A Comparison of Hippies and College Students with Respect to Beliefs, Attitudes, and Personality
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A comparison of hippies and college students with respect to beliefs, attitudes, and personality Item Type text; Dissertation-Reproduction (electronic) Authors Dobyns, Zipporah Pottenger Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 03/10/2021 22:40:33 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/565180 A COMPARISON OF HIPPIES AND COLLEGE STUDENTS WITH : RESPECT TO BELIEFS, ATTITUDES, AND PERSONALITY by Zipporah Pott enger Dobyns A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY In the Graduate College ■THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA . 1969 ©COPYRIGHTED . BY Zipporah Pottenger Dobyns THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA GRADUATE COLLEGE I hereby recommend that this dissertation prepared under my direction by Pottemger Dobvns ____________________ entitled . A SOKPARISON OF HIPPIES ATO RTTTDmTTA y i m i E S P H O f fO...Bll/IEFS, A g g l f O T l g , A N D P E R S O N AI,T9 T be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement of the degree of DOCTOR OF HgLOiSQFEg ___________ _________________ ’J- (H. Dissertation Director Da After inspection of the final copy of the dissertation, the following members of the Final Examination Committee concur in its approval and recommend its acceptance:* ..A r £ ' L f M / This approval and acceptance is contingent on the candidate8s adequate performance and defense of this dissertation at the final oral examination* The inclusion of this sheet bound into the library copy of the dissertation is evidence of satisfactory performance at the final examination* STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This dissertation has been submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for an advanced degree at The University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library. Brief.quotations from.this dissertation are allow able without special permission, provided that accurate acknowledgment of source is made. ; Requests for permission for; extended quotation from or reproduction of - this manu script in whole dr in part may be granted by the copy right holder. PREFACE A man who says that men are machines may be a gneat Scientist» A 'mnn :whp:says ? he is a machine is . s?depersona 11%ed!) in psychiatric jargon (Laing<>. 1965» p® 1 2). In the scientific view of human behaviors, man is not responsible for his own destiny» The re«= . spons ibility lies in his genetic endowment and his . environmental history9 which are to be found outside man himself® But ® ® e man can and does change his environment ® » ••>' Man can be controlled by the world in which he lives$ but he Himself can control that world (Skinners 1967)V p® 137)® o ® » what being a hippie is really all about is accepting the fact that jousting with the uncon«= querable is futile. and$ instead# going with it, harmonizing with it# becoming part of it® In short* grooving while one can* and straight society's hang™ ups be damned® Wow (Gross# 1968# p® 16?)® Psychedelic drugs seem to me to be a protest against the stupefying effect that our socialization has upon man® Man can dissect nature in order the better.to control it® He can build machines to work for him® He extends his sense organs and muscles with machinery™«-but then loses his capacity to see# hear* smell# and move® All these things are done for him* in the name of efficiency* by the very machines he has created (Jourard# 1967* p® 29)« o ® ® why are drug induced fantasies better than the light of cool reason;.why is sensual over stimulation more worthwhile than the pursuit of rational social ideals (Abelson* 1967* p® 154)? Today's college students are more inhibited* and over-controlled than those of the 1940s and 1950s* says Dr® Douglas H® Heath of Haverford College* Pa® They are1 prematurely serious* pre-maturely committed to some profession or academic major® In addition# many seem to have skipped their adolescence if not their childhood® ® In the intellectualized pursuit of knowledges the cool student of the mid=-196Q?s isolates himself from warm, tender feelings| he feels emotionally bankrupt, says Dr, Heath, Feelings of tenderness, faithfulness or devotion cause him-anxiety, because their expresion raises the spector of sentimentality or the threat of rejection by others his age, » = Y loneliness may be . a strong motive pushing students toward the hippie life (Science Hews, Nov, 16, 196$, p. 497)« We have been led to the discovery of ourselves through the revelation that all the young are our children and thereby our fathers and mothers (sic) we are finally coming to sit at the feet of our .children, and in coming we discover that our humi lity is not a sacrifice but a source of the great soul ecstacy (sic) we have always blindly sought .>; and which we have finally found through the surren der to our collective unconscious, We had not come to be ourselves, thus, until we came to give up trying to give up all, absolutely all, forms of coercion (The Blind Chief, 196$, p, 7)• At times modern man sees himself in the image of a machine, of an electronic computer,.programmed, as it were, by his biological makeup and by his in exorable. phylogenetic past. But at other times he sees himself in the image of God; as the chooser and decision maker, as the programmer of his own brain; as the maker of his destiny. Thus his self- image is shifting and wavering, like a reversible picture in the textbooks, of psychology or a double exposure on a photographic plate, with now one, now the other take gaining the upper hand. It is the picture of man alienated from himself, the play thing of the forces of nature— or else man who has learned to play the game himself— according to rules laid down in his newly discovered theory of games (Ehrenwald, 1966, p, 10), There is a philosophy behind the way of life of each individual and of every relatively homo genous group at any given point in their histories. This gives, with varying degrees of. explicitness or implicitness, some sense of coherence or unity both in cognitive and affective dimensions, » . In the immediate sense, it .is from the life-ways which con stitute the designs for living of their-community or : tribe or region or socio-economic class or nation or civilisation that most individuals derive their mental-feeling outlook (Klnckhotin and Strodtbecks . 1961# p. 2)o Which outlooks or can they be. integrated? Techno crat vs « hippiee Mechanist vs* humanist® Control vs® cooperation® What is man.* and what can he. do» and how may what he believes influence what he is willing to try to do? 1 would like to express my gratitude to the mem bers of my Committee for many helpful suggestions» and to absolve them of any responsibility for the controversial contents of this study® I also want to give heartfelt thanks to the many anonymous informants who answered tedious questionnaires and who permitted me to share their life and their dreams for a little while® Some have become lasting friends* and I hope that all will find their way a little nearer to their vision of a world of beauty* love and peace® TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF TABLES o c o e « •© o o c e-c- o' o « o o o " ix ABSTRACT oooe peeoeooeoo eooooeo "x INTRODUCTION., . i. , , e , V , , " 1 The Continuing Controversy Over "Free Will" vs "Determinism" o o. o o e e e o o c o p e » o o 1 The Importance of Beliefs— -Theory o o o o o © ' S The Importance of Beliefs— Evidenoe. 12 • The Goal of the Present Study o o o o « o e o.o 16 The Choice of Subjects , 00 000009000 16 The.Rise of the Hippies— A Brief Overview IS PROPOSAL AND HYPOTHESES* o o' o o o eoo e © o o o 31 PROCEDURE 0 e ■ e o e . o e o o o e c e c e o o o e e c 34 RESULTS c c o o 42 Information from Participant Observation „ 42 .Haight-Ashbury e o o o © o o © © e o © © © 42 . The Tucson.Tribes © e o o o o e o # e ©os 56 The. New Communities O O « 0 0 9 9 © # © 0 75 Statistics from the Questionnaires o o o o e e 79 The Hippies Speak for'Themselves in the Underground Press 94 DISCUSSION . o 6 0 o o o © o o o o 114 Sources of Hippie Themes in Current Social Science . © o o o o © a p .9 o 9 e © <? o 114. Theory--Philospphy~-Morals © © o _e. o c e o e * .139 CONCLUSION , © © © © © O O © o p o © © © © © © 137 An Attempt at Synthesis» ooeceeeoea© 137 Possible Future Research 0 00 6009 0 0 0 0 193 Possible Outcomes 9900000090 0 0600 195 VX 1 viii : TABLE OF CONTENTS— .Continued Page APPENDIX AS Questionnaires 201 • Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (F) in pocket APPENDIX BS Tables of Data and Probability Levels» . 238 REFERENCES . LIST OF TABLES . Table Page 1. Pearson r for all Subjects . « . „ «»<,.<,• 80 2o Two-Way AnalysIs of Variance on Four Subject . d Groupsi Means and Probability Levels of : F-ratios . V . 90 3 o The Five Value Orientations and the Range of Variations Postulated for Each .