Responses on the Famous Sayings Test of Professional and Non-Professional Personnel in a Medical Population

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to contribute additional normative data for the Famous Sayings Test to earlier reported findings. The investigation was carried out with physicians before and after training, and nurses before and after training ( N = 101). Results indicated that experienced nurses are highest in Conventional Mores and interns-residents lowest. Fears of Failure data suggests that experienced nurses are significantly lower than student nurses ( p < .01) and staff physicians ( p < .05), but not interns-residents. In contrast, the Hostility scale analyses were non-significant across all groups. Further, while student nurses obtained the highest scores in Social Acquiescence, these findings revealed strong trend differences from earlier student nurse data. Problems in regard to the usefulness of the Famous Sayings Test were discussed.