The Reaction of Native White Convicts to the Bernreuter Personality Inventory
- Author:
James Hargan
Psychologist, Sing Sing Prison The Bernreuter Personality Inventory was recently administered to 100 consecutive native white admissions to Sing Sing Prison, having a mental age of twelve years or more. The results when compared with the adult norms set forth by Bernreuter in his manual for the administration of the tests show the following:
Normal Adult Bl-N B2-I B3-I B4-D Sing Sing Admissions Bl-N B2-S B3-I B4-D 75 Percentile. Median 25 Percentile. -10 -77 -125 74 41 7 6 -34 -69 96 54 10 -26 -74 -115 87 54 24 -31 -57 84 52 9
The two groups may also be compared by showing the percentages of Sing Sing Admissions falling into the upper and lower quartiles as judged by adult norms. Upper Quartile Lower Quartile Bl-N 15 per cent 16 per cent B2-S 38 ” ” 17 ” ” B3-1 12 ” ” 41 ” ” B4-D 14 ” ” 26 ” “
These figures would indicate, according to Bernreuter’s interpretation, that on Bl-N the convict is not so likely to show great emotional instability or neurotic tendencies as the average adult, nor on the other hand is he so likely to be very well balanced emotionally. In this instance it is the normal who goes to one extreme or the other while the convict occupies the middle ground. On B2-S the convict shows himself as more self-sufficient, less in need of sympathy and encouragement, and more apt to ignore advice when given. On B3-I the convict shows much greater tendency to extraversion. He is less imaginative, worries less, and is a man of action rather than day dreams. On B4-D the convict group shows about the same percentage of submissive types as the normal group with a somewhat lower percentage of dominant types.
These figures should be, as Warden Lewis E. Lawes points out in his book “Life and Death in Sing Sing,” distinctly reserved in interpretation to the convict group, and not be taken necessarily as characterizing the “criminal” group. While it would be interesting to apply psychological tests to unapprehended criminals, this is impossible, and our figures must continue to be based merely on the group that finds itself incarcerated. The percentages of each answer were calculated for the individual questions of the Personality Inventory as shown in Table I. Another system of scoring was attempted, that of correct and
Table I Answers to Individual Questions in Bernreuter Inventory Question No. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 Yes % 43 23 78 42 70 96 13 42 19 3 17 20 36 17 23 17 28 38 20 42 22 40 52 22 55 25 24 12 13 55 65 40 65 58 25 30 85 35 10 35 94 25 No % 47 77 18 56 27 4 79 53 78 97 75 66 52 79 74 80 62 55 75 46 66 54 36 75 40 71 73 84 85 43 30 57 32 27 71 65 12 58 78 60 6 70 % 10 0 4 2 3 0 8 5 3 0 8 14 12 4 3 3 10 7 5 12 12 6 12 3 5 4 3 4 2 2 5 3 3 15 4 5 3 7 12 5 0 5 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 Yes % 75 37 20 35 4 25 40 94 25 71 30 25 61 92 22 35 54 30 64 71 6 85 67 19 56 30 25 53 56 10 15 14 87 30 53 51 55 34 10 86 58 28 No % 20 55 80 62 94 69 58 6 71 26 63 72 25 8 76 60 40 70 30 27 92 10 30 72 42 64 70 45 40 78 83 86 10 66 40 46 38 66 82 10 30 70 0 3 2 6 2 0 4 3 7 3 14 0 2 5 6 0 6 2 2 5 3 9 2 6 5 2 4 12 2 0 3 4 7 3 7 0 8 4 12 2 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 Yes % 82 80 30 76 89 29 5 20 3 43 59 25 40 63 15 78 61 39 28 20 83 37 76 71 56 83 6 10 76 16 3 9 5 30 15 58 74 80 3 5 12 No % 11 18 64 20 6 66 95 80 95 56 39 74 52 37 82 15 35 55 70 75 15 58 22 25 35 15 91 88 20 83 95 86 89 60 83 42 25 15 95 89 85 % 7 2 6 4 5 5 0 0 2 1 2 1 8 0 3 7 4 6 2 5 2 5 2 4 9 2 3 2 4 1 2 5 6 10 2 0 1 5 2 6 3
incorrect responses. If more than fifty per cent of the group answered “Yes” to a question, the correct answer was judged to be “Yes,” and any one who answered otherwise received a red mark to show that his opinion was at variance with the crowd. Naturally every one is out of step now and then; the matter becomes important only when one individual shows marked deviation from the average. The distribution of unconventional responses is shown in Table II.
Table II Number of Unconventional Responses Responses Cases 72-75 2 68-71 1 64-67 1 60-63 3 56-59 2 52-55 5 48-51 6 44-47 11 40-43 8 36-39 13 32-35 17 28-31 19 24-27 9 20-23 3 Average 39.40 P.E. of Average 78 P.E. of Distribution 7.76
It would seem that this method provides a measure of eccentricity for those whose number of peculiar responses is greater than one probable error above the mean, and of group-mindedness for those whose score is more than one probable error below the mean. A finer index can be secured by scoring each answer according to the percentage value awarded it by the response of the entire group and then adding up these percentage values for the 125 questions. The individual who uniformly answers with the majority should have a high score while the eccentric will secure only a low score.
The Bernreuter Personality Inventory appears to have distinct value when applied to native white inmates with sufficient mental age (twelve years or more) so that there is no trouble with reading the questions. Experimental conditions permitting, further work will be done upon the Inventory at Sing Sing to study its relation with psychiatric diagnoses, with crime groups, and with the disciplinary types who appear in Warden’s Court.
Appreciation is expressed to Warden Lewis E. Lawes, and Dr. Amos T. Baker, Director of the Classification Clinic, Sing Sing Prison, for their encouragement of research.
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