Delinquency, Personality Tests and Relationships to Measures of Guilt and Adjustment

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Abstract
The validity of personality tests designed by Quay (1966) to differentiate within a heterogeneous delinquent population were evaluated with 115 delinquent adolescents. The personality tests were: the Personal Opinion Inventory based on a self-rated questionnaire; the Case History Scale, based on social history information; and the Behavior Rating Scale, based on ratings of institutional behavior. The results indicate that the Psychopathic and Neurotic factors of the Case History and Behavior Rating Scales have some modest multitrait-multimethod validity. These tests, generally, have more predictive validity than the Personal Opinion Inventory. The Neurotic factors of the three tests were reinterpreted as measuring maladjustment and as being independent of guilt. The Psychopathic factor seems to be related to poor institutional adjustment and aggressive behavior. The Socialized and Immature factors appear to have poor validities.