Term of Award
Summer 1996
Degree Name
Master of Science
Document Type and Release Option
Thesis (restricted to Georgia Southern)
Department
Department of Psychology
Committee Chair
Edward W. L. Smith
Committee Member 1
Michael E. Nielsen
Committee Member 2
Janie H. Wilson
Abstract
The current study investigated the use of animal preference to distinguish between violent and nonviolent individuals Participants were 106 male college students and 93 male prison inmates Participants chose animals to answer projective questions and rated them on an 18-item semantic differential scale Results showed that inmates chose a bird as the animal they would most like to be more often than did students. The animals selected by violent and nonviolent participants did not differ on aggressiveness or semantic differential ratings. However, analyses revealed that students would most like to be more aggressive animals than would inmates. For the animal they would least like to be. inmates chose animals that were lower on the evaluative factor, more potent and more active than did students Inmates may have responded to the questions in this way because they wanted to give a good impression of themselves more so than the students did.
Copyright
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Recommended Citation
Nicholson, Angelita, "Animal Preference as a Projective Technique: A Comparison of Projected Aggression by Violent and Nonviolent Prison Inmates and Students" (1996). Legacy ETDs. 700.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/etd_legacy/700
