Accession Number:

AD0607335

Title:

PSYCHOPATHY, NEUTORTICISM AND VERBAL CONDITIONING: A REPLICATION AND EXTENSION,

Descriptive Note:

Corporate Author:

NORTHWESTERN UNIV EVANSTON ILL

Personal Author(s):

• Quay,Herbert C.
• Hunt,William A.

Report Date:

1942-01-01

Pagination or Media Count:

5.0

Abstract:

In a previous paper Johns and Quay, 1962 it was found that criminal offenders in the military service who had scored high on a factorially derived questionnaire for the measurement of Psychopathic Delinquency failed to condition in a standard verbal conditioning paradigm when compared with a group of offenders who had scored high on a similarly derived scale for Neurotic Delinquency and with a group of controls. The results of this experiment were interpreted as support for the hypothesis that the psychopathic individual is comparatively unresponsive to social reinforcement. This interpretation was in turn related to Cleckleys 1955 concept of Semantic Dementia. Raised, but unanswered, was the question of the relationship of poor conditionability in this group to manifest anxiety and extraversion. Ss for this study were all incarcerated in an institution for more serious offenders in the U. S. Navy. A sample of 458 prisoners, almost the entire population of the facility, was administered the Psychopathy and Neuroticism factor scales Peterson, Quay and Tiffany, 1961 used in the previous study. Means were computed for the entire sample and one group was then identified who had scored above the mean on Psychopathy and below the mean on Neuroticism another group was identified who had scored above the mean on Neuroticism and below the mean on Psychopathy.

Descriptors:

• *CRIMINOLOGY
• *ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY
• *PSYCHOSES
• PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS
• CONDITIONED RESPONSE
• VERBAL BEHAVIOR
• NEUROSES
• PERSONALITY
• NAVAL PERSONNEL
• PRISONERS
• SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
• REACTION(PSYCHOLOGY)

Subject Categories:

Distribution Statement:

APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE