Effects of "typical neurotic" and "after therapy" sets on personal orientation inventory scores.

Abstract

The Personal Orientation Inventory (POI) is composed of 150 two-choice (paired opposites) items purporting to measure self-actualization ( 2 ) . Scores may be obtained on Time Incompetence, Time Competence, Other Directed, Inner Directed, Self-actualizing Value, Existencialicy, Feeling Reactivity, Spontaneity, Self-regard, Self-acceptance, Nature of Man: Constructive, Synergy, Acceptance of Aggression, and Capacity for Intimate Concact. Persons nominated as being non-self-actualized have been shown to obtain significantly less favorable scores on 13 of these 14 scales than do those nominated as self-actualized ( 2 ) . Similar resulrs have been obtained with highs vs lows on the Neuroticism scale of the Eysenck Personality Inventory (1) and with beginning patients and patients who had been in for 2 yr. (3) . In the present study, 15 students in a social psychology class took the POI under instructions to answer as would a typical neurotic and then immediately thereafter under instruccions to answer as this same hypothetical person would 2 yr. of therapy. In the order in which the scales are listed above, the means for the typical neurotic set were 15.00, 7.87, 75.93, 48.13, 11.53, 9.73, 10.87, 6.20, 5.67, 8.60, 5.80, 3.27, 10.87, and 10.20, with SDs of 3.29, 3.21, 13.77, 12.39, 2.08, 5.50, 3.88, 2.71, 3.13, 3.36, 1.80, 0.92, 3.15, and 5.02. Corresponding means for the after therapy set were 3.67, 19.27, 35.07, 91.67, 19.07, 22.67, 16.87, 13.20, 12.40, 20.07, 12.60, 7.00, 18.00, and 20.53, with SDs of 2.29, 2.44, 9.92, 10.15, 1.88, 4.42, 2.25, 2.64, 2.36, 3.44, 1.31, 1.09, 2.99, and 3.24. For each of the 14 scales, t tests based on correlated data indicated that the difference becween the means produced by the two instructional sers was significant ( p < .001). It will be noted that for each scale, the mean indicating greater self-actualization resulted from the after therapy set. The differences between means were consistently of substantial magnitude. As Ss were able to manipulate their scores so readily, [he POI is highly transparent and should be used with caution in situations where persons may be motivated to make a good impression.