Date of Award

2-1991

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

C. Raymond Millimet

Second Advisor

Kenneth A. Deffenbacher

Third Advisor

Robert H. Woody

Abstract

This study assesses the validity of Otto Rank's (1929, 1945) personality types and the conceptual systems of O.J. Harvey (1966). Fifty subjects were selected by faculty members from the Art, Music, Dramatic Arts, and Dance Departments, and the Writers' Workshop, on the basis of personality descriptions from Otto Rank's and O.J. Harvey's theorizing. Each subject responded to a version of the Prisoner's Dilemma Game against either a cooperative response sequence, a competitive response sequence, or a 50% cooperative/50% competitive response sequence. Subjects completed six measures of cognitive abilities, creativity, and anxiety including the Raven Advanced Progressive Matrices (Set I), Barron-Welsh Art Scale, Nelson-Denny Vocabulary Test, Manifest Anxiety-Defensiveness Scale, Harvey's "This I Believe" Test, and an anagram task.

Statistical analyses were based upon three different groupings of subjects: first, Rank's three personality types (the Artist, the Neurotic, and the Average Person); second, two of Harvey's Conceptual Systems; and third, four groups derived from the creativity ratings provided by the nominating faculty members.

Analysis for Rank's personality types demonstrated a significant increase in competitiveness across trials for both the Neurotic and Average types in the Prisoner's Dilemma Game with Artists showing no change in competitiveness across trials. No differences were found among Rankian types on the cognitive and personality measures. However, the Artists were rated significantly higher on creativity level than either the Neurotic or Average types.

Significant differences were found between Harvey's System 1 and System 4 subjects in the cooperative and 50/50 conditions of the Prisoner's Dilemma Game with System 1 subjects increasing significantly in competitiveness across trials and System 4 subjects showing no changes in competitiveness across trials. A significant difference was found between these two systems on the Raven Matrices with System 4 subjects performing better than System 1 subjects indicating greater complexity of psychological development among the System 4 subjects. System 4 subjects were also rated significantly higher in creativity than System 1 subjects.

No differences were found among the four groups based on creativity rating using the Prisoner's Dilemma Game. Significant differences were found among groups on the Nelson-Denny Vocabulary Test with the next to lowest group scoring significantly lower than the other groups. The group rated lowest in creativity used significantly more one-syllable words in their writing than the highest rated creativity group. The meaning of the results are discussed.

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