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This study compares highly committed members of the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley with the student population at large on three sociopsychological foci: general biographical data, religious orientation, and rigidity-flexibility. Questionnaires were administered to 172 FSM members selected by chance from the ten to twelve hundred who entered and "sat-in" the Administration Building at the University of California on December 2, 1964. A comparative sample of 146 student respondents, selected randomly from the student directory, was obtained by mail. Results indicated that the sit-ins were younger and more homogeneous in age, had parents who were more academically elite (in terms of Ph.D. and M.A. degrees held), and comprised a larger proportion of females than that of the cross-sectional group. No differences were obtained in academic achievement (accumulative grade point average) or in birth order and number of siblings. It was found, as predicted, that the FSM members were less influenced by formalized religion than the cross-sectional group representing the student body and that they were also less rigid, as measured by a 27-item scale of rigidity-flexibility. This latter finding is of particular interest, considering the purported rigidity of the FSM in negotiations with the University administration, and suggests the necessity of distinguishing between a trait of rigidity as psychologically defined and commitment.

Compared 56 student activists to 151 Ss of a nonstudent subculture (consisting of nonconformist youth who are neither formally registered university Ss nor members of the conventional work force). Then each was compared to a random sample of students at the same institution. The activists and the nonstudents scored high on anomie; and the nonstudents were estranged from their families, the activists were not. Differences in socialization patterns, current attitudes, and values were reported and discussed in terms of their relevance to the question of whether societal rejection takes the form of active confrontation or passive withdrawal. (17 ref.)

This article contrasts with a sample of college students the youthful members of two expressively alienated forms of nonconformity: student activists committed to confrontation tactics to force social change and disaffiliated college dropouts withdrawn from incompatible social conditions. Compared to other students, both nonconventional subcultures appear to have similar group profiles on the Omnibus Personality Inventory which reflect their greater intellectual disposition, nonauthoritarianism, and individual expressiveness. However, the Adjective Check List indicates that although both groups are significantly higher on need for Autonomy and Change and lower on Order, they are differentiated by other need scales. Compared to dropouts, activists, like other students, are higher on Dominance and Achievement and lower on Succorance and, unlike students, higher on Aggression. Furthermore, activists are higher than students on Exhibition and lower than dropouts on Abasement whereas dropouts are higher on Heterosexuality and lower on Endurance than students.

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