An investigation of character traits in delinquent girls

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to test the general assumption that delinquents are more suggestible than non-delinquents. A battery of eight character tests (seven adaptations and one original) and the Otis Advanced Intelligence Examination, Form B, were given to a group of girls in the State Training School at Mitchelville, Iowa, and to a group of public school girls (fifty in each of the groups compared). Tables of differences and of correlations are presented. The authors conclude the following: six of the eight tests seem to be worthy of further study; since the intercorrelations are low in general, the tests are discrete from one another; and since the correlation between length of commitment and the results of the tests are low, the undesirable showing of the delinquent girls is not to be explained by unsocial learning after commitment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved)