NCJ Number
101252
Journal
Public Offender Counselor Association Volume: 6 Issue: 2 Dated: (April 1986) Pages: 35-42
Date Published
1986
Length
8 pages
Annotation
One hundred sixty-four male prison inmates in Georgia completed a battery of personality tests for a study that aimed to determine the relationships between their personalities, their private or public self-consciousness, and their social anxiety.
Abstract
The study used the concept of private self-consciousness to refer to absorption with oneself, whereas public self-consciousness referred to concern with the impression made on other people. All the men assigned to the Georgia Diagnostic Center during a 10-week period completed a 23-item self-consciousness scale and the Clinical Analysis Questionnaire. Subjects with high private self-consciousness were more suspicious, more obsessive-compulsive, and more likely to report strange inner experiences and thoughts than were persons with low private self-consciousness. Offenders with high public self-consciousness were shrewder and felt more guilt and resentment than those with low public self-consciousness. Socially anxious offenders were suspicious, insecure, tense, and anxious. Offenders who had little social anxiety seemed to be warmer, more emotionally stable, more adventurous, and less concerned by societal criticism than those with high social anxiety. Both the study instruments can provide counselors, psychologists, or other professional workers with significant information about male prison inmates. Table, 19 references.