Term of Award

1983

Degree Name

Master of Arts in Psychology

Document Type and Release Option

Thesis (restricted to Georgia Southern)

Department

Department of Psychology

Committee Chair

Richard L. Rogers

Committee Member 1

Russell C. Dewey

Committee Member 2

Cynthia Legin-Bucell

Abstract

Three hundred and ten college students enrolled in an introductory psychology course were administered Rotter's I-E scale and an instrument designed to assess the subjects degree of belief in the popular bio-rhythm theory. Based upon the results of the administration of the I-E scale the subjects were assigned to a group designated internal or a group designated external. Randomly the members of the internal and external groups were assigned to three smaller groups. One group from the internal and external classification was given custom biorhythm charts which were generated in the proper fashion prescribed by the biorhythm theory. The remaining two groups in both internal and external classifications were also given similar biorhythms, but ones which were shifted 60 or 90 days in the future. The subjects were not informed of this fact. The hypotheses were 1) after a 45-day experimental period, those subjects who had been classified as externals would report greater agreement with the indications of their biorhythms than those subjects classified as internal and 2) the displacement of the biorhythms by 60 or 90 days in the future for these groups would make no difference in the internal or external groups' assessment of the biorhythms validity. The results did not support the first hypothesis. The second hypothesis was indicated in that there were no significant differences among the shift groups. Possible reasons for the lack of statistical significance for the first hypotheses are discussed.

Copyright

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