The general emotionality of the prisoner

Abstract

The penitentiary at San Quentin, California, was chosen as a place where emotionally unstable individuals might be found in large numbers. The instrument used was the Woodworth Personal Data Sheet. 135 cases were tested in order to get 20 neurotic and unstable men. There seems to the author to be no valid reason for objections to the use of this questionnaire for such purposes of selection. The distribution of scores of the prison group is more symmetrical and has less variability than groups studied by Hollingworth. The types of symptoms characteristic of the unfavorable responses of the prison group seem to be more vague and indefinite than the unfavorable responses given by Hollingworth's groups. It is suggested by the author that conclusions drawn from the data presented in this report be regarded as tentative. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)