Master's Theses

Document Type

Thesis - campus only access

Date of Award

Summer 1976

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Psychology

Advisor

Myron Boor

Abstract

This study was a factor analytic exploration of responses of psychiatric inpatients to five samples of items taken from a 177-Item Fear Survey Schedule developed by compiling items from all existing fear inventories. The 177-Item FSS was administered to 140 males and 117 females who were patients at Larned State Hospital, Larned, Kansas, and Hastings Regional Center, Hastings, Nebraska. Responses to the five samples of items were factor analyzed, separately by sex, using the Alpha factoring technique, a method that may be better suited to the refinement of fear inventories and one that has not been used in previously reported factor analyses of fear surveys. Fourteen to 16 factors emerged from the Alpha factor analysis of each sample of items. One factor emerged from each analysis that accounted a large percentage of the common variance, with the remaining factors in each analysis accounting for much smaller percentages of variance. The most frequently occurring factors that emerged from the analyses reflected fears of death, social disapproval, and injury. The factors were very similar to the factors that emerged from previously reported studies using student populations, smaller clinical populations, different fear surveys, and factoring methods other than Alpha. Suggestions for future work with fear surveys were made, including the development of fear profiles based on factors that have emerged from factor analytic studies that tap various fear dimensions.

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Rights

© 1976 Rex Rosenberg

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