A Psychological View of the Chronically Unemployed

The purpose of this study was to investigate what differences in motivational and personality dimensions exist between 75 chronically unemployed and 75 stably employed Ss. The chronically unemployed was defined as that person who had had at least six jobs in the last 6 mo. and quit each of them before completion of job assignment. Ss were selected from the files of the Texas Employment Commission, and they were paid $5 apiece for their participation. After the chronically unemployed sample was tested, a stably employed group was selected from industrial files and matched for age (within 5 yr.; Ms = 26 yr., ranges 20-68, 20-62), intelligence (Factor B on the 16 PF; Ms = 6, ranges, 2-4), race, and educational level (within 2 yr.; Ms = 11 yr., ranges, 7-14, 7-12). There were 69 whites and 6 blacks in each group. The tests administered were the Motivational Analysis Test (MAT, Cattell, et dl., 1964) and the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16 PF; Cattell, 1962). The MAT purports to measure expressed and unexpressed motivation in career, parents, pugnacity, fear, self, superego, mating, assertiveness, narcism, and sweetheart-spouse needs. Total scores for motivational and conflict were attainable. The 16 PF purports to measure outgoingness, intelligence, emotionality, assertiveness surgency, superego, venturesomeness, sensitiveness, suspiciousness, autia, shrewdness, apprehensiveness, radicalism, self-sufficiency, self-concept control, and tenseness. Dunn's test (1961) for multiple comparisons' was utilized to test the differences between groups. In order for the null hypothesis to be rejected at the .05 level for any one comparison, this statistic must exceed .05 divided by 50 or .001 region of rejection. The findings indicated that the chronically unemployed showed significantly less assertiveness, less expressed self-sentiment, more career conflict, less total motivation, more total conflict on the MAT, and had less self-concept control, were more emotional and apprehensive on the 16 PF than their employed counterparts. Conclusions suggest that the chronically unemployed Ss were generally unable to assert themselves and psychologically in distress. These dynamics may represent a barrier to functioning on a job

Assertiveness · California Psychological Inventory · Developmental psychology · Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory · Need for achievement · Personality · Test (biology · Clinical Psychology · Employment and Welfare Studies · Psychology · Social Psychology

• Multiple Comparisons among Means

  Olive Jean Dunn•Journal of the American…•1961

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