The purpose of this study was to investigate the hypotheses that the thirteen independent or predictor variables selected from the Edwards Personal Preference Schedule (EPPS), the F-Scale; Forms 40 and 45 (F-Scale), and the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF), would be significant discriminators between the criterion variables, which were matched-pair groups of law enforcement officers and convicted felons.A review of the relevant literature on available crime statistics in contemporary society, and on the selection, training, and education of police officers supported the need for this study. In addition, the research indicated that techniques for reliably evaluating characteristics that contribute to psychologically effective law enforcement officers were not extant.A total of fifty subjects participated in this study. Twenty-five law enforcement officers were matched in pairs with twenty-five convicted felons on the extraneous variables of age, race, sex, scholastic capacity, and socio-economic status. The law enforcement officers were agents of a state police organization, a county police department, four city police departments, and a university police department, located in the Midwest, whose official function was maintenance of law and order, peace-keeping, and enforcement of the regular criminal code. The convicted felons were inmates of a county jail in the same Midwestern state, who had been adjudicated through due process of the commission of a crime of such a serious nature that they had been sentenced to a year or more in a correctional institution. The total population in the study ranged between the ages of 21-2 and 49-1.Three instruments were used to measure personality needs and traits of the subjects in the two groups. They included 13 needs, factor-dimensions, scores, and traits selected from a possible 41 measured by the EPPS, the F-Scale, and the 16 PF. The administration, scoring, computer analyses, and interpretation was done between June 1, 1973, and July 4, 1974.Statistical treatment of the data consisted of the application of a stepwise multiple regression. A level of F ratio for entering and removing a variable from the equation was specified. At each step in the regression, the variable that made the treatest increment to R2 was entered, if it exceeded the prespecified F for entering a variable. The contribution of each variable was examined by entering it last in the equation until no variable had an F to enter larger than the prespecified F for entering, and no smaller than the prescribed F for removal. Additionally, a multi-variate stepwise discriminant analysis was run on the data. The results were congruent with those achieved by the stepwise multiple regression.The results indicated that predictor variables factor-dimension Q4 (Ergic Tension) of the 16 PF, the final score on the F-Scale (Authoritarianism) and the Change and Dominance variables of the EPPS were the best discriminators between the criterion variables. The measure of Ergic Tension was the strongest predictor variable, accounting for 41.76 percent of the variance. The measure 9.71 percent, the change variable accounted for 4.74 percent, and the of authoritarianism accounted for four predictor variables that were dominance variable accounted for 3.77 percent of the variance. The needs for aggression, exhibition, heterosexuality, amounts of ego strength, submissiveness, protension, shrewdness, guilt proneness, and strength of self sentiment, as measured by the EPPS and the 16 PF were not significant predictors and did not discriminate between the criterion variables in this study.An additional finding of the study was that given the raw scores of one hundred individuals on the significant discriminators between the law enforcement officers and the convicted felons, the examiner could correctly discriminate between the two in eight-four of one hundred cases.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BSU/oai:cardinalscholar.bsu.edu:handle/176222 |
| Date | January 1974 |
| Creators | Fowler, Watson R. |
| Contributors | Dimick, Kenneth M. |
| Source Sets | Ball State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Format | vii, 122, 2 leaves ; 28 cm. |
| Source | Virtual Press |
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