An objective measure of emotional instability.

Abstract

In an attempt to make a study of kinaesthetic motor learning among a group of juvenile delinquents through the use of a high relief finger maze, the surprising observation was made that there were certain definite characteristics in the learning curve peculiar to those boys of unstable emotional make-up which definitely differentiated them from the others.It is with this difference, based upon characteristics of the learning curve of individuals learning to "run" a high relief finger maze, that this article primarily concerns itself. DESCRIPTION OF APPARATUSThe maze used is patterned after one used in the Psychological Laboratory of the University of California, the pattern of which was designed by Pechstein (21, 22) as a stylus maze, but given the high relief form by Professor Warner Brown of the University of California. A picture of the maze used in this experiment is shown in figure 1.The maze itself measures 9 inches square and is appliqu&I upon a wooden panel 12 inches square and J inch thick. The strips which make up the paths of the maze are made of narrow pieces of soft pine wood 9 mm. wide and 6 mm. high and varying in length, the strips being nailed to the panel with small brads counter-sunk and puttied. The upper surface of the path, blind alleys and culs-de-sac are smoothed down with fine sandpaper so as to be as non-irritating as possible to the finger of 226

Psychological experiments with disordered persons.

“…Only the threshold for electrical stimulation has been investigated with any degree of thoroughness, and the results are conflicting. Grabfield (70), believing the threshold for electrical stimulation to be an index of general nervous irritability, gave induction shocks, measured in Beta units by Martin's method, 9 to 135 patients selected at random. In this first study the average thresholds for every diagnostic group was above that for his control subjects.…”

The general emotionality of the prisoner.

“…Such tests have not as yet been devised to any degree of accuracy. The writer lias been developing sueh a test (8) but at the present writing all the data are not complete. Other types of tests and measures should be devised, and when any one of these, or all of them can reliably select so-called unstable individuals from groups of well diagnosed cases of psychotics, neurotics, psychopaths, hysterics, schizophrenics, etc., then the particular measure or measures might be considered a criterion against which an emotional inventory questionnaire could be correlated.…”

The measurement of personality.

“…D. S. Thomas, et al (160) who refer to their method as "experimental sociology" have studied such factors as talkativeness, laughter, social resistance. Ball (13) reports on emotional stability; other accounts of this "controlled observation method" are to be found in Buhler (22); Goodenough (51) reports on "repeated short samples, and Rugg, Krueger and *The Downey Will-Temperament, the Woodworth Personal Data Sheet, the Pressey Cross-Out, and certain of the introversion-extroversion seri es have been studied by many investigators, while the battery produced by the Character Education Inquiry has been subjected to the most detailed statistical analysis. Interrelations of one test with another and with batteries as a whole, as well as with repeated administrations of the same test after a short time interval, are reported.…”