Acts Psychologica 21 (1963) 68--74; ~i North-Holland Publishing Co. Not to be reproduced by photoprint or microfilm without written permission ti'om the publisher

PERCt/iPTION AND THE SECURITY-INSECURITY DIMENSION

P. B. D E F A R E S AND I. 3. VAN D E R W E R F F 1

Institute 1or Psychology " " '" Heymane, Applied Psy =hology section. University ol Groningen (Netherlands)

The object of this paper is a study of the relationship between pelception and personality. The starting point for the investigation was the work of Witkia et al., which enjoys great interest nowadays. For the measurement of perc~ptuai performances, Witkin employed among other devices the rod arid frame test, in which the subject was to estimate the objective verticality of a rod, which was inserted in a tilted frame, while the subject in performing this task was placed in different positions (upright and tilted).

Two fundamental modes of coping with the perceptual task could be detected in Witkin's experiments. The first is called field-dependency; when one co~fforms to the surrounding field, neglecting thereby cues which could be derived from o~,.e's body, one is considered to be field-dependent. On the other hand the perceptual reaction c~n predominantly be determined by taking cues into account, due to forces acting on tk5e body and by a cmrrespontfing analytic attitude towards the field. This mode of perceiving, leading ~o a better performance is called the analytic app~oach. In general Witkin found significant correlations between these performances and personality characteristics of the subjects. The latter were assessed by means of the Rorschach test, the Thematic Apperception Test, interview data and other psychometric instruments. To cite Witkin:

"In summary then, field-dependent persons tend to be characterized by passivity in dealing with the environment; by unfamiliarity w~th and fear of their own impulses, together with poor control over them, by lack of self- esteem; and by the possession of a relatively primitive, undifferentiated body ima~:e. Independent or analytic perceptual performers in contrast, tend to ~ characterized by activity and independence in relation to the env~ronmeat, by closer communicat;.or~ with, and better control o[" their own impulses and by relatively high self-esteem and a more diffex~,ntiated mature ~ y image."

An i m ~ r t a m variable in Witkin's work is the security-insecurity dimen-

We f~el i~--debted to Drs. ~. Verster and Miss J. Kaiser for their help in ~ t t i ng up t~e experimenhJ design and for ~ve ra l important suggestions.

68

PERCEPTION AND THE SECURITY-INSECURITY DIMENSION 69

sion. The citation just mentioned explicitely refers to this dimension, and it is also implied when the scoring-procedure of various tests (coping score in Rorschach test and interviews and self-assertiveness in the "Ihematic Apperception Test) is taken into account. In our investigation, in which the procedure for the assessment of perceptual performances was exactly the same as in the study of Witkin, we did not make use of projective tech- niques, but confined ourselves to the security-insecurity dimension. In order to allow for a more direct quantitative approach, we have chosen the inventoa~ of Maslow (Security-Insecurity Index) as a measure for this variable

FURTHEI~', SPECIFICATION OF THE INVESTIGATION

In addition to the general correlation between mode of perception and personality characteristics one of the most important datz Witkin offered was the difference between the. sexes he found with regard to their per- ceptual performances. Witkin states:

"The major fact with which our consideration of sex differences in perception must be#r, is that women are considered more dependent on the structure of the outer field than are men."

A second, but less important difference between the sexes that has been found concerns the relationship between personality and perceptual per- formance. To quote Witkin again:

"The differences we have found between men and women in patterns of intercorrelations among personality scores, and between personality and perceptual scores, although they clearly require confirmation through further studies are consistent in relation to one another. They suggest that the relation between attitude~ toward the body and other aspects of psychic life is closer in men than in Women."

Because the sex dichotomy seems to be of so fundamental importance, we decided to include the sex variable in our experimental desigr~. In view of the rather provisional character of Wiskin's conclusions however, we have introduced a second differential psychological variable as an effo,rt to arrive at a more refined diagnosis. As tlhe perception-test has definite spatial implications, miss Kaiser siiggested that cognitive functions could play an important role in the performances of the subjects and could thereby influence the relation between perceptual performances and

personality. For that reasoL we took care to choose our subjects according to their

pre-education (verbal and spatial-mathematical pre-education respectively).

70 P . B . DEFARES AND J. J. VAN DER WERFF

We sha]!tl indicate these different educations, a~ is customary in the Nether- lands, by symbols: alpha refers to a verbal nnd beta to a spatial-mathe- matical pre-education.

~Lq3JECTS AND SCORING-PROCEDURES

Forty female and forty male students acted as subleets: these subjects were chosen in such way, so as to provide an equal number alphas and b~:ta~ for each sex. A picture of the rod and frame test is giver_ (fig. 1). tt should be noticed that the experimentation took place in dark- ness, c,nly the rod and the frame being visible by means of luminous paint. In fig. 2 we reprint an illustration from one of Witkin's books, representing sche~m~Ltica~iy the tilted positior,~s I and II and the uptight position respectively. For further information we refer to the papers of Witkin et al.

SERIES t S~RIES 2 SERIES 3

A. SETTINGS OF ROD CLOSE TO T~-E TRUE VERTICAL.

Fig. 2

TLe testscores of the three c~nditions, to which Wkkin also adheres in the rod a~d frame test (chair tilted I, chair tilted II and chair upright) were correlated. For the two tilted conditions we found r = .72; the upright position correlated .51 and .63 with the tilted positions respectively. For barther computations we took the tilted positions together by adding their scores. In the ne~t paragraph we offer the results of the upright condition.

RESULTS

For an analysis of the data we considered the subjects c,f the four groups separately, and compared their respective rod and frame scores. Besides we computed the correlation with ;h.e personality-variable fer each group.

A. The rod arid frame scores

An anzlysis of variance was applied to the scores for the upright condi- tion, the results of which are shown in table 1.

PERCEPTION AND THE SECURITY-INSECUR~I'Y DIMENSION 71

TABLE 1

Analysis of varian~ of the rod and frame scores

effect s.s. d.f. m.s. F

sex 0.0125 1 0.0125 education 7.8125 1 7.8125 interaction 17.1125 1 17.1125 within 456.5500 7,6 6.0072 Coral 481.4875 79

1.31 2.85 P~.10

Striking and at variance with the data of Witkin is the absence o / a n y difference between the scores of men and women. The averages, with regard to the rod and frame test given by Witkin, follow in table 2.

TABLE 2

Mean scores for rod and f rame test after Witkin

condition men women

chair tilted I 12.4 16.9

,, ,, I I 14.5 19.1

,, upr ight 7.4 1 ~.0

The main effect alpha-beta is considerably greater, though not significant, so that if one ignores the sex factor, the alpha-beta classification does !lot lead to a significant dif.:erewtiation. Considering the interaction, it is obvious that it turns out to be the greatest source of variance. True, the effect is not significant in the strict sense (P < .10) but yet it indicates a clear tendency. With reference to this outcome, one can both say that it depends on the sex of the subjects whether alphas or betas are better, or that it depends on the pre-education category, whether men or women are better in their performances in the rod and frame test. The divergence which our results sl~ow in comparison with the investigation of Witkin, could perhaps be explained by supposing that the female subject~ of Witkin are mainly made up of persons with an alpha education. The geaeralizations, which Witkin derives from his data (the difference between men and women) could be maintained, if one could prove that women genecally have an alpha disposi- tion and men a beta disposition. As long as this cannot be proved on empirical grounds, the dichotomy as supposed by Witkin with respect to the sexee, must be manipulated with great caution. This is indeed a problem, which always holds with regard to the social sciences, when one dist~n-

7 2 P . B . D E F A R E S AND J, I , V A N D E R W E R F F

guishes fundamental, differential psychological dichotomies (e.g. comparing children and adults, men and women, etc.).

B. Re~tionship Letween rod and frame scores and the personality variable

In table 3 the correlations between the Maslow and the rod and frame scores a~e shown (a high rod and frame score refers to a bad perceptual performance; a high Maslow-score refers to a comparatively gre,~t in- security). The correlations were corr:~puted for the total group, for me~ ~, and women and f¢~ alphas and betas ~eparate[y, and also for groups which were made up of combinations of sex and education. The correlation for the total group is -~25, which indicates a significant, but relatively low correspondence between the two variabl,:s. When one takes the scorit~g procedure into account it is evident that insecure subjects obtain aligher performances ;n the rod and frame test. On closer ~xamination, it appears t|zat the relationship differs strongly for the various groups, as distinguished by us. In comparing the data for the sexes the difference is small (for men r - - --.30, for women r - - -.21), but the education criterion also shows here a suprisingly great difference (for alphas r - - - .05 and for betas r = - . 4 4 ) . Recapitulating our results we can therefore conclude that in as much as there exists a relation between rod and frame performance and l:¢rsonai~ty, the beta group exclusively contributes to it.

TABLE 3

Cor re l a t ion coefficients be tween rod and f r a m e test and Maslow score , ,

total g roup n ---= 80 - .21

men n - - 4C - . 3 0

w o m e n n - - 40 - .21

a lphas n = 40 - .05

betas n - - 40 - . 4 4

Apart from the additional variable introduced by us, the character of the relationship between the rod and frame test and the personality variable hapl~ns to be the reverse of what has been found by Witkin: in contrast with his finding~q our insecure subjects tend to perform better on the rod and frame test. In this connection it is worth noting that the personality variable was operationalized in different ways in Witkin's and our investigation. In order to compare these different ways we give the various results in table 4.

We shall not go any further into the difference between men and woraen

PERCEPTION AND THE SECURITY-INSECURITY DIMENSION 73

TABLE 4

Comparison of correlations between rod and frame test and security-insec..n'ity measures

' 1 ' , ii . . . . . . .

interview Rorsehaeh T.A.T. (coping) (coping) (self-assertiveness) Maslow

men .47 .55 .26 -.21 alpha -.05 women .66 .46 .37 -. 30 beta - .44

in this connection, as Witkin's results do not show convincing discrepancies eitber. One can observe however that in our investigation there exists a significant difference between alpha and beta subjects: for alphas there is no relationship between rod a~d frame test performance and security as measured by the Maslow Inver.tory but on the other hand for betas both variables are very significantly related. The latter rclationship implies that the more insecure the beta subjects are, the better they are able to make a good estimation in the rod and irame test. In other words, if we adhere to the terminology of Witkin: insecure beta subjects are more analytically

disposed than are secure beta subjects. For tile present we offer an explanatory, hypothesis. Essentially-beta

subjects have cognitive schemata at their disposal which are specifically applicable to the solution of spatial p~oble~ns, it is not inconceiwLble, that in case beta subjects possess an insecure presonality structure, they mo- bilize the schemata to a greater extent, in order to compensate for an im- minent feeling of insecurity, and consequently obtain better performances.

Still it is not yet explained why Witkin found a positive correlation in his investigation. The latter might as well be a result of other causes, among which cultural differences and the ways in which both in Witkin's and in our investigation the security-insecurity dimension has been operationalized,

could be mentioned.

SUMMARY AND CONCLLISIONS

It should be stressed that the findings reported above only hold for the upright condition (chair upright). For the tilted conditions we did not find any significant effects of sex, education or the interaction of both, nor did there exist a relationship between rod arm frame scores for the tilted position and the personality variable (Maslow Inventory)" for the total group as well as for the sex and education subgroups the correlations were

lower than . 12 absolutely.

74 P . B . DEFAXF~S ~ J. L VAN DER WERFF

To summarize the findiags we can stat~ ~:hat o~Lr replication of the study of Witkin ~,howed some resemblance with his data, but that this was restricted to the upright condition of the rod and frame test.

Moreover we established two important deviations, the first concerning the relationships between rod and frame test performance and the per- sonality var~iable, which in our study showed the opposite sign. The second concerned the sex dichotomy, which contrary to Witkin's findings yielded no sign~cant differences in ro~ and frame tes~ scores nor in amount of relationship between perceptual performance and personality. In this • espect the differentiation between pre-educational groups (alphas and betas in our investigation turned out to be much more fi~ifful.

Taking into consideration that the results mentioned did not hold for the tilted conditions, we should like to suggest that the upright condition seems to be more promising as a relevant measure of perceptual phenomena.

REF~ENCF~;;

1o Witkin, H. A., Lewis, H. B. et al, Personafity through perception. New York, 19540 2. , Dyk, R. ~. et ~d, Psychological differentiation. New York, 1962.