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Life History and Psychometric Personality Factors Differentiating Prisoners Convicted of Violent and Nonviolent Crimes

In this study violent and nonviolent prisoners were differentiated on the basis of life history and psychometric variables. Life history data were collected from institutional files and from a biographical questionnaire. Psychometric procedures consisted of the Mini-Mult Prisoner Questionnaire and the Bender-Gestalt. In summary, the variables included in the discriminant function suggest that the violent subjects were more psychopathological than the nonviolent subjects. The violent subjects evidenced behavioral problems at a young age in appropriately expressing anger. They appeared to have limited behavioral repertoires in attaining their desires outside the immediate gratification through aggressive means. They were also more emotionally alienated and less socially skilled. The violent subjects received more negative feedback
during childhood and were incarcerated at a younger age, They were more overtly hostile and also more lacking in cognitive ego mastery. In contrast, the nonviolent subjects apparently learned during childhood to repress their anger to a greater extent. They also seemed to modulate their anger by withdrawing from direct interpersonal conflict.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:unt.edu/info:ark/67531/metadc331532
Date12 1900
CreatorsReuterfors, David Lawrence
ContributorsButler, Joel R., Lawlis, G. Frank, Schneider, Lawrence J., Peek, Leon A., Haynes, Jack Read
PublisherNorth Texas State University
Source SetsUniversity of North Texas
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis or Dissertation
Formativ, 95 leaves, Text
RightsPublic, Reuterfors, David Lawrence, Copyright, Copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved.

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