Spinster Emotions

Desiring to probe scientifically into the emotional susceptibilities of unmarried women. Psychologist Raymond Royce Willoughby of Brown University decided that the best way to get information was to ask questions. He made up a list of 40 queries, 25 from the Thurstone Personality Schedule, seven from the Root introversion scale, eight added by Willoughby. Samples: "Are you self-conscious in the presence of superiors?" "At a reception do you avoid meeting the important person present?" "Are you afraid of falling when you are on a high place?" "When on vacation do you enjoy yourself better in a quiet place?" The questionnaire was presented to more than 500 single women aged 15 to 75. Last week Dr. Willoughby set forth his findings in Character & Personality, a psychological quarterly published by Duke University Press.

When the results were incorporated in a graph showing the relation of spinster emotionality to age, the line rose from a low level at the tender age of 15 to a peak at 25. This was followed by a shallow dip at age 30 and another peak at 35. Then came a dip of placidity, with its lowest point at age 45, then a climb reaching the highest peak of all at 60. Author's explanation : "We may perhaps think of the two rises in the curve as associated respectively with increasing tension from the life-problems of sexual adjustment and adjustments to old age, while the low level in middle life would reflect lessening of sexual tensions, relative remoteness of sexual possibilities, maximum earning power, and relative remoteness of in, capacitating age."

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