The willoughby schedule: A replication

The willoughby schedule: A replication

J. Behov. T/w. & Exp Psychiat. Vol. 2, pp. I1I-I 12. Pergamon THE WILLOUGHBY Press, 1971. Printed in Great Britain. SCHEDULE: A REPLICATION ...

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J. Behov. T/w.

& Exp

Psychiat.

Vol. 2, pp.

I1I-I

12. Pergamon

THE WILLOUGHBY

Press, 1971. Printed in Great Britain.

SCHEDULE:

A REPLICATION

RONALDHESTAND,*DONALDHOWARDand RICHARDGREGORY Missouri Western College Summary-One hundred individuals from a general population, aged 18 to 62 (55 males and 45 females) served as subjects in a reassessment of the norms of the Willoughby Personality Schedule. No significant differences were found between the present sample and Willoughby’s 1932 sample of 262 university students. WOLPE (1958) has placed considerable weight in his diagnostic routine on the Willoughby Personality Schedule (Willoughby, 1932, 1934). The Willoughby is an adaptation of the Thurstone Personality Schedule (Thurstone and Thurstone, 1930). The development of its 25 items is described elsewhere (Willoughby, 1932). Briefly, however, items were weighted for frequency of occurrence, and the schedule consists of the most frequently marked items. Willoughby utilized both the split-half method (u=O.91) and the test-retest method in determining the reliability of his schedule (r=0.89). He assumed, since the Thurstone Schedule

claimed validities ranging from 0.58 on the Sex scale to 0.90 on the Fantasy scale, that the new schedule would be in the upper range of validity, because its items were the most common. Willoughby (1934) found a mean score of 32.5 for a mixed population of 262 university students, with a standard deviation of 15.2. The mean and standard deviation for his 119 male subjects were 28 a9 and 13 -7 respectively, and for his 113 females 36-1 and 15.8 respectively (see Fig. 1). Since Willoughby, no further studies have been reported with the exception of that of Wolpe (1958) on neurotic patients. He found a difference

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FIG. 1. Smoothed *Request for reprints should be addressed Avenue, St. Joseph, Missouri. 64502.

curves of percentile scores.

to Ronald Hestand, 111

St. Joseph State Hospital,

Box 263, 3400 Frederick

112

RONALD

HESTAND,

DONALD

HOWARD

of at least 21 between subjects on his study and the “normal” subjects of the Willoughby study (1934). The Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was significant at the 0.001 level, showing the discriminating value of the schedule. Of course, this is a skewed comparison since Willoughby utilized only university students and Wolpe his neurotic patients from various sources.

METHOD Subjects One hundred subjects (55 males and 45 females) were selected through solicitation of volunteers from the campus of Missouri Western College and from the community of St. Joseph. Average age was 29.8 years (male 28.6 and female 3 1.3). The range was 18 to 62. Education ranged from 8 years to Ph.D., the mean being 12.8 years. Although this was not directly determined, the sample seemed fairly representative of all socio-economic groups. All the subjects were white. Procedure The subjects were given the Willoughby Personality schedule in the way that was done

and RICHARD

GREGORY

by Willoughby (1932). No interpretation was given, and they were told that this was not a test in the sense that there were any right or wrong answers, and to answer the questions as they applied most of the time. RESULTS There was no significant difference between the mean of our sample (33.5) and that of Willoughby (32.5). The means of our male and female populations differed from Willoughby’s, being 31 and 35 respectively (s.d. 14.3 and 17.6). The difference, however, did not quite reach the 0.05 level of significance. Our cumulative percentage curves are practically identical with those based on Willoughby’s data (Fig. 1). Wolpe’s (1958) curve for neurotic subjects is included for comparison.

REFERENCES THURSTONEL. L. and THURSTONET. G. (1930) A neurotic inventory, J. Sot. Psychol. 1, 3-30. WILLOUGHBYR. R. (1932) Concerning the Thurstone Personality Schedule, J. Sot. Psychol. 3, 401-424. WILLOUGHBY R. R. (1934) Norms for the ClarkThurstone Inventory, J. Sot. Psychol. 5, 91-97. WOLPEJ. (1958) Psychotherapy by Reciprocal Inhibition, Stanford University Press, Stanford.

(Received 29 Jwzuary 197 1)