A survey of psychologists' perspectives on catharsis
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Abstract:
A questionnaire assessing endorsement of the hostility catharsis hypothesis was developed and administered to 102 undergraduate students and 131 American and Canadian psychologists (randomly selected from 4 divisions of APA). Results indicated that students scored higher on endorsement of the catharsis hypothesis than did psychologists; females in general scored higher than males; psychologists not recently involved in research scored higher than psychologists who were so involved; and Freudian and Humanistic theorists scored higher than Behavioral theorists.
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