Psychological Test, Pressey X-O Test (Form B)

Object Details

C. H. Stoelting Company

Description

As an undergraduate at Vassar College, Luella Cole (1893-1970) studied psychology. Sidney Pressey (1888-1979) got his undergraduate degree at Williams College and then was admitted to do graduate work at Harvard. In 1916 and 1917. They met pursuing practical training as interns at Boston Psychopathic Hospital (Cole would be hired as a case worker there). The two married in 1918 and went to Indiana University where Pressey joined the faculty and Cole was a graduate student – she completed her PhD. They would both continue their careers at Ohio State University.

The Presseys published a description of this and other “cross-out” tests in 1919 – this version of the test was copyrighted by C.H. Stoelting Company of Chicago in 1921. It is signed: Kavruck S. (/) Brooklyn Coll (/) 1937 and this copy may date from that time.

The first part of the test consists of groups of five words that are written in a line. In this version of the test, subjects are asked to cross out all the words they considered wrong. Some words are also circled (accounts of the test indicate these were those deemed most wrong, although circling items is not mentioned in the instructions for this example of the test). Two scores were given – the “affectivity,” representing the total number of words crossed out, and the “idiosyncrasy,” the number of circled words that are not the word most commonly circled by those deemed normal.

References:

Petrina, Stephen, “’The Never-To-Be-Forgotten Investigation’: Luella W. Cole, Sidney L. Pressey, and Mental Surveying in Indiana, 1918-1921,” History of Psychology, 2001, 4, pp. 245-271.

Petrina, Stephen. "Luella Cole, Sidney Pressey, and Educational Psychoanalysis, 1921-1931," History of Education Quarterly, 2004, 44 #4, pp, 524-553.

Pressey, S. L., & Pressey, L. W. “'Cross-out' Tests with Suggestions as to a Group Scale of the Emotions; Studies from the Psychological Laboratory of Indiana University,” Journal of Applied Psychology, 1919, 3 #2, pp. 138–150.

Hopkins, Grace C., A Critical Evaluation of Standardized Material on the Measurement of Personality, M.A. Dissertation, University of Arizona, 1943. Hopkins discusses the Personal Data Sheet on pp. 60-64. She also mentions on the following page the Woodworth-Cady version of the data sheet.

Murphy, Gardner, An Historical Introduction to Modern Psychology, Oxford: Taylor & Francis, 1928, p. 379.

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