Tests of the Emotions. 73 
out (or amount of emotional stress), and peculiar choices in words circled 
(or idiosyncrasy in anxiety tendencies). And again the test has back of 
it experience with abnormal personalities; it has obvious relations to 
certain kinds of anxiety states. The test,.it should be added, derives most 
directly from a questionaire used by Woodworth in studying neurotic indi- 
viduals in the army. And it is aimed to involve the content of certain 
types of delusion common in mental disease. 
So much for the separate tests: in summarizing the total examination 
the total number of words crossed out is first summed, and is considered 
an indication of total affectivity or emotionality. The deviations are then 
added together, and the total used as an expression of “total idiosynerasy”’. 
Well—the tests doubtless seem to you very crude—and so they are; they 
‘simply represent an effort at first investigation of a subject which has 
until recently been all too much neglected. But as an investigatory instru- 
ment the examination has certain advantages which I would like to have 
you consider for a moment. I mentioned a moment a 
questionnaire. It consisted of questions such as: 
Have you worried about smoking? Yes. No. 
And the person taking the examination was to underline “Yes” or “No” 
according as one answer or the other was correct. Putting the questions 
in this way it required an 11x17 sheet to ask one hundred such questions. 
We ask one hundred fifty questions in a space 9x6; the total examination 
really asks six hundred questions all on two sides of a 9x12 sheet. The 
great condensation is obvious. 
It is thus possible in a very brief space to accumulate a large amount of 
data. But there are other advantages. There is no elaborate technique in 
giving the examination. All that is necessary is to hand the blank to the 
person who is to take the test and say, “Read the directions, and do what 
they tell you to do”. It is thus possible for us to send out the blanks to 
other colleges and institutions and obtain results which are strictly com- 
parable, so far as directions are concerned, to the results we obtain our- 
selves. Suppose for the moment you are taking the test. You do not have 
to write any answers. All you have to do is cross out certain words or 
draw lines around them. The result is that the average college student 
answers these six hundred questions in less than half an hour! Further- 
more, in the first scoring of the blank, all that is necessary is to count up 
the number of words crossed out, and the number of peculiar choices made 
in circling words. So the examination is an extremely convenient method 
of obtaining information; those of you who teach will appreciate that an 
examination in which six hundred questions are asked and answered in 
thirty minutes, and in which a first valuation of the results can be obtained 
in three minutes, is somewhat unusual. 
However, such an instrument is of little value if the information yielded 
by it is not worth while. The examination is intended primarily, of course, 
for work with delinquent and with nervously abnormal individuals. And 
from such groups data are not yet available, though results from a number 
of reform schools, a group of colored people, a theological seminary, and a 
colony for epileptics will be ready soon. Results from a group of college 
students have, however, been analyzed to show sex differences. Briefly 
it may be said that 64% of the girls find more things unpleasant than the 
go Woodworth’s 
