, 300 college seniors, and 300 representative adults in the state of Iowa. The materials employed to measure opinion changes in these three groups consisted of controversial problems or situations-topics on which there appeared to be wide differences of opinion in the popular mind and about which there could be but little settled, positive conviction. It will be observed that provision was made for 100 subjects in each group to register their opinions and to repeat this after a lapse of one month. The first was a control group used to find the extent of opinion changes due to chance. Another 100 in each group made the initial registration of opinion, which was followed a month later with another registration made after the result of the group opinion was made known to them. A third 100 in each group made also the initial registration and followed this one month later with a second record made after being informed of the experts' consensus.

The article presents information on a study regarding the psychology of African Americans. The study is concerned with determining the character of an African American ideational make-up in comparison with that of the white. The author wishes to discover the nature of the ideas of which his thinking is composed and to determine the degree of their correspondence with the ideas of whites. The data upon which the study is based were derived from a free continuous association test which was given to 98 African American and 146 whites at Port Arthur, Texas. The African American subjects were presumably full-blood and of approximately the same educational level as the whites. The tests consisted in writing as many words as possible in 5 minutes, the subject being instructed to write down each word as it presented itself in his thought. Before a direct comparison of results could be made it was necessary to reduce the responses of each subject for each category to a percentage of his total number of responses. The author first considered the question of the general correlation between the African American performance and that of the white. In order to determine the degree of this correspondence or lack of it the total percentages for each category for each racial group were ranked in the order of preference and comparisons made between the various groups based upon the difference in the ranking given each category by the two groups being compared.

The article presents a list of books related to psychology and sociology. Some of the books included in the list are, "Studies in Expressive Movement," by G.W. Allport and P.E. Vernon; "Intelligence: Its Manifestations and Measurement," by P.L. Boynton; "The Blind in School and Society," by T.D. Cutsforth; "The Dramatic Personality of Jesus," by K. Dunlap and R.S. Gill; "Major Aspects of Personality," by M.H. Krout; "Talents and Temperaments: Psychology of VocationaI Guidance," by A. Macrae; "Adult Abilities in Extension Classes: A Psychological Study," by H. Sorenson; "Colony-Founding Among Ants, With an Account of Some Primitive Australian Species," by W.M. Wheeler; "The Measurement of Musical Development," by H.M. Williams, C.H. Sievers and M.S. Hattwick and "Adjustment and Mastery," by R.S. Woodworth.

Copyright of Journal of Social Psychology is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article focuses on social agreement on personality traits as judged from speech. It should be obvious that the speech of another person-along with his dress, mannerisms, physical build, and physiognomy-greatly influences judgments of people concerning his personality. The mere "hello," "thank you," and "good-bye" of a telephone operator often indicates quite complex notions of her personality. People speak of a radio announcer as cultured, egotistical, nervous, or what not, entirely apart from the content of his utterances. Psychologically trained persons are apt to take little stock in the validity of such judgments, but they are real, nevertheless. And just as studies of judgments from photographs have revealed the different degrees of social agreement in such judgments on various traits, as well as the general inaccuracy of all such judgments, a similar study might be expected to show the situation with regard to speech. This study confined itself to three questions related to the topic.

The article focuses on personality tendencies and sustained attention in preschool children. The several observational studies of groups of young children most frequently explain the differences noted in the sustaining of attention as being due to differences in intelligence. These observations not only ascribe the attention differences to a variety of different causes, but offer results which present conflicting records of the attention-spans of the subjects observed. This article is an attempt to explain the varying periods of sustained attention in preschool children on a wholly different basis. It is the contention of the study here reported that the underlying fundamental cause of the differing attentive behavior of the preschool subjects examined lies in personality differences. Great differences in types of reactions are clearly differentiated at early age levels. To obtain personality-trait differences in the subjects of the investigation, a measure was sought which would present dependable evidence of personality characteristics, and which would be applicable for use with young children.

The article presents information on a study which tested the reliability of the opinionaire technique through the retest method. If measurement is as essential in social science as in the physical sciences there is justification for much more detailed attention to the adequacy of such instruments as purport to measure character. The problem of reliability may vary with the technique. The study herein described arose out of the criticism that answers to either opinionaires or questionnaires are the result of momentary impulse and decision and at a later date would be answered differently. Fifty-seven students, 13 men and 44 women, in Educational Psychology were given an opinionaire designed by the writer to measure conservatism. One month later they were given another copy of the same test. In both instances the tests were taken outside of class. In this study the split-half test is no more severe than the repetition test but the alternate forms at different times is the most severe test of reliability of the three.

The article presents information on an experiment related to the effect of prestige suggestibility on emotional attitudes. Despite our references to suggestibility we rarely pause to consider just how much of our behavior falls into the category of uncritical acceptance of the opinions of others. Recently researcher L.L. Thurstone has shown that motion pictures may exert powerful influences upon the racial attitudes of children and that these influences may remain important for a long time. The experiment reported in this article included 27 boys and 23 girls from a Polish parochial school in a large Eastern city. Among the significant facts concerning the subjects are these--the age range of the pupils was from twelve and a half to fifteen years and ten months; a distribution curve of the economic status of their parents would show a preponderance in the center with a skew toward the subsistence level; all of the pupils were Roman Catholic. They were an intelligence test. It was explained to the children that on the given scale of nine points to the right of each word they were to indicate their emotion of "liking" or "hating" of the word to the left.

The article presents information on mental conflicts of Eurasian adolescents. In the early colonizing days when only young unmarried men were sent out there seemed to be no expressed attitude toward mixed marriages or concubinage. Eurasians were looked upon as a "natural result" of the conditions under which "empire builders" were forced to live. Mixed marriages then began to be looked upon as contrary to tradition and Eurasians became an "ever-present reminder that taboos have been violated and caste integrity threatened." These Eurasians are generally so marked physically as to set them off from both parents, and, being excluded from either full-blood group, they constitute a third distinct class. One of the great tragedies to the Eurasion personality is the fact that the struggle to adjust himself to his environment results in the capitulation of his "ego." The "inferior ego" is a most significant problem for the Eurasian adolescent. Hygienic mental adjustment begins at the point where the adolescent is learning the hard lesson that other individuals be- sides himself exist and have rights similar to his own.

The article presents information on the emergence of the concept of personality in a study of cultures. Our natural interest in human behavior seems always to vacillate between what is imputed to the culture of the group as a whole and what is imputed to the psychic organization of the individual himself. There is no awareness of the constantly shifting direction of interest. Moreover, there is much of that confusion which attends all experience in its initial stages in childhood, when the significant personality is interpreted as an institution and every cultural pattern is merely a memory of what this or that person has actually done. Each type of interest is necessary for the psychic preservation of the individual in an environment which experience makes increasingly complex and unassimilable on its own simple terms. The interests connoted by the terms culture and personality are necessary for intelligent and helpful growth because each is based on a distinctive kind of imaginative participation by the observer in the life around him.

The article focuses on an experimental study of some factors influencing the social attitudes of college students. The experiment was undertaken with the purpose of determining to what extent a semester's training in certain courses at the University of North Dakota has made measurable changes in the avowed attitudes of the students. For this purpose, the attitude toward the treatment of criminals was the one selected for study. Results indicate that the regular college courses are bringing about measurable changes in the student's avowed attitudes on social questions. As would be expected, the change is greater in those courses more closely related to the variable under investigation. In scoring the papers the author noticed that many students checked statements which seemed to be quite contradictory in their imports and which differed widely in their scale values. Individual differences in this respect were rather great. This raised the question as to whether or not any concomitants of this consistency or lack of it could be found.

The article presents methods of representing the distribution of an attitude in a social group. In testing for attitudes there are two principal methods of constructing a frequency distribution that will be descriptive of a group. It may be constructed upon the basis of the individual scores obtained by each member of the group, or it may be constructed upon the basis of the relative popularity of the various statements, which constitute the scale. If the first method be chosen, then it is necessary to compute a score for each person in the group which will indicate his position upon a linear scale measuring the attitude variable in which the investigator is interested. From these individual scores a frequency distribution can be constructed which will indicate, by its ordinates, the relative number of people who receive the various individual scores. The individual scores are, if the scale is constructed according to the Thurstone technique, the median values of the statements that each subject indorses.

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 widespread use of projection as an explanatory principle in both normal and abnormal behavior warrants some attempt to evaluate the concept critically with a view to determining its exact nature and the conditions under which it operates. The present investigation has attempted to isolate a specific situation involving projection and to analyze the process quantitatively and in terms of other variables co-operative. Although projection occurs most frequently and with greatest energy in the neuroses and psychoses it is found to some degree in many normal persons. The habits and attitudes subsumed under the trait names of stinginess, obstinacy, and disorderliness should have these two characteristics since they form the triad of traits which, according to psychoanalytic theory, are intimately connected with an incompletely extinguished anal-erotism. As such they should be, first, persistently active even though recognition of their existence may be wanting, and second, reprehensible or opprobrious. No experimental validation of the first assumption was made, but the offensiveness of the three traits was checked on a verbal level by the following device.

The article reports that the influence of interest is one the source of which lies within the personality; the influence of both the environmental factors and specific techniques have their sources outside the personality. While the method of psychoanalysis seems to be necessary when working with the factor of interest, an external approach to the problem of social maladjustment can be made through the other two influences--environmental factors and specific techniques. Emphasis in this research is placed on these two. Determination of the extent of social relationships in an average college group, a random sample of college students living in the usual college dormitory, was first undertaken. Study of the extent of social relationships in another "equivalent" college group, where the "average college environment" was complicated by one additional environmental factor, might show, when compared with the results obtained in the first case, the effect of the one atypical environmental factor on the social contacts made.

The article reports that in the Murphy Experimental Social Psychology reference is made to H.C. Knight's Master's thesis in which there are reported several studies on group judgments. In one of the experiments the members of a class were requested to guess the temperature of their classroom. The average of the judgments was found to be within four-tenths of a degree of the true temperature. Now the senior author of this note has found that his students frequently obtain an erroneous impression from this experiment as they fail to consider the conditions under which the mean or median of the estimates will approximate the "to be estimated value." Vague notions to the effect that majorities are always right are apt to be carried over to this problem from the fields of citizenship or political science, for it is impressive indeed to learn that the median value is better than the vast majority of the individual estimates. Of Knight's 56 judges only eight gave estimates which beat the class average of the estimates. It should be noted first of all that when Knight's study is repeated on subjects in isolation, quite similar results are obtained. In one instance where this was attempted by the senior author the median value was within six-tenths of a degree from the true value; the median value was beaten by only 13 per cent of the individual estimates.

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.

Analyzes some investigations of emotional psychology and evaluates how teachers of speech deal with stage fright and other speech emotions. Physiological changes that arise when speech emotions occur; Analysis of the conscious emotional state; Theories on the kind of treatment that teachers of speech can give to a subject.

This article focuses on a study which provides an insight into the interests, attitudes and emotions of Chinese students. The data for this study was collected from 114 boys and 52 girls of the freshman class of the University of Shanghai. And this data was analyzed by using Woodworth-Cady-Matthews test. In this test, one point is given for each unfavorable symptom checked as being possessed by the subject. The higher the score, the less emotionally stable the person is. R.J. Ball holds that in a normal person the total score should not exceed 30, a higher score than 30 being an indication of a nervous disorder of some kind. Means and standard deviations have been used as measures of the central tendency and the variability, respectively. Results show that there is a slightly increasing tendency toward unfavorable responses with advancing age in the case of girls, except for age 13; for boys the tendency is also present, but shows more irregularity. Girls from ages 12 to 17 show a gradual increase, whereas after 17, a sudden increase is noted. As to boys, a decrease appears from 13 to 14. After 14, there is an increase. The score is highest for both sexes at 18 years.

This article presents information on personality tests. The first step in the construction of a personality test is the postulation and definition of a trait. Items which competent persons consider to be valid indicators of the trait are selected. The validity and the reliability of any one item is highly contingent; its significance is indeterminate. The collected items are given as a test. A total score is obtained. The score gives a more trustworthy indication of differences between persons and of differences of a person from time to time, than does the response to any one item. By definition, the test is supposed to measure one trait. The total score is assumed to be the best available measure of the trait. Items vary greatly in their contribution to the total score. Item analysis permits the elimination of weak items and the construction of an abridged test which has properties similar to the original. The effects of this sort of purification will depend on the nature of the original test.

This article presents information on the Thurstone Attitude scale. Although the scoring of the Thurstone Attitude scales is simple and relatively rapid, it is, nevertheless, a long and tedious task when a large number of blanks must be scored. In a previous study a simple mechanism was described which was used to score these attitude scales. When an individual takes one of the attitude scales, he checks the statements with which he agrees and crosses those with which he disagrees. In scoring, only the statements which are checked are considered. Each statement has a pre-determined weight or value. The values for the checked items are obtained from a stencil and ranked in order from smallest to largest. The median value is taken as the score on the scale. The apparatus facilitates finding this median value without the use of a stencil and without requiring any mark on the blank. This apparatus has been found to save half of the time ordinarily required when a large number of attitude scales are to be scored. Once the score values for any scale have been correctly placed upon the flaps of the apparatus, the use of this device is also valuable in the reduction, if not complete elimination, of the usual scoring errors.

The article presents a study that aimed to ascertain statistically significant correlated of the trait of "conservatism-radicalism" from a list of pencil and paper items. The 409 subjects used for this study were practically all volunteers. Each of the 409 subjects in this study was given a score on these conservatism-radicalism items. The 100 making the highest scores and 100 making the lowest scores on this test were selected for this contrast study. The initial take-off for this study was a test for "conservatism-radicalism" developed by the Character Research Institute of St. Louis. This test was included in the Youth Expressionaire. The percentage reaction of each group to each of 2,600 items of the total test was ascertained and notations made where differences between the two groups were statistically important. From the study, it seemed that "conservatives" differ from "radicals" on a very large number of specific symptoms from a wide number of fields.

The article discusses factors that influence the sense of humor of a person. Of all personality traits, sense of humor leads in popularity. The author states that the experimental situation detracts from the humorous response produced by spontaneity. The test for recall reveals that those jokes which suggest situations capable of arousing empathy or visualization are more easily retained than jokes presenting abstract ideas. The study discussed in the article aims to investigate whether the response to jokes is determined by the inherent humor of the jokes or by the eye-ear factor of presentation, and to study the relation between intelligence and sense of humor. In the study, ninety-four students of the second, third and fourth years in high school were equated in intelligence with 105 students of the same scholastic levels. Twenty-eight students with IQ (intelligence quotient) above 124 showed small joke preference deviations from 25 who had IQ's below 110. The points of several jokes were not understood by a significantly larger percent of the students who listened to the record than by those who read the jokes.

The article presents a study of self-governance in the management of children's aggressive behavior. Whenever a group of problem children are brought together, adults in the situation tend to create barriers between themselves and the children, which seriously interfere with the task of understanding and eliminating their difficulties. Their difficulties arise from too much discipline, too much repression, and too much restriction. The article suggests a new form of self-government that meets a real need in the lives of the children forming the basis of the study described in the article. According to the author, the value of this form in providing better rapport between children and the adults who are responsible for therapeutic work with them can scarcely be overemphasized. The author reveals that self-government or inmate participation in administration has been tried in a number of American prisons and reformatories.

Part II. Investigates the process of measuring the extent to which the human voice can communicate meaning in the expression of various emotional states. List of the eleven emotional states; Specificity of meaning in facial expression; Sex differences in accuracy of judgment of voices; Influence of stimulus on the communication of emotional meanings by tone code.

The salient fact about these tables is the demonstration that there were definite patterns of political attitudes in the thinking of these voters. If a person had one, he was more than likely to have others of that pattern. Some attitudes were members of more than a single pattern, but others were peculiar to one. It should be stressed here that no other attitudinal relationships of a strength equivalent to those given in the tables were uncovered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents information on the theory of security. One of the most widely accepted psychological concepts is that feelings of security-insecurity (S-I) represent a major variable which contributes to differences among individuals and differentiates for individuals among situations. In the common conception of human behavior (which includes thinking and feeling as well as overt responses of gross musculature and detectable and indetectable physiological reactions) as a function of the individual and the environmental situation, S-I is a very important if not a basic factor. This must not be construed to mean that such factors as fatigue or boredom or indigestion may not be important determinants in a situation. Determiners of behavior may be considered as multidimensional frames of reference. In considering variations in response with respect to a single variable one may develop a formulation which refers to one set of coordinate axes. In any given situation a large number of such axis-pairs may be involved in the final determination of the total response.

The article presents observations on the methodology in attitude scales. An attitude scale usually consists of a series of statements about a particular institution, trait, or other characteristic, so selected as to cover the entire range from the most favorable attitude to the least favorable attitude. To construct such scales a large number of judges assign the statements to a series of piles, usually 10 or 11, arranged in serial order from extreme favorableness to extreme unfavorableness. On the basis of these statistics, statements are selected and weighted for use in the final scale. These statements are then arranged either in a random manner as to scale values or in a regular order from the most favorable to the least favorable statement. It has been suggested that the serial order may introduce a bias into the subjects marking and thus invalidate the scale. The article tries to find out whether the arrangements in serial order, i.e., from the most favorable to the least favorable, of the statements in an attitude scale affect the mean reaction of the group. It is apparent that if the items in attitude scales can be arranged in serial order without undue loss in reliability and validity, there will be a great saving in scoring time.

The article presents information about the Twelfth International Congress of Psychology, which was scheduled to be held in Edinburgh, Scotland, from 22nd July to 27th July 1940. Arrangements are being made by which a large proportion of the members can be accommodated in University hostels. The inclusive charge for such accommodation would be about fifty shillings, excluding midday lunches, arrangements for which would be made elsewhere. When the Committee of Organization is fully constituted, formal invitations would be issued. It will, however, greatly facilitate arrangements if as many as possible would let the General Secretary know now that their attendance at the Congress is probable. In the meantime subjects for symposia, general discussion and lectures are under consideration by a Preliminary Arrangements Committee.

The article focuses on emotional stability and political opinions as related to age and income of people living in the U.S. prior to 1929. It reports some of the effects of the depression on the attitudes of a wide assortment of people. The determination of the attitudes, opinions, and emotional stability of various classes of the U.S. population in relation to their incomes, age, and cultural background seem to be a major and significant problem in psychology. A questionnaire was prepared seeking three classes of information: to get some measure of emotional stability, to determine how hard the depression had hit the individual, and to determine their opinions and beliefs. An important time in determining the opinions of an individual and perhaps his emotional stability comes at that period when he grows into society. In his teens the child may chiefly reflect the opinions of his parents. In the past 50 years certain major social events have modified the course of history and institutions.

The article focuses on the development of consciousness of self and the emergence of racial identification in African American preschool children. Speculations concerning the nature of the self and the development of consciousness of self have long been a significant part of psychology. A daily observations and records of a child's speech in normal family situations from birth to one and one-half years has been made. The term consciousness of self may be considered as awareness of self as a distinct person; as distinct from other groups of things or individuals. The term race consciousness is here defined as conscious- ness of self as belonging to a specific group, which is differentiated from other groups by obvious physical characteristics. It is hereby assumed that race consciousness and racial identification are indicative of particularized self-consciousness. A modification of the Horowitz picture technique was used in the article. A definite delimitation of the self on the part of these children occurs between the three- and four-year age levels. The dropping out of irrelevant choices of the lion, dog, clown, and hen indicates the attainment of a developmental level where consciousness of self is in terms of a distinct person.

The article presents notes for the members of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI), based upon the fourth annual meeting of the said society. First and foremost, chairman of the society stated that it would seem desirable to reconsider and to restate the objectives and the function of the SPSSI. As the by-laws of the society state, following would be two main task: one, promotion of psychological research on controversial topics, especially those related to the central fields of economics and politics; and two, the encouragement of the application of the findings of psychology to the problems of society. There is no need to point out that the war in Europe is the one overshadowing event that must take precedence in the thoughts of social psychologists. Hence it will be in their ability to contribute to the understanding and the publicizing of the psychological factors involved in war. Further, the society must become more and more sensitive not only to these conditions that lead to war-readiness but also to the complementary facts of suggestion and of war psychology.