Journal o f Youth and Adolescence, Vol. 1, No. 2, 1972
The "Impulsivity Index": Its Application to Juvenile Delinquency Eric Ostrov, t Daniel Offer, 2 Richard C. Marohn, 3 and Tom Rosenwein 4 Received February 15, 19 72 A n objective, composite index o f impulsivity, made up o f three measures o f reactivity to color on the Rorschach and amount o f discrepancy between performance and verbal 1Q on the Wechsler Scales, is proposed. It was predicted that impulsiveness as measured by this index wouM be associated with self-perception o f impulsivity. Moreover, it was predicted that impulsiveness, whether objectively or subjectively measured, would tend to be associated with a history o f greater and more frequent delinquency. The major hypotheses were confirmed. In addition, the data suggested that delinquents from higher socioeconomic levels may be more impulsive than their lower class counterparts. Additional work on refining and validating the "impulsivity index" is indicated.
This work has been supported by Grant No. A70-15 from the Illinois Law Enforcement Commission. 1Research Associate, Illinois State PsYchiatric Institute, Chicago, Illinois. Currently a Ph.D, Candidate in Human Development at the University of Chicago. Major research interest is in cognitive development during adolescence. 2Associate Director, Institute for Psychosomatic and Psychiatric Research and Training at Michael Reese Hospital, and Associate Professor of Psychiatry, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois. Received M.D. from the University of Chicago. Major research interests are the developmental psychology of adolescence and the etiology of juvenile delinquency. 3Chief, Juvenile Delinquency Unit, Illinois State Psychiatric Institute, Chicago, Illinois. Received M.D. from Marquette University. Major research interests are in juvenile delinquency and psychotherapy of adolescents. 4Research Associate, Illinois State Psychiatric Institute, Chicago, Illinois. Currently a Ph.D. Candidate in Human Development at the University of Chicago. Major research interest is in juvenile delinquency. 179 9 1972 Plenum Publishing Corporation, 227 West 17thStreet, New York, N.Y. 10011.
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INTRODUCTION Juvenile delinquents have been characterized in very different ways. Sociologists in particular have focused on the "normal" delinquent who, in breaking the law, is described as essentially responding to cultural influences or social pressures (e.g., Cohen, 1955; Miller, 1958; Merton, 1957; Matza, 1964; Shaw and McKay, 1969). Other behavioral scientists have depicted delinquents as basically psychologically disturbed, suffering, e.g., from poor impulse control (Friedlander, 1945; Redl and Wineman, 1957), from superego lacunae (Johnson and Szurek, 1952), or from intense feelings of depression which must be avoided at all cost (Sklansky et al., 1969). Attempts have been made to weigh social factors and psychological factors simultaneously in particular delinquent subpopulations (e.g., Baittle and Kobrin, 1964; Conger, 1966). However, much remains to be learned before reasonable assessments can be routinely made, in the case of particular delinquents, of the relative influence of social and psychological factors upon the performance of antisocial acts. This paper describes a preliminary investigation into ways of measuring and weighing the effects of one psychological factor in the causation of delinquency: degree of impulsiveness. Friedlander (1945) has described a set of character traits which predispose a person to react to emotional stress with antisocial behavior rather than neurotic behavior. Among the traits she lists are: (1)an inability to withstand tension, internal or external, including a need to gratify impulses immediately and an inability to postpone gratification, and (2)a tendency to act without regard to future consequences. Our definition of "impulsiveness" is an ego deficit which involves the inability to delay gratification and the tendency not to weigh future consequences, discussed by Friedlander. We propose that impulsiveness is an important factor in the causation of some juvenile delinquency and that, conversely, some delinquents may characteristically be more impulsive than other delinquents. More impulsive delinquents, other factors being equal, may be more severe delinquents in the sense of having committed a greater variety of delinquent acts more times than their less impulsive counterparts. The inability to delay and the lack of concern about future conseuqences make the more impulsive delinquent likely to have acted antisocially in a wide variety of circumstances and upon numerous occasions. The less impulsive delinquent, on the other hand, may have acted antisocially only in special circumstances or only relatively rarely. In this paper we put forward two ways of measuring impulsivity: reactivity to color on the Rorschach and performance-verbal IQ discrepancies. Moreover, we set ourselves two empirical tasks. The first was to show that the criteria of impulsivity chosen have some face validity by revealing a connection to self-perceived impulsivity in a group of subjects. The second was to demonstrate predictable connections in a group of juvenile delinquents between degree of impulsivity here defined and-extent of delinquency. Through this research we
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hope to improve our methods of objectively measuring impulsivity as a tool in the study and treatment of delinquency. Impulsiveness will be considered in the light of theorizing about perceptual and cognitive styles. Perceptual styles are characteristic inclinations to perceive in, e.g., more passive or more active ways. These inclinations are pervasive in the personality and find expression in all of a person's behavior and experience (Schachtel, 1966). Shapiro (1965) has written about persons who are characterized by impulsive styles. Persons with impulsive styles are viewed as failing to integrate impulses into a way of life organized around enduring and continuous aims and interests. A key dimension is the activity-passivity continuum. Instead of actively concentrating and reflecting, the impulsive person is passively dominated by the need or impulse of the moment or by external pressures. In a parallel way, the impulsive person's perception is dominated by the most immediately interesting, striking, or obvious stimulus in his perceptual field. Reactivity to color, on the Rorschach in particular, could serve as an index to degree of impulsivity in perceptual style. Color is a vivid and obvious part of the visual image presented by Rorschach. Schachtel (1966)has pointed out that perception of color does not require active structuring and objectifying; he draws an analogy between a subject's passivity in being swept up by his own affect and his passivity in reacting to color. From a somewhat different point of view, Rapaport et al. (1968) describes types of color responses on the Rorschach in terms of the amount of delay inherent in the formation of each type. A response determined by color only (a "C" or "color only" response) indicates a short circuiting of the associative process, while a response determined by color predominately and form secondarily (a "CF" or "color-form" response) represents more delay but delay that is only minimally effective. The "FC" (or "form-color") response (form dominated, color well integrated with form) represents the most delay. Schachtel (1966) indicates two other ways of measuring reactivity to color on the Rorschach: change of reaction time on the color cards and change of the number of responses per ink blot on the color cards. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
There are many studies in the literature dealing with factors associated with use of color on the Rorschach. We will restrict ourselves to considering two basic types of studies: (1)studies which compare psychiatrically distinct groups to one another, or to normals, with respect to use of color on the Rorschach; (2) studies which compare subjects who differ not by broad classification but who differ along a more unitary dimension such as degree of hyperactivity. Early German investigators of the Rorschach test such as Boss and Dubitscher (quoted in Lindner, 1943) and Zulliger (quoted in Schmidl, 1947) found delinquents to be characterized by excessive use of "color-form" and "color-only" responses with few "form-color" responses. However, none of
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these studies used matched groups and in Lindner's own study (Lindner, 1943), using groups equivalent on age, race, education, and IQ, no statistically differences were found in "sum color" (an index of use of color on the Rorschach test obtained by adding all responses using color, weighting pure color-only responses more heavily than color-form which are, in turn, more heavily weighted than form-color responses), or proportion of responses to the last three, all color, cards (an index called the "affective ratio"). Other studies give equally mixed and contradictory results. Boynton and Walsworth (1943) tested 47 delinquent, institutionalized girls and 50 socially and economically advantaged, nondelinquent girls from local high schools. They found sum color to be much higher for the nondelinquent girls; color-only and color-form in particular were higher for the nondelinquent girls. Schachtel studied Rorschachs given to the Gluecks' carefully matched samples (Glueck and Glueck, 1950) of working class delinquent and nondelinquent boys (Schachtel, 1950). He found no significant differences in sum color in the two groups. On the other hand, Robbertse (1955) compared delinquent and nondelinquent boys from all socioeconomic levels and found the delinquents had more color-form and color, whereas the controls had more form-color, implying that these delinquents were, indeed, more reactive to color than controls. These contradictory findings from different studies are discussed later in this paper. The second group of studies surveyed compares persons who differ along some psychological dimension with respect to their use of, or reactivity to, color on the Rorschach. Though numerous studies have been performed in the area, only those most relevant to this paper will be reported on here. Three of the studies surveyed used ratings of impulsiveness of college students by persons who knew them well and compared these ratings to use of color on the Rorschach. Results were generally supportive of the notion that lower and more form-dominated reactivity to color is related to lower impulsivity (Holtzman, 1950; Gardner, 1951; Verrill, 1958). Other studies have used groups, sometimes matched groups, of assaultive and nonassaultive patients and found results generally supportive of the idea that the more assaultive patients would be characterized by greater reactivity to color on the Rorschach (Storment and Finney, 1953; Misch, 1954; Finney, 1955; Townsend, 1967). Finally, Gill (1966) found that delay of response in a problem-solving task was related to use of form-color on the Rorschach in a group of undergraduates. Lack of delay was associated with more color-form and color-only responses. Other work has been done comparing use of color on the Rorschach to self-descriptive statements. For example, Clark (1948) compared MMPI scale scores for college students dividing into high and low sum color groups based on the Rorschach. The high sum color group was higher on all scales except the L, F (two "lie" or "faking" scales), and depression scales. An item analysis, validated
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on a second population, indicated that high sum color correlated with affirmation of items indicating uninhibited social behavior. Bills (1954) found his low sum color group to have significantly higher discrepancy scores between self and ideal self than did his high sum color group, an indication that low reactivity to color on the Rorschach is associated with low self-esteem. The literature surveyed shows that a connection exists between impulsivity and use of color on the Rorschach. There is some indicaiton that depression is associated with low reactivity to color. The problem of measuring impulsivity could be approached from a different angle. Theoretically, a characteristic emphasis on doing things and avoidance of inhibition of action could result in a pattern of cognitive functioning which, on tests like the Wechsler Intelligence Scales (Wechsler, 1955, 1949), might be characterized by a proportionately higher performance IQ and lower verbal IQ. Wechsler (1944), in fact, states that the most outstanding single feature of the adolescent psychopath's test pattern is his systematically higher performance score as compared to his verbal score. Studies testing this hypothesis generally has yielded mixed results. Fisher (1961)found that a large number of the incarcerated adolescent males he tested had performance IQ over verbal IQ and that the proportion of cases of performance over verbal IQ was much higher than it was in Wechsler's standardization population. Wiens et al. (1959) found similar results with a sample of adult and adolescent sex offenders. However, Vane and Eisen (1954) found no differences in the proportion of delinquent and nondelinquent subjects whose performance IQ was greater than verbal IQ. Glueck and Glueck (1950) found that both working class delinquents and working class nondelinquents had higher performance as contrasted to verbal IQ, with the delinquents' discrepancy being only slightly higher. Methodological questions raised by these studies will be taken up later in this paper.
HYPOTHESES
The hypotheses suggested above are as follows: 1. There will be an association between various measures of impulsiveness, particularly meausres of reactivity to color, and a measure of performance IQ-verbal IQ discrepancy. 2. There will be an association between measures of impulsiveness and extent of self-perceived impulsiveness. 3. There will be an association between the measures of impulsiveness, including self-perceived impulsiveness, and extent o(prior involvement with delinquent behavior.
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The Sample The sample studied consists of the first 25 consecutively admitted patients to the Michael Reese Unit of the Illinois State Psychiatric Institute. The Illinois State Psychiatric Institute is a 200-bed state hospital devoted to training, research, and service. The Michael Reese Unit (8 West) is a 10-bed research and treatment ward providing psychiatric, psychological, medical nursing, social services, activity therapy, school, and vocational counseling to hospitalized delinquents. The unit serves not only as the site of the research project but also as testing ground for developing model methods of treatment intervention. Patients accepted are both male and female, 13 to 17 years of age, who are not psychotic, not mentally retarded, and not brain damaged. Our definition of delinquency is violation of the law, whether or not known to authorities, and includes theft, assault, vandalism, sexual promiscuity, runaway, truancy, and drug abuse. Most of our patients have had contact with the police, and many have already been held at detention centers, or are on probation. They come from both intact and disrupted families. Their behavior must be severe enough to necessitate hospitalization or institutionalization. Our sample consisted of 12 girls and 13 boys, 7 blacks and 18 whites, with a median age of 1589years and a median socioeconomic status of "4" on the Hollingshead and Redlich scale of father's occuaption where "1" is the highest level and "7" is the lowest level (Hollingshead and Redlich, 1958). The Instruments Rorschach Measures During the first week of hospitalization the Rorschach and Wechsler Intelligence tests are routinely administered to all patients admitted to the Michael Reese Unit. The Rorschach was administered and scored according to Beck (1961). Three indices of reactivity to color were chosen. 1. Sum color divided by the total number of responses (sum color percent). 2. The affective ratio (defined above). 3. The average time for first response for color cards subtracted from the average time for first response for noncolor cards divided by the average time for first response for all cards taken together (called the "time for first response measure" in this paper). Sum color percent was selected instead of sum color alone to compensate for an effect due to productivity. Sum color alone usually represents not only reactivity to color but also general productivity on the test, a variable which the
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total number of responses represents. Since the relationship between sum color and total number of responses tends to be linear (Fiske and Baughman, 1965), dividing by total number of responses is justified. Then again, sum color percent was chosen instead of the form-color to color-form plus color only ratio favored by some other investigators because we are studying reactivity to color per se here and not strictly tendency to react to color while using delay of response which using proportionately more form-color than color-form and color only would represent. The reason only one of these indices was chosen was to cut down on the number of hypotheses, thus narrowing the possibility that by conducting a large number of correlations a few would be significant by chance alone. On the other hand, two measures of reactivity to color were included which do not depend on verbal report of use of color. The two nonverbal measures are the affective ratio and the time for first response measure. The affective ratio is studied because of the notion that greater reactivity to color will result in proportionately more responses given to the all-color cards. The time for first response measure is based on the assumption that greater reactivity to color will correlate with quicker response time to the color cards. Nonverbal indices are included to try to eliminate the possible effect of motivation and ability to verbalize use of color as a factor in the measurement of reactivity to color.
Wechsler Measure The Wechsler was scored in the standard way (Wechsler, 1955, 1949) and performance-verbal discrepancies expressed as a percentage of total score to allow for the possibility that, say, a 10-point discrepancy means more with a total IQ of 80 than with a total IQ of 120.
Self-Perceived Impulsiveness Most likely a subject would have a great deal of difficulty in assessing the degree to which he is "impulsive if he were simply asked how "impulsive" he is. On the other hand, it is quite possible that a subject might know whether or not he "loses his head" easily, or whether he keeps "an even temper most of the time." The willingness and ability of adolescents to reveal themselves to be more or less psychologically normal or abnormal in various areas have been demonstrated by Offer (1969) and Offer and Howard (1972), using a structured Self-Image Questionnaire (SIQ). One of the subscales of the SIQ investigated by Offer measures impulse control by asking the subject to rate himself on a scale from 1 to 6 as to the degree to which a set of statements such as "I lose my head easily" do or do not apply to him. The statements are all specific and easily understood, enough to allow an adolescent to judge accurately their applicability to him. These 10 statements are scattered among 120 other statements, similar in form, which tap other areas of the adolescents' functioning, such as "Social
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Relationships." Links between Rorschach-Wechsler measures of impulsivity and self-perceived impulsivity on the basis of the Self-Image Questionnaire would provide evidence that the Rorschach-Wechsler measures do indeed have some connection with the psychological concept "impulsivity"; this finding would be reinforced if the Rorschach-Wechsler measures were, in addition, found to be correlated only with the impulsivity subscale and not with other subscales of the Self-Image Questionnaire or with the Self-Image Questionnaire total score. The Self-Image Questionnaire was scored as outlined in Offer's (1971) manual.
Self-Report of Delinquent Behavior Measuring extent of delinquency has always been a problem. Official statistics are an especially poor source of data because of known biases in the determination of whether or not a given antisocial act is ever officially recorded. For example, Short and Nye (1957) point out that lower class adolescents and youth from broken homes are over-represented at every stage of correctional process. Whereas, according to official statistics, the incidence of delinquents from lower classes and broken homes is proportionately very high, self-reported delinquent behavior revealed few significant differences in the incidence of such behavior. Similarly, Arnold (1971) has statistically shown independent effects of race, parents' marital status, and delinquency rate of census tract wherein an offender lives on whether a case ever comes to court and on the judge's disposition if it does come to court. Therefore, Short and Nye (1957) recommended as a means of correcting for the biases described above the use of self-reported behavior as a measure of extent of delinquency. An instrument called the "Delinquency Check List" (DLC), which measures extent of delinquency by use of self-reported behavior with demonstrated validity, has been developed by Kulik et al. (1968) and is used for that purPose in this paper. The Delinquency Check List was scored as follows: Each item is a rule that the subjects scored on a scale from 0 to 4 as having been more or less frequently broken by them (zero means never broken); total score for each subject is the sum of scale values checked for each item. The Delinquency Check List and the Self-Image Questionnaire are administered as part of a prehospitalization screening process to all prospective patients. It will be noted that all proposed indices of impulsivity measure a subject's own differential performance s o that we always compare variations within each subject's performance to variations in Other subject's performance and never compare raw scores. There is no suggestion, however, that any of these indices are perfect measures of impulsivity; other factors on the cards besides color, e.g., shape of a particular blot, can affect number of responses or time for first response; the relationship with the examiner, moreover, could easily affect motivation and hence sum color. In an attempt to minimize chance factors, two crude total indices of impulsivity were constructed. The first was a "color
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index" consisting, for each subject, of the sum of his ranks on each of the three indices of reactivity to color described above. The second, called the "impulsivity index," is made up of the sum of ranks on the three color indices plus rank on the performance verbal IQ index. The hypotheses were tested by the Spearman rank correlation coefficient; significance was tested by means o f the appropriate one- or two-tailed t-test (Siegel, 1956). Rank order correlation was chosen to avoid assumptions o f normality of distribution which are quite tenuous when dealing with Rorschach statistics. A finding is reported as significant if the hypotheses can be accepted at the 0.05 level or better. In addition to the hypotheses described above, the hypothesis that three measures of reactivity to color would correlate significantly with each other was tested.
RESULTS
I. Though all in the right direction, the color indices did not correlate significantly with each other. 2. There is a significant correlation between performance IQ-verbal IQ discrepancy and the color index (0.05 level) (see Table I). There is a significant correlation between performance IQ-verbal IQ discrepancy and time for first response measure (0.01 level) but not between performance IQ-verbal IQ discrepancy and affective ratio or sum color percent. 3. There is a significant correlation between the impulsivity index and the impulsivitY scale of Offer' s Self-Image Questionnaire (0.01 level). The impulsivity index does not correlate significantly with any other subscale of the SIQ
Table I. Correlation of Performance IQ-Verbal IQ Discrepancy on the Wechsler with Three Measures of Reactivity tO Color on the Rorschach and a Color Index, an Overall Index of Reactivity to Color on the Rorschach
Performance IQverbal IQ h discrepancy u
Color index a
Time for first respogse measure
Affect~ve ratio
Sum color. percent t~
-0"35c
0"49d
0.13
0.11
aHigher score means less impulsivity. bHigher score means more impulsivity. CSignificant at 0.01 level. dsignificant at 0.05 level.
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Ostrov, Offer, Marohn, and Rosenwein Table II. Correlation of an Impulsivity Index Composed of Performance IQ-Verbal IQ Discrepancy and Three Measures of Reactivity to Color on the Rorschach with Self-Perceived Impulsiveness as Measured by the Impulse-Control Subscale of Offer's Self-Image Questionnaire and with the Total Score on Offer's Self-Image Questionnaire Impulse-control Total score subscale of Self- , on Self-Image Image Questionnairea'~ Questionnairea Impulsivittrv indexu
Components of the impulsivity index
-0.40 c
-0.19
Performance IQverbal IQ discrepancyb
0.18
0.28
Time for first response measure b
0.44 c
0.25
Affective ratiob
0.02
-0.08
Sum color percentb
0.17
-0.01
aThese correlations based on an N of 24 since the Self-Image Questionnaire of one subject contained too much missing data to be valid; the test of significance was also based on an N of 24. bHigher score means more impulsivity. CSignificant at 0.05 level. dHigher score means less impulsivity. or with the SIQ total score (see Table II). There is also a significant correlation between the color index and the Self-Image Questionnaire impulsivity scale (0.05 level). Of the three color indices individually, only the time for first response measure reaches significance (0.01 level) when correlated with the Self-Image Questionnaire impulsivity scale, though the correlation with all three measures is in the right direction. The performance IQ-verbal IQ discrepancy is not significantly associated with the Self-Image Questionnaire impulsivity measure. Again it should be noted that all correlations are in the right direction though the correlation of the Self-Image Questionnaire impulsivity index with the affective ratio is nearly zero. 4. J:he correlation b e t w e e n the impulsivity i n d e x and the Delinquency Check L i s t j s significant (0.05 level) as is the correlation between t h e Self-Image Questionnaire impulsivity measure and the Delinquency Check List (0.01 level). The color index also correlates significantly with the Delinquency Check List (0.05 level). It is clear, however, that m o s t % f the variance in the Delinquency Check List score accounted for b y the color index is due to the sum color percent score which correlates signficantly with the Delinquency Check List while the affective ratio and time for first response scores do not. The
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Table III. (a) Correlation of an Impulsivity Index Composed of Performance IQ-Verbal IQ Discrepancy and Three Measures of Reactivity to Color on the Rorschach with SelfReport of Extent of Delinquent Behavior on a Delinquency Check List; (b) Correlation of Self-Perceived Impulsiveness as Measured by the Impulse-Control Subscale of Offer's SelfImage Questionnaire with Self-Report of Extent of Delinquent Behavior on a Delinquency Check List Delinquency Check List score a
Impulsivity indexe
Components of the impulsivity index
-0.34 b
Performance IQverbal IQ discrepancy/
0.12
Time for first response measurer
0.15
Affective ratiof
0.17
Sum color percentf
0.39 b
Impulse-control subscale of Self-Image Questionnaired,f
0.50 c
score means more delinquency. ~Higher Significant at 0.05 level t~ignificant at 0.01 level. These correlations based on an N of 24. Higher score means less impulsivity. igher score means more impulsivity. performance IQ-verbal IQ discrepancy score also does not correlate significantly with the Delinquency Check List Score. However, again, all correlations are in the right direction (see Table III).
DISCUSSION There was some success in obtaining objective measures of the degree of impulsivity of our subjects by quantifying their reactivity to color on the Rorschach and measuring the discrepancy between their performance and verbal IQs on the Wechsler Scales. All the major hypotheses concerning the composite indices of reactivity to color and overall impulsivity were confirmed: The color
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index correlated significantly with performance-verbal IQ discrepancy; the impulsiTity index correlated significantly with the impulse control subscale of the Self-Image Questionnaire and with extent of delinquency as measured by the Delinquency Check List. Most impressively the impulsivity index correlated significantly only with the impulse control subscale and not with any of the other nine subscales of the Self-Image Questionnaire or with the Self-Image Questionnaire total score. The tentativeness of our measures, however, is indicated by the fact that none of the three indices of reactivity to color significantly correlate with one another. Only one of these measures (the time for first response measure) correlated significantly with the performance-verbal IQ discrepancy measure. The lack of correlation between the various components of the impulsivity index may mean that the concept "impulsivity" is more complex than we allowed for and that the various component measures are tapping different aspects of impulsivity. Moreover, it is possible than many extraneous factors besides impulsivity contribute to the variance of each of these component measures. It will be a statistical and empirical problem to isolate and tease out the influence of these extraneous factors in order to obtain more precise and clinically useful measures of impulsivity. Our positive results contrast with the lack of difference in reactivity to color on the Rorschach between delinquent and nondelinquent groups reported by the investigators such as Lindner (1943) and Schachtel (1950). Lindner and Schachtel used matched groups of delinquents and nondelinquents, whereas we compared institutionalized delinquents andnondelinquents, whereas we compared institutionalized delinquents to one another. This difference in methodology could account for some differences in results: Schmidl (1947) suggested that averaging results for delinquents a s if they were a homogeneous group psychologically is an error. The main task, Schmidl says, is to distinguish different types of personality among those susceptible to delinquency. Averaging results from a delinquent group actually consisting of different subgroupings psychologically and comparing averages to a nondelinquent group could obscure valid differences within the delinquent group and contribute to the varied findings described above. In our larger research project, of which the work presented here on impulsivity is a part, we are studying the hypotheses that there are two major classes of delinquents: delinquents whose behavior results from an underlying depression, and delinquents whose behavior is caused by an underlying character disorder. Without going into details about proposed differences in psychological functioning between these two classes of delinquents, we would suggest that averaging results from these two groups could obscure important differences between the groups and between delinquents and normal adolescents. It is also possible that failure to take socioeconomic status into account
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has added to the confusion. There are indications in the literature that lower socioeconomic groupings tend to give Rorschach records with, e.g,, fewer color responses (Riessman and Miller, 1958). It is possible that motivation and ability to put into words the fact that color influences a percept is relatively lacking among lower class subjects. If verbal report of the use of color on the Rorschach is relied on in measuring impulsivity, then differences in impulsivity could be obscured in some cases. For example, in the Gluecks' study, Schachtel pointed out the difficulty of using color as a criterion for distinguishing delinquent and nondelinquent Rorschach records since all the lower class subjects used tended to give records with little or no reported use of color (Schachtel, 1950). In this study, on the other hand, two nonverbal measures of reactivity to color were included, one of which, the time for first response measure, provided most of the basis for the significant correlations between reactivity to color and performance IQ-verbal IQ discrepancy and with self-perceived lack of impulse control. Studies of performance IQ versus verbal IQ in delinquent and nondelinquent groups were seen above to yield contradictory results. The criticism that averaging all delinquents together and comparing them to a nondelinquent group may obscure differences between delinquent subtypes applies here as well: Evidence supportive of the idea that delinquents vary greatly among themselves with respect to relative strength of verbal a n d performance intelligence is provided by Foster (1959). He found that as a whole there was no significant difference between the verbal and performance IQs of his delinquent subjects. But Foster also found that in his delinquent sample the correlation between performance and verbal IQ was rather low, with the performance score of several subjects being considerably larger than the verbal score while, for other subjects, the reverse was true. The Gluecks found that on all verbal tests the delinquents showed significantly more variability in their test performance than did nondelinquents. Moreover, failure to take account of socioeconomic considerations could be a source of error in studies of performance IQ-verbal IQ discrepancy. As in the case of reported use of color on the Rorschach, a social class tendency toward higher performance over verbal IQ could obscure a similar tendency due to impulsivity: Thus, Vane and Eisen's (1954) finding of no differences in proportion of delinquent and nondelinquent girls whose performance IQ was greater than verbal IQ must be seen in the light of their sample consisting only of working class girls and young women. On the other hand, the positive results of Wiens et al. (1959) and others can be criticized in that delinquents were compared to Wechsler's standardization groups. Bernstein and Corsini (1953) point out that Wechsler's sample was not representative since Wechsler tested only school-going youth from New York City. In general, it is not clear that Wechsler's standardization groups are appropriate controls for studies of intellectual functioning of unmatched experimental groups.
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The possibility that the significant correlations found in this paper are artifacts of extraneous correlations must be considered. The sample studied here is heterogeneous with respect to age, sex, race, and socioeconomic status. It is possible that, e.g., socioeconomic status factors are responsible for the variance in both impulsivity scores and, say, Delinquency Check List scores, s Correlations between Delinquency Check List and impulsivity scores could, then, be artifacts of more direct and meaningful correlations between socioeconomic status and the Delinquency Check List, on the one hand, and socioeconomic status and impulsivity scores on the other. In other words, impulsivity as an intervening psychological variable might not be necessary to explain the correlations found. One point of investigation would be to see if age, sex, race, or socioeconomic status correlate significantly with the various measures of impulsivity or the Delinquency Check List. The results are as follows: Race and sex do not correlate significantly with the color index, impulsivity index, Self-Image Questionnaire impulsivity, or the Delinquency Check List. Age correlates significantly only with the Delinquency Check List (using one-tailed t-test) (see Table IV): As we might expect, the older delinquents have higher Delinquency Check List scores. We expect this since older delinquents have had more time to engage in more delinquent acts. We would, however, expect older delinquents to be less impulsive and indeed this is the tendency for the impulsivity index. Note that the tendency for older delinquents to have higher Delinquency Check List scores and less impulsivity actually worked against the correlation found between the impulsivity index and Delinquency Check List. Socioeconomic status, as we expected, turns out to be very important (see Table IV). Socioeconomic status is significantly related to the color index, impulsivity index, and Delinquency Check List and approaches significant correlation with the Self-Image Questionnaire measure of impulsivity (using one-tailed t-test; results are n o t significant if two-tailed tests are used). Moreover, the effect is consistent with the various correlations found: higher socioeconomic status goes with more impulsivity, and higher Delinquency Check List scores. We now have two choices: Either we can conclude that higher socioeconomic status is indeed associated with greater impulsivity in this sample or we can surmise that there are other causal connections between impulsivity scores, Delinquency Check List scores, and socioeconomic status. It is possible that the youths in this sample from higher social classes are indeed more impulsive and delinquent than their lower class counterparts. SWe are aware of the literature concerning some of the proposed biological determinants of juvenile delinquency. All our subjects have routine electroencephalogram, chromosomal analyses, and neurological examinations. Only two of the 25 subjects had abnormal EEGs. Of the two subjects, one is more impulsive than the mean and one is less impulsive. Only one chromosomal analysis was abnormal, fracturing, probably due to use of LSD. All neurological examinations were within normal limits.
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Table IV. Correlation Between Age of Subject and Socioeconomic Status of Subject (Hollingshead and Redlich, 1958) with: (a) an Impulsivity Index Composed of Performance IQ-Verbal IQ Discrepancy and Three Measures of Reactivity to Color on the Rorschach; (b)Self-Perceived Impulsiveness as Measured by the Impulse-Control Subscale of Offer's Self-Image Questionnaire; and (c) Self-Report of Extent of Delinquent Behavior on a Delinquency Check Liste Impulsivity indexd
Impulse-control subscale of SelfImage Questionnaireb
Delinquency Check List scorec
Age of subjectg
0.25
0108
0.36 d
Socioeconomic statusJ
0.38 d
-0.30
-0.37 d
score means less impulsivity. ~Higher Higher score means more impulsivity. t~Iigherscore means more delinquency. Significant at 0.05 level (one-tailed t-test). r None of these correlanons are slgmficant by two-tailed t-test. J Higher score means lower socioeconomic status. gHigher score means older in years. e
,
,
.
Delinquency can result from social or psychological influences, or both, in various combinations. When social incentives to delinquency are low, as they might be in in middle or upper class homes and neighborhoods, psychological causes may have to be strong to produce a pattern of delinquent behavior. On the other hand, when social incentives to delinquency are high, as they might be in lower class homes and neighborhoods, delinquents might be found who are essentially psychologically normal. In a sample such as ours, therefore, delinquents from higher social classes could be more impulsive than delinquents from lower social classes. There is evidence that youths f r o m m o r e privileged social backgrounds are less likely than less privileged youths to become part of the correctional system for the same offenses (Arnold, 1971). Since most of our referrals come through the court or in the shadow of threatened or actual serious legal involvement, we might have been able to predict that the youths from higher social class would have higher Delinquency Check List scores and perhaps consequently also be more impulsive. On the other hand, we might consider the possibility that youths of higher social class are more verbal and develop more rapport with the middle class examiner, and, therefore, are able to report increased use of color on the Rorschach and tend to report more delinquency and more impulsivity on the Delinquency Check List and Self-Image Questionnaire, respectively. This
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explanation gains some support from the fact that sum color percent, a verbal measure described as characteristically lower for lower class subjects, is more highly correlated with social class and the Delinquency Check List score than are the two nonverbal measures. However, this explanation cannot account for the fact that on the Self-Image Questionnaire, the higher social class youths look significantly more pathological only on the impulsivity subscale and, in fact, look less pathological on several of the other subscales, particularly "Body and Self-Image." Nor can this explanation explain the fact that the performance IQ-verbal IQ discrepancy measure, a measure which should tend to decrease with higher socioeconomic status, correlates significantly and positively with the time for first response measure. If socioeconomic status were the source of all the associations in these data, we might expect a negative association between the performance IQ-verbal IQ measure and the reactivity to color indices (see Table III). In addition, the evidence that the Self-Image Questionnaire measure of impulse control is most highly correlated with the time for first response measure, a nonverbal index, tends to controvert the notion that socioeconomic factors alone can account for the correlations presented here.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS In a sample as small as ours, it is difficult to test conclusively, apart from social class factors, the hypotheses that impulsivity can be measured by reactivity to color on the Rorschach, or performance IQ-verbal IQ discrepancy. However, we have presented evidence to demonstrate the usefulness of constructing an impulsivity index. We have also demonstrated that impulsivity does play a significant role in the causation of delinquency and the further possibility that delinquents from higher socioeconomic levels may tend to be more impulsive than delinquents from lower socioeconomic levels. Further exploration of these hypotheses are indicated using larger and more homogeneous samples.
REFERENCES
Arnold, W.R. (1971). Race and ethnicity relative to other factors in juvenile court disposition. Am J. Sociol. 77:211-227. Baittle, B., and Kobrin, S. (1964). On the relationship of a characterological type of delinquent to the milieu. Psychiatry 27: 6-16. Beck, S. (1961). Rorschach's Test. Grune and Stratton, New York. Bernstein, R., and Corsini, R. J, (1953). Wechsler-Bellevue patterns of female delinquents. J. Clin. Psychol. 9: 176-179. Bills, R. E. (1954). Self-concepts and Rorschach signs of depression. J. Consult. Psychol. 18: 135-138.
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Boynton, P., and Walsworth, B. (1943). Emotionality test scores of delinquent and non-delinquent girls. J. Abnorm. Soc. Psychol. 38: 87-92. Clark, J. H. (1948). Some MMPI correlates of color responses in the group Rorschach. J. Consult. PsychoL 12: 384-386. Cohen, A. K. (1955). Delinquent Boys: The Culture of the Gang. The Free Press, Glencoe, Illinois. Conger, J. J. (1966). Personality, Social Class and Delinquency. Wiley, New York. Finney, B. C: (1955). Rorschach test correlates of assaultive behavior: J. Projective Tech. 19: 6-16. Fisher, G. M. (1961). Discrepancy in VIQ-PIQ in adolescent sociopaths. J. Clin. Psychol. 17: 60. Fiske, D.W., and Baughman, E.E. (1965). Relationships between Rorschach scoring categories and the total number of responses, In Murstein, B~ I., (ed.), Handbook of Profective Techniques, Basic Books, New York. Foster, A. L. (1959): A note concerning the intelligence of Delinquents. J. Clin. Psychol. 15: 78-79. Friedlander, K. (1945). The formation of the anti-social character. Psychoanal. Study of the
Child 1. Gardner, R.W. (1951). Impulsivity as indicated by Rorschach test factors. J. Consult. Psychol. 15 : 464-468. Gill, H. S. (1966). Delay of response and reaction to color on the Rorschach. J. Projective Tech. Personality Assessment 30: 545-552. Glueck, S., and Glueck, E. (1950). Unravelling Juvenile Delinquency. The Commonwealth Fund, New York. Hollingshead, A., and Redlich, F. (1968). Social Class and Mental Illness." A Community Study. John Wiley & Sons, New York. Holtzman, W.H. (1950). Validation studies of the Rorschach test: Impulsiveness i n the normal superior adult. J. Clin. Psychol. 6: 348-351. Johnson, A. M., and Szurek, S. A. (1952). The genesis of anti-social acting out in children and adults. Psychoanal. Quart. 21 : 323. Kulik, J. A., Stein, K. B., and Sarbin, T. R. (1958). Dimensions and patterns of adolescent anti-social behavior. J. Consult. Clin. Psychol. 32: 375-382. Lindner, R. M. (1943). The Rorschach test and the diagnosis of psychopathic personality. J. CriminalPsychopathoL 5: 69-93. Matza, D. (1964). Delinquency and Drift. John Wiley & Sons, New York. Merton, R. K. (1957). Social Theory and Social Structure. Free Press, Glencoe, Illinois. Miller, W. B. (1958). Lower class culture as a generating milieu of gang delinquency. J. Soc. lssues 14: 5-19. Misch, R.C. (1954). The relationship of motoric inhibition to developmental level and ideational functioning: An analysis by Means of the Rorschach test. Dissertation Abstr. 14. Offer, D. (1969). The Psychological Worm of the Teenager. Basic Books, New York. Offer, D. (1971). The Offer Self Image Questionnaire for Adolescents - A Manual. Special Publication, Chicago, Illinois. Offer, D., and Howard, K. I. (1972). The Offer Self-Image Questionnaire for Adolescents. Arch. Gen. Psychiat. (in press). Rapaport, D., Gill, M., and Schafer, R. (1968). Diagnostic Psychological Testing. International Universities Press, New York. Redl, F,, and Wineman, D. (1957). The Aggressive Child. The Free Press, Glencoe, Illinois. Riessman, F., and Miller, S. M. (1958). Social class and projective tests. J. Projective Tech. 22: 432-439. Robbertse, P.M. (1955). Personality structure of socially adjusted and socially maladjusted children, according to the Rorschach test. Psychol. Monographs 69: 1-20. Rorschach, H. (1942). Psychodiagnostics. Grune and Stratton, New York. Schachtel, E. G. (1950). Some notes on the use of the Rorschach test. In Glueck, S., and Glueck, E. (eds.), Unravelling Juvenile Delinquency, The Commonwealth Fund, New York.
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Schachtel, E. G. (1966). Experimental Foundations of Rorschach's Test. Basic Books, New York, Schmidl, F. (1947). The Rorschach test in juvenile delinquency research. Am. J. Orthopsychiat. 17: 151-160. Shapiro, D. (1965). Neurotic Styles. Basic Books, New York. Shaw, D., and McKay, H. (1969). Juvenile Delinquency and Urban Areas. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Short, J. F., and Nye, F. I. (1957). Reported behavior as a criterion of deviant behavior. Soc. Problems 5:207-213. Siegel, S. (1956). Non-Parametric Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences. McGraw-Hill, New York. Sklansky, M.A., Silverman, S.W., and Rabichow, H.W., (1969). The High School Adolescent. Association Press, New York. Storment, C. T., and Finney, B. C. (1953). Projection and behavior: A Rorschach study of assaultive mental hospital patients. J. Projective Tech. 17: 345-360. Townsend, J.K. (1967). The relationship between Rorschach signs of aggression and behavioral aggression in emotionally disturbed boys. J. Pro/ective Tech: 31:13-22. Vane, J.R., and Eisen, V.W. (1954). Wechsler-Bellevue performance of delinquent and non-delinquent gifts. J. Consult. Psychol. 18: 221-225. Verrill, B. V. (1958). An investigation of the concept of impulsivity. Dissertation Abstr. 19. Wechsler, D. (1944). The Measurement o f Adult Intelligence. Williams & Wilkins, Baltimore. Wechsler, D. (1949). Manual for the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children. The Psychological Corporation, New York. Wechsler, D. (1955). Manual for the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale. The Psychological Corporation~ New York. Wiens, A. N., Matarazzo, J. D., and Garver, K. D. (1959). Performance and verbal IQ in a group of sociopaths. J. Clin. Psychol. 15: 191-193.
The "Impulsivity Index": Its Application to Juvenile Delinquency Eric Ostrov, t Daniel Offer, 2 Richard C. Marohn, 3 and Tom Rosenwein 4 Received February 15, 19 72 A n objective, composite index o f impulsivity, made up o f three measures o f reactivity to color on the Rorschach and amount o f discrepancy between performance and verbal 1Q on the Wechsler Scales, is proposed. It was predicted that impulsiveness as measured by this index wouM be associated with self-perception o f impulsivity. Moreover, it was predicted that impulsiveness, whether objectively or subjectively measured, would tend to be associated with a history o f greater and more frequent delinquency. The major hypotheses were confirmed. In addition, the data suggested that delinquents from higher socioeconomic levels may be more impulsive than their lower class counterparts. Additional work on refining and validating the "impulsivity index" is indicated.
This work has been supported by Grant No. A70-15 from the Illinois Law Enforcement Commission. 1Research Associate, Illinois State PsYchiatric Institute, Chicago, Illinois. Currently a Ph.D, Candidate in Human Development at the University of Chicago. Major research interest is in cognitive development during adolescence. 2Associate Director, Institute for Psychosomatic and Psychiatric Research and Training at Michael Reese Hospital, and Associate Professor of Psychiatry, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois. Received M.D. from the University of Chicago. Major research interests are the developmental psychology of adolescence and the etiology of juvenile delinquency. 3Chief, Juvenile Delinquency Unit, Illinois State Psychiatric Institute, Chicago, Illinois. Received M.D. from Marquette University. Major research interests are in juvenile delinquency and psychotherapy of adolescents. 4Research Associate, Illinois State Psychiatric Institute, Chicago, Illinois. Currently a Ph.D. Candidate in Human Development at the University of Chicago. Major research interest is in juvenile delinquency. 179 9 1972 Plenum Publishing Corporation, 227 West 17thStreet, New York, N.Y. 10011.
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INTRODUCTION Juvenile delinquents have been characterized in very different ways. Sociologists in particular have focused on the "normal" delinquent who, in breaking the law, is described as essentially responding to cultural influences or social pressures (e.g., Cohen, 1955; Miller, 1958; Merton, 1957; Matza, 1964; Shaw and McKay, 1969). Other behavioral scientists have depicted delinquents as basically psychologically disturbed, suffering, e.g., from poor impulse control (Friedlander, 1945; Redl and Wineman, 1957), from superego lacunae (Johnson and Szurek, 1952), or from intense feelings of depression which must be avoided at all cost (Sklansky et al., 1969). Attempts have been made to weigh social factors and psychological factors simultaneously in particular delinquent subpopulations (e.g., Baittle and Kobrin, 1964; Conger, 1966). However, much remains to be learned before reasonable assessments can be routinely made, in the case of particular delinquents, of the relative influence of social and psychological factors upon the performance of antisocial acts. This paper describes a preliminary investigation into ways of measuring and weighing the effects of one psychological factor in the causation of delinquency: degree of impulsiveness. Friedlander (1945) has described a set of character traits which predispose a person to react to emotional stress with antisocial behavior rather than neurotic behavior. Among the traits she lists are: (1)an inability to withstand tension, internal or external, including a need to gratify impulses immediately and an inability to postpone gratification, and (2)a tendency to act without regard to future consequences. Our definition of "impulsiveness" is an ego deficit which involves the inability to delay gratification and the tendency not to weigh future consequences, discussed by Friedlander. We propose that impulsiveness is an important factor in the causation of some juvenile delinquency and that, conversely, some delinquents may characteristically be more impulsive than other delinquents. More impulsive delinquents, other factors being equal, may be more severe delinquents in the sense of having committed a greater variety of delinquent acts more times than their less impulsive counterparts. The inability to delay and the lack of concern about future conseuqences make the more impulsive delinquent likely to have acted antisocially in a wide variety of circumstances and upon numerous occasions. The less impulsive delinquent, on the other hand, may have acted antisocially only in special circumstances or only relatively rarely. In this paper we put forward two ways of measuring impulsivity: reactivity to color on the Rorschach and performance-verbal IQ discrepancies. Moreover, we set ourselves two empirical tasks. The first was to show that the criteria of impulsivity chosen have some face validity by revealing a connection to self-perceived impulsivity in a group of subjects. The second was to demonstrate predictable connections in a group of juvenile delinquents between degree of impulsivity here defined and-extent of delinquency. Through this research we
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hope to improve our methods of objectively measuring impulsivity as a tool in the study and treatment of delinquency. Impulsiveness will be considered in the light of theorizing about perceptual and cognitive styles. Perceptual styles are characteristic inclinations to perceive in, e.g., more passive or more active ways. These inclinations are pervasive in the personality and find expression in all of a person's behavior and experience (Schachtel, 1966). Shapiro (1965) has written about persons who are characterized by impulsive styles. Persons with impulsive styles are viewed as failing to integrate impulses into a way of life organized around enduring and continuous aims and interests. A key dimension is the activity-passivity continuum. Instead of actively concentrating and reflecting, the impulsive person is passively dominated by the need or impulse of the moment or by external pressures. In a parallel way, the impulsive person's perception is dominated by the most immediately interesting, striking, or obvious stimulus in his perceptual field. Reactivity to color, on the Rorschach in particular, could serve as an index to degree of impulsivity in perceptual style. Color is a vivid and obvious part of the visual image presented by Rorschach. Schachtel (1966)has pointed out that perception of color does not require active structuring and objectifying; he draws an analogy between a subject's passivity in being swept up by his own affect and his passivity in reacting to color. From a somewhat different point of view, Rapaport et al. (1968) describes types of color responses on the Rorschach in terms of the amount of delay inherent in the formation of each type. A response determined by color only (a "C" or "color only" response) indicates a short circuiting of the associative process, while a response determined by color predominately and form secondarily (a "CF" or "color-form" response) represents more delay but delay that is only minimally effective. The "FC" (or "form-color") response (form dominated, color well integrated with form) represents the most delay. Schachtel (1966) indicates two other ways of measuring reactivity to color on the Rorschach: change of reaction time on the color cards and change of the number of responses per ink blot on the color cards. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
There are many studies in the literature dealing with factors associated with use of color on the Rorschach. We will restrict ourselves to considering two basic types of studies: (1)studies which compare psychiatrically distinct groups to one another, or to normals, with respect to use of color on the Rorschach; (2) studies which compare subjects who differ not by broad classification but who differ along a more unitary dimension such as degree of hyperactivity. Early German investigators of the Rorschach test such as Boss and Dubitscher (quoted in Lindner, 1943) and Zulliger (quoted in Schmidl, 1947) found delinquents to be characterized by excessive use of "color-form" and "color-only" responses with few "form-color" responses. However, none of
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these studies used matched groups and in Lindner's own study (Lindner, 1943), using groups equivalent on age, race, education, and IQ, no statistically differences were found in "sum color" (an index of use of color on the Rorschach test obtained by adding all responses using color, weighting pure color-only responses more heavily than color-form which are, in turn, more heavily weighted than form-color responses), or proportion of responses to the last three, all color, cards (an index called the "affective ratio"). Other studies give equally mixed and contradictory results. Boynton and Walsworth (1943) tested 47 delinquent, institutionalized girls and 50 socially and economically advantaged, nondelinquent girls from local high schools. They found sum color to be much higher for the nondelinquent girls; color-only and color-form in particular were higher for the nondelinquent girls. Schachtel studied Rorschachs given to the Gluecks' carefully matched samples (Glueck and Glueck, 1950) of working class delinquent and nondelinquent boys (Schachtel, 1950). He found no significant differences in sum color in the two groups. On the other hand, Robbertse (1955) compared delinquent and nondelinquent boys from all socioeconomic levels and found the delinquents had more color-form and color, whereas the controls had more form-color, implying that these delinquents were, indeed, more reactive to color than controls. These contradictory findings from different studies are discussed later in this paper. The second group of studies surveyed compares persons who differ along some psychological dimension with respect to their use of, or reactivity to, color on the Rorschach. Though numerous studies have been performed in the area, only those most relevant to this paper will be reported on here. Three of the studies surveyed used ratings of impulsiveness of college students by persons who knew them well and compared these ratings to use of color on the Rorschach. Results were generally supportive of the notion that lower and more form-dominated reactivity to color is related to lower impulsivity (Holtzman, 1950; Gardner, 1951; Verrill, 1958). Other studies have used groups, sometimes matched groups, of assaultive and nonassaultive patients and found results generally supportive of the idea that the more assaultive patients would be characterized by greater reactivity to color on the Rorschach (Storment and Finney, 1953; Misch, 1954; Finney, 1955; Townsend, 1967). Finally, Gill (1966) found that delay of response in a problem-solving task was related to use of form-color on the Rorschach in a group of undergraduates. Lack of delay was associated with more color-form and color-only responses. Other work has been done comparing use of color on the Rorschach to self-descriptive statements. For example, Clark (1948) compared MMPI scale scores for college students dividing into high and low sum color groups based on the Rorschach. The high sum color group was higher on all scales except the L, F (two "lie" or "faking" scales), and depression scales. An item analysis, validated
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on a second population, indicated that high sum color correlated with affirmation of items indicating uninhibited social behavior. Bills (1954) found his low sum color group to have significantly higher discrepancy scores between self and ideal self than did his high sum color group, an indication that low reactivity to color on the Rorschach is associated with low self-esteem. The literature surveyed shows that a connection exists between impulsivity and use of color on the Rorschach. There is some indicaiton that depression is associated with low reactivity to color. The problem of measuring impulsivity could be approached from a different angle. Theoretically, a characteristic emphasis on doing things and avoidance of inhibition of action could result in a pattern of cognitive functioning which, on tests like the Wechsler Intelligence Scales (Wechsler, 1955, 1949), might be characterized by a proportionately higher performance IQ and lower verbal IQ. Wechsler (1944), in fact, states that the most outstanding single feature of the adolescent psychopath's test pattern is his systematically higher performance score as compared to his verbal score. Studies testing this hypothesis generally has yielded mixed results. Fisher (1961)found that a large number of the incarcerated adolescent males he tested had performance IQ over verbal IQ and that the proportion of cases of performance over verbal IQ was much higher than it was in Wechsler's standardization population. Wiens et al. (1959) found similar results with a sample of adult and adolescent sex offenders. However, Vane and Eisen (1954) found no differences in the proportion of delinquent and nondelinquent subjects whose performance IQ was greater than verbal IQ. Glueck and Glueck (1950) found that both working class delinquents and working class nondelinquents had higher performance as contrasted to verbal IQ, with the delinquents' discrepancy being only slightly higher. Methodological questions raised by these studies will be taken up later in this paper.
HYPOTHESES
The hypotheses suggested above are as follows: 1. There will be an association between various measures of impulsiveness, particularly meausres of reactivity to color, and a measure of performance IQ-verbal IQ discrepancy. 2. There will be an association between measures of impulsiveness and extent of self-perceived impulsiveness. 3. There will be an association between the measures of impulsiveness, including self-perceived impulsiveness, and extent o(prior involvement with delinquent behavior.
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The Sample The sample studied consists of the first 25 consecutively admitted patients to the Michael Reese Unit of the Illinois State Psychiatric Institute. The Illinois State Psychiatric Institute is a 200-bed state hospital devoted to training, research, and service. The Michael Reese Unit (8 West) is a 10-bed research and treatment ward providing psychiatric, psychological, medical nursing, social services, activity therapy, school, and vocational counseling to hospitalized delinquents. The unit serves not only as the site of the research project but also as testing ground for developing model methods of treatment intervention. Patients accepted are both male and female, 13 to 17 years of age, who are not psychotic, not mentally retarded, and not brain damaged. Our definition of delinquency is violation of the law, whether or not known to authorities, and includes theft, assault, vandalism, sexual promiscuity, runaway, truancy, and drug abuse. Most of our patients have had contact with the police, and many have already been held at detention centers, or are on probation. They come from both intact and disrupted families. Their behavior must be severe enough to necessitate hospitalization or institutionalization. Our sample consisted of 12 girls and 13 boys, 7 blacks and 18 whites, with a median age of 1589years and a median socioeconomic status of "4" on the Hollingshead and Redlich scale of father's occuaption where "1" is the highest level and "7" is the lowest level (Hollingshead and Redlich, 1958). The Instruments Rorschach Measures During the first week of hospitalization the Rorschach and Wechsler Intelligence tests are routinely administered to all patients admitted to the Michael Reese Unit. The Rorschach was administered and scored according to Beck (1961). Three indices of reactivity to color were chosen. 1. Sum color divided by the total number of responses (sum color percent). 2. The affective ratio (defined above). 3. The average time for first response for color cards subtracted from the average time for first response for noncolor cards divided by the average time for first response for all cards taken together (called the "time for first response measure" in this paper). Sum color percent was selected instead of sum color alone to compensate for an effect due to productivity. Sum color alone usually represents not only reactivity to color but also general productivity on the test, a variable which the
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total number of responses represents. Since the relationship between sum color and total number of responses tends to be linear (Fiske and Baughman, 1965), dividing by total number of responses is justified. Then again, sum color percent was chosen instead of the form-color to color-form plus color only ratio favored by some other investigators because we are studying reactivity to color per se here and not strictly tendency to react to color while using delay of response which using proportionately more form-color than color-form and color only would represent. The reason only one of these indices was chosen was to cut down on the number of hypotheses, thus narrowing the possibility that by conducting a large number of correlations a few would be significant by chance alone. On the other hand, two measures of reactivity to color were included which do not depend on verbal report of use of color. The two nonverbal measures are the affective ratio and the time for first response measure. The affective ratio is studied because of the notion that greater reactivity to color will result in proportionately more responses given to the all-color cards. The time for first response measure is based on the assumption that greater reactivity to color will correlate with quicker response time to the color cards. Nonverbal indices are included to try to eliminate the possible effect of motivation and ability to verbalize use of color as a factor in the measurement of reactivity to color.
Wechsler Measure The Wechsler was scored in the standard way (Wechsler, 1955, 1949) and performance-verbal discrepancies expressed as a percentage of total score to allow for the possibility that, say, a 10-point discrepancy means more with a total IQ of 80 than with a total IQ of 120.
Self-Perceived Impulsiveness Most likely a subject would have a great deal of difficulty in assessing the degree to which he is "impulsive if he were simply asked how "impulsive" he is. On the other hand, it is quite possible that a subject might know whether or not he "loses his head" easily, or whether he keeps "an even temper most of the time." The willingness and ability of adolescents to reveal themselves to be more or less psychologically normal or abnormal in various areas have been demonstrated by Offer (1969) and Offer and Howard (1972), using a structured Self-Image Questionnaire (SIQ). One of the subscales of the SIQ investigated by Offer measures impulse control by asking the subject to rate himself on a scale from 1 to 6 as to the degree to which a set of statements such as "I lose my head easily" do or do not apply to him. The statements are all specific and easily understood, enough to allow an adolescent to judge accurately their applicability to him. These 10 statements are scattered among 120 other statements, similar in form, which tap other areas of the adolescents' functioning, such as "Social
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Relationships." Links between Rorschach-Wechsler measures of impulsivity and self-perceived impulsivity on the basis of the Self-Image Questionnaire would provide evidence that the Rorschach-Wechsler measures do indeed have some connection with the psychological concept "impulsivity"; this finding would be reinforced if the Rorschach-Wechsler measures were, in addition, found to be correlated only with the impulsivity subscale and not with other subscales of the Self-Image Questionnaire or with the Self-Image Questionnaire total score. The Self-Image Questionnaire was scored as outlined in Offer's (1971) manual.
Self-Report of Delinquent Behavior Measuring extent of delinquency has always been a problem. Official statistics are an especially poor source of data because of known biases in the determination of whether or not a given antisocial act is ever officially recorded. For example, Short and Nye (1957) point out that lower class adolescents and youth from broken homes are over-represented at every stage of correctional process. Whereas, according to official statistics, the incidence of delinquents from lower classes and broken homes is proportionately very high, self-reported delinquent behavior revealed few significant differences in the incidence of such behavior. Similarly, Arnold (1971) has statistically shown independent effects of race, parents' marital status, and delinquency rate of census tract wherein an offender lives on whether a case ever comes to court and on the judge's disposition if it does come to court. Therefore, Short and Nye (1957) recommended as a means of correcting for the biases described above the use of self-reported behavior as a measure of extent of delinquency. An instrument called the "Delinquency Check List" (DLC), which measures extent of delinquency by use of self-reported behavior with demonstrated validity, has been developed by Kulik et al. (1968) and is used for that purPose in this paper. The Delinquency Check List was scored as follows: Each item is a rule that the subjects scored on a scale from 0 to 4 as having been more or less frequently broken by them (zero means never broken); total score for each subject is the sum of scale values checked for each item. The Delinquency Check List and the Self-Image Questionnaire are administered as part of a prehospitalization screening process to all prospective patients. It will be noted that all proposed indices of impulsivity measure a subject's own differential performance s o that we always compare variations within each subject's performance to variations in Other subject's performance and never compare raw scores. There is no suggestion, however, that any of these indices are perfect measures of impulsivity; other factors on the cards besides color, e.g., shape of a particular blot, can affect number of responses or time for first response; the relationship with the examiner, moreover, could easily affect motivation and hence sum color. In an attempt to minimize chance factors, two crude total indices of impulsivity were constructed. The first was a "color
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index" consisting, for each subject, of the sum of his ranks on each of the three indices of reactivity to color described above. The second, called the "impulsivity index," is made up of the sum of ranks on the three color indices plus rank on the performance verbal IQ index. The hypotheses were tested by the Spearman rank correlation coefficient; significance was tested by means o f the appropriate one- or two-tailed t-test (Siegel, 1956). Rank order correlation was chosen to avoid assumptions o f normality of distribution which are quite tenuous when dealing with Rorschach statistics. A finding is reported as significant if the hypotheses can be accepted at the 0.05 level or better. In addition to the hypotheses described above, the hypothesis that three measures of reactivity to color would correlate significantly with each other was tested.
RESULTS
I. Though all in the right direction, the color indices did not correlate significantly with each other. 2. There is a significant correlation between performance IQ-verbal IQ discrepancy and the color index (0.05 level) (see Table I). There is a significant correlation between performance IQ-verbal IQ discrepancy and time for first response measure (0.01 level) but not between performance IQ-verbal IQ discrepancy and affective ratio or sum color percent. 3. There is a significant correlation between the impulsivity index and the impulsivitY scale of Offer' s Self-Image Questionnaire (0.01 level). The impulsivity index does not correlate significantly with any other subscale of the SIQ
Table I. Correlation of Performance IQ-Verbal IQ Discrepancy on the Wechsler with Three Measures of Reactivity tO Color on the Rorschach and a Color Index, an Overall Index of Reactivity to Color on the Rorschach
Performance IQverbal IQ h discrepancy u
Color index a
Time for first respogse measure
Affect~ve ratio
Sum color. percent t~
-0"35c
0"49d
0.13
0.11
aHigher score means less impulsivity. bHigher score means more impulsivity. CSignificant at 0.01 level. dsignificant at 0.05 level.
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Ostrov, Offer, Marohn, and Rosenwein Table II. Correlation of an Impulsivity Index Composed of Performance IQ-Verbal IQ Discrepancy and Three Measures of Reactivity to Color on the Rorschach with Self-Perceived Impulsiveness as Measured by the Impulse-Control Subscale of Offer's Self-Image Questionnaire and with the Total Score on Offer's Self-Image Questionnaire Impulse-control Total score subscale of Self- , on Self-Image Image Questionnairea'~ Questionnairea Impulsivittrv indexu
Components of the impulsivity index
-0.40 c
-0.19
Performance IQverbal IQ discrepancyb
0.18
0.28
Time for first response measure b
0.44 c
0.25
Affective ratiob
0.02
-0.08
Sum color percentb
0.17
-0.01
aThese correlations based on an N of 24 since the Self-Image Questionnaire of one subject contained too much missing data to be valid; the test of significance was also based on an N of 24. bHigher score means more impulsivity. CSignificant at 0.05 level. dHigher score means less impulsivity. or with the SIQ total score (see Table II). There is also a significant correlation between the color index and the Self-Image Questionnaire impulsivity scale (0.05 level). Of the three color indices individually, only the time for first response measure reaches significance (0.01 level) when correlated with the Self-Image Questionnaire impulsivity scale, though the correlation with all three measures is in the right direction. The performance IQ-verbal IQ discrepancy is not significantly associated with the Self-Image Questionnaire impulsivity measure. Again it should be noted that all correlations are in the right direction though the correlation of the Self-Image Questionnaire impulsivity index with the affective ratio is nearly zero. 4. J:he correlation b e t w e e n the impulsivity i n d e x and the Delinquency Check L i s t j s significant (0.05 level) as is the correlation between t h e Self-Image Questionnaire impulsivity measure and the Delinquency Check List (0.01 level). The color index also correlates significantly with the Delinquency Check List (0.05 level). It is clear, however, that m o s t % f the variance in the Delinquency Check List score accounted for b y the color index is due to the sum color percent score which correlates signficantly with the Delinquency Check List while the affective ratio and time for first response scores do not. The
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189
Table III. (a) Correlation of an Impulsivity Index Composed of Performance IQ-Verbal IQ Discrepancy and Three Measures of Reactivity to Color on the Rorschach with SelfReport of Extent of Delinquent Behavior on a Delinquency Check List; (b) Correlation of Self-Perceived Impulsiveness as Measured by the Impulse-Control Subscale of Offer's SelfImage Questionnaire with Self-Report of Extent of Delinquent Behavior on a Delinquency Check List Delinquency Check List score a
Impulsivity indexe
Components of the impulsivity index
-0.34 b
Performance IQverbal IQ discrepancy/
0.12
Time for first response measurer
0.15
Affective ratiof
0.17
Sum color percentf
0.39 b
Impulse-control subscale of Self-Image Questionnaired,f
0.50 c
score means more delinquency. ~Higher Significant at 0.05 level t~ignificant at 0.01 level. These correlations based on an N of 24. Higher score means less impulsivity. igher score means more impulsivity. performance IQ-verbal IQ discrepancy score also does not correlate significantly with the Delinquency Check List Score. However, again, all correlations are in the right direction (see Table III).
DISCUSSION There was some success in obtaining objective measures of the degree of impulsivity of our subjects by quantifying their reactivity to color on the Rorschach and measuring the discrepancy between their performance and verbal IQs on the Wechsler Scales. All the major hypotheses concerning the composite indices of reactivity to color and overall impulsivity were confirmed: The color
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index correlated significantly with performance-verbal IQ discrepancy; the impulsiTity index correlated significantly with the impulse control subscale of the Self-Image Questionnaire and with extent of delinquency as measured by the Delinquency Check List. Most impressively the impulsivity index correlated significantly only with the impulse control subscale and not with any of the other nine subscales of the Self-Image Questionnaire or with the Self-Image Questionnaire total score. The tentativeness of our measures, however, is indicated by the fact that none of the three indices of reactivity to color significantly correlate with one another. Only one of these measures (the time for first response measure) correlated significantly with the performance-verbal IQ discrepancy measure. The lack of correlation between the various components of the impulsivity index may mean that the concept "impulsivity" is more complex than we allowed for and that the various component measures are tapping different aspects of impulsivity. Moreover, it is possible than many extraneous factors besides impulsivity contribute to the variance of each of these component measures. It will be a statistical and empirical problem to isolate and tease out the influence of these extraneous factors in order to obtain more precise and clinically useful measures of impulsivity. Our positive results contrast with the lack of difference in reactivity to color on the Rorschach between delinquent and nondelinquent groups reported by the investigators such as Lindner (1943) and Schachtel (1950). Lindner and Schachtel used matched groups of delinquents and nondelinquents, whereas we compared institutionalized delinquents andnondelinquents, whereas we compared institutionalized delinquents to one another. This difference in methodology could account for some differences in results: Schmidl (1947) suggested that averaging results for delinquents a s if they were a homogeneous group psychologically is an error. The main task, Schmidl says, is to distinguish different types of personality among those susceptible to delinquency. Averaging results from a delinquent group actually consisting of different subgroupings psychologically and comparing averages to a nondelinquent group could obscure valid differences within the delinquent group and contribute to the varied findings described above. In our larger research project, of which the work presented here on impulsivity is a part, we are studying the hypotheses that there are two major classes of delinquents: delinquents whose behavior results from an underlying depression, and delinquents whose behavior is caused by an underlying character disorder. Without going into details about proposed differences in psychological functioning between these two classes of delinquents, we would suggest that averaging results from these two groups could obscure important differences between the groups and between delinquents and normal adolescents. It is also possible that failure to take socioeconomic status into account
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has added to the confusion. There are indications in the literature that lower socioeconomic groupings tend to give Rorschach records with, e.g,, fewer color responses (Riessman and Miller, 1958). It is possible that motivation and ability to put into words the fact that color influences a percept is relatively lacking among lower class subjects. If verbal report of the use of color on the Rorschach is relied on in measuring impulsivity, then differences in impulsivity could be obscured in some cases. For example, in the Gluecks' study, Schachtel pointed out the difficulty of using color as a criterion for distinguishing delinquent and nondelinquent Rorschach records since all the lower class subjects used tended to give records with little or no reported use of color (Schachtel, 1950). In this study, on the other hand, two nonverbal measures of reactivity to color were included, one of which, the time for first response measure, provided most of the basis for the significant correlations between reactivity to color and performance IQ-verbal IQ discrepancy and with self-perceived lack of impulse control. Studies of performance IQ versus verbal IQ in delinquent and nondelinquent groups were seen above to yield contradictory results. The criticism that averaging all delinquents together and comparing them to a nondelinquent group may obscure differences between delinquent subtypes applies here as well: Evidence supportive of the idea that delinquents vary greatly among themselves with respect to relative strength of verbal a n d performance intelligence is provided by Foster (1959). He found that as a whole there was no significant difference between the verbal and performance IQs of his delinquent subjects. But Foster also found that in his delinquent sample the correlation between performance and verbal IQ was rather low, with the performance score of several subjects being considerably larger than the verbal score while, for other subjects, the reverse was true. The Gluecks found that on all verbal tests the delinquents showed significantly more variability in their test performance than did nondelinquents. Moreover, failure to take account of socioeconomic considerations could be a source of error in studies of performance IQ-verbal IQ discrepancy. As in the case of reported use of color on the Rorschach, a social class tendency toward higher performance over verbal IQ could obscure a similar tendency due to impulsivity: Thus, Vane and Eisen's (1954) finding of no differences in proportion of delinquent and nondelinquent girls whose performance IQ was greater than verbal IQ must be seen in the light of their sample consisting only of working class girls and young women. On the other hand, the positive results of Wiens et al. (1959) and others can be criticized in that delinquents were compared to Wechsler's standardization groups. Bernstein and Corsini (1953) point out that Wechsler's sample was not representative since Wechsler tested only school-going youth from New York City. In general, it is not clear that Wechsler's standardization groups are appropriate controls for studies of intellectual functioning of unmatched experimental groups.
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The possibility that the significant correlations found in this paper are artifacts of extraneous correlations must be considered. The sample studied here is heterogeneous with respect to age, sex, race, and socioeconomic status. It is possible that, e.g., socioeconomic status factors are responsible for the variance in both impulsivity scores and, say, Delinquency Check List scores, s Correlations between Delinquency Check List and impulsivity scores could, then, be artifacts of more direct and meaningful correlations between socioeconomic status and the Delinquency Check List, on the one hand, and socioeconomic status and impulsivity scores on the other. In other words, impulsivity as an intervening psychological variable might not be necessary to explain the correlations found. One point of investigation would be to see if age, sex, race, or socioeconomic status correlate significantly with the various measures of impulsivity or the Delinquency Check List. The results are as follows: Race and sex do not correlate significantly with the color index, impulsivity index, Self-Image Questionnaire impulsivity, or the Delinquency Check List. Age correlates significantly only with the Delinquency Check List (using one-tailed t-test) (see Table IV): As we might expect, the older delinquents have higher Delinquency Check List scores. We expect this since older delinquents have had more time to engage in more delinquent acts. We would, however, expect older delinquents to be less impulsive and indeed this is the tendency for the impulsivity index. Note that the tendency for older delinquents to have higher Delinquency Check List scores and less impulsivity actually worked against the correlation found between the impulsivity index and Delinquency Check List. Socioeconomic status, as we expected, turns out to be very important (see Table IV). Socioeconomic status is significantly related to the color index, impulsivity index, and Delinquency Check List and approaches significant correlation with the Self-Image Questionnaire measure of impulsivity (using one-tailed t-test; results are n o t significant if two-tailed tests are used). Moreover, the effect is consistent with the various correlations found: higher socioeconomic status goes with more impulsivity, and higher Delinquency Check List scores. We now have two choices: Either we can conclude that higher socioeconomic status is indeed associated with greater impulsivity in this sample or we can surmise that there are other causal connections between impulsivity scores, Delinquency Check List scores, and socioeconomic status. It is possible that the youths in this sample from higher social classes are indeed more impulsive and delinquent than their lower class counterparts. SWe are aware of the literature concerning some of the proposed biological determinants of juvenile delinquency. All our subjects have routine electroencephalogram, chromosomal analyses, and neurological examinations. Only two of the 25 subjects had abnormal EEGs. Of the two subjects, one is more impulsive than the mean and one is less impulsive. Only one chromosomal analysis was abnormal, fracturing, probably due to use of LSD. All neurological examinations were within normal limits.
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Table IV. Correlation Between Age of Subject and Socioeconomic Status of Subject (Hollingshead and Redlich, 1958) with: (a) an Impulsivity Index Composed of Performance IQ-Verbal IQ Discrepancy and Three Measures of Reactivity to Color on the Rorschach; (b)Self-Perceived Impulsiveness as Measured by the Impulse-Control Subscale of Offer's Self-Image Questionnaire; and (c) Self-Report of Extent of Delinquent Behavior on a Delinquency Check Liste Impulsivity indexd
Impulse-control subscale of SelfImage Questionnaireb
Delinquency Check List scorec
Age of subjectg
0.25
0108
0.36 d
Socioeconomic statusJ
0.38 d
-0.30
-0.37 d
score means less impulsivity. ~Higher Higher score means more impulsivity. t~Iigherscore means more delinquency. Significant at 0.05 level (one-tailed t-test). r None of these correlanons are slgmficant by two-tailed t-test. J Higher score means lower socioeconomic status. gHigher score means older in years. e
,
,
.
Delinquency can result from social or psychological influences, or both, in various combinations. When social incentives to delinquency are low, as they might be in in middle or upper class homes and neighborhoods, psychological causes may have to be strong to produce a pattern of delinquent behavior. On the other hand, when social incentives to delinquency are high, as they might be in lower class homes and neighborhoods, delinquents might be found who are essentially psychologically normal. In a sample such as ours, therefore, delinquents from higher social classes could be more impulsive than delinquents from lower social classes. There is evidence that youths f r o m m o r e privileged social backgrounds are less likely than less privileged youths to become part of the correctional system for the same offenses (Arnold, 1971). Since most of our referrals come through the court or in the shadow of threatened or actual serious legal involvement, we might have been able to predict that the youths from higher social class would have higher Delinquency Check List scores and perhaps consequently also be more impulsive. On the other hand, we might consider the possibility that youths of higher social class are more verbal and develop more rapport with the middle class examiner, and, therefore, are able to report increased use of color on the Rorschach and tend to report more delinquency and more impulsivity on the Delinquency Check List and Self-Image Questionnaire, respectively. This
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Ostrov, Offer, Marohn, and Rosenwein
explanation gains some support from the fact that sum color percent, a verbal measure described as characteristically lower for lower class subjects, is more highly correlated with social class and the Delinquency Check List score than are the two nonverbal measures. However, this explanation cannot account for the fact that on the Self-Image Questionnaire, the higher social class youths look significantly more pathological only on the impulsivity subscale and, in fact, look less pathological on several of the other subscales, particularly "Body and Self-Image." Nor can this explanation explain the fact that the performance IQ-verbal IQ discrepancy measure, a measure which should tend to decrease with higher socioeconomic status, correlates significantly and positively with the time for first response measure. If socioeconomic status were the source of all the associations in these data, we might expect a negative association between the performance IQ-verbal IQ measure and the reactivity to color indices (see Table III). In addition, the evidence that the Self-Image Questionnaire measure of impulse control is most highly correlated with the time for first response measure, a nonverbal index, tends to controvert the notion that socioeconomic factors alone can account for the correlations presented here.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS In a sample as small as ours, it is difficult to test conclusively, apart from social class factors, the hypotheses that impulsivity can be measured by reactivity to color on the Rorschach, or performance IQ-verbal IQ discrepancy. However, we have presented evidence to demonstrate the usefulness of constructing an impulsivity index. We have also demonstrated that impulsivity does play a significant role in the causation of delinquency and the further possibility that delinquents from higher socioeconomic levels may tend to be more impulsive than delinquents from lower socioeconomic levels. Further exploration of these hypotheses are indicated using larger and more homogeneous samples.
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