Publication Date

1974

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

First Advisor

Schwartz, Steven, 1946-

Degree Name

M.A. (Master of Arts)

Legacy Department

Department of Psychology

LCSH

Electronic data processing--Psychology; Personality tests

Abstract

The prime purpose of the present study was to assess the hypothesized neutral, non-judgmental quality of a com­puter in a psychological testing situation. Four indepen­dent variables were investigated, two situational variables and two personality variables. The two situational variables consisted of mode of test administration (human or computer) and mode of subjects' response (oral or non­oral) . The two personality variables consisted of sex guilt as measured by the Mosher Forced Choice Sex Guilt Scale and need for approval as measured by the Marlowe- Crowne Social Desirability Scale. The dependent variables consisted of sexual responsivity on the Galbraith Word Association Test and sexual denial on the Katkovsky Sexual Denial Scale. The subjects consisted of 96 male undergraduate students randomly assigned to one of four experimental conditions: 1) human test administration with subjects responding orally; 2) human test administration with sub­jects responding non-orally; 3) computer test administration with subjects responding orally; and 4) computer adminis­tration with subjects responding non-orally. The two dependent variables, sexual responsiveness and sexual denial, were analyzed in a series of 2 x 2 x 2 factorial design ANOVA's consisting of Sex Guilt x Mode of Test Administration x Mode of Response and Need for Approval x Mode of Test Administration x Mode of Response. The results indicated that the personality variable of sex guilt was related to both sexual responsiveness and sexual denial with high guilt subjects exhibiting less sexual responsiveness and greater sexual denial than low guilt subjects. Need for approval was related only to sexual denial with high need for approval subjects exhibiting greater sexual denial than low need for approval subjects. The results failed to support then main hypothesis that a computer could serve as a more neutral, non-judgement test administrator than a human.

Comments

Includes bibliographical references.

Extent

viii, 130 pages

Language

eng

Publisher

Northern Illinois University

Rights Statement

In Copyright

Rights Statement 2

NIU theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from Huskie Commons for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without the written permission of the authors.

Media Type

Text

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