Personality characteristics of accident repeating children.

Abstract

T HE accident proneness hypothesis simply stated is that there is a tendency for certain individuals to have repeated accidents. This was postulated to account for the early discovery that sample populations of adult workers included individuals who had more accidents than could be accounted for by chance alone. More recent findings appear to minimize the importance of the statistical evidence for the accident proneness hypothesis (3).If we are willing to accept Cobb's (3) assignment of the variance in accident distributions to both chance and differential liability factors, however, it follows that certain individuals might be included among the high accident group by chance alone, while others are included because of differential liability. There are indications in the clinical literature to suggest that there are individuals who by virtue of special personal characteristics continue to have repeated accidents (4, 5, 6, 13). It is this writer's suggestion that these are the people whom it is necessary to isolate for adequate validation of the accident proneness hypothesis as a clinical concept. King has pointed out:The test of the hypothesis lies in the success or failure to identify causal physiological or psychological characteristics, or their combination, present in individuals showing a high frequency of accidents, and absent or present to a lesser degree in "accident free" individuals with a comparable background of experience (9, p. 374).The present study was an attempt to validate the accident proneness hypothesis as a 1 This paper is a portion o£ a dissertation submitted to the Department of Psychology of the University of Rochester in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Ph.D. degree. The writer is indebted to Professor G. R. Wendt of the Department of Psychology for advice and assistance throughout the investigation, and to the students, teachers, and principals of the schools in Rochester and Brighton who cooperated to make this study possible. She is also indebted to the Strong Memorial and Municipal Hospital, the Genesee Hospital, the Rochester General Hospital, and the Highland Hospital for the privilege of using their records to select the accident subjects.

Personality characteristics of the child accident repeater

“…Fuller (1948) found the highest injury rate among children reported to be 'insistent and obstinate'; those classified as 'rude' had higher injury rates than children regarded as 'courteous'. Krall (1953), on the basis of two 20 minute doll-play interviews with 32 'accident-prone' and 32 'accident-free' children ages 5-8 years, reported that the 'accident-prone' children revealed more aggression in doll-play and were quicker to express aggression than the 'accident-free' children. She also suggested that the accident repeaters were less readily oriented and demonstrated a higher activity level than the 'accident-free' children.…”

“…With respect to the personality maladjustment, Marcus, Wilson, Kraft, Swander, Southerland, and Schulhofer (1960) compared 23 high-accident children with 22 normally functioning children and found that those in the accident group were rated significantly lower during a psychiatric interview on a 'Total Adjustment Index'; Krall (1953) notes that her 'accident repeaters' were more often known to counselors than their 'accident-free' counterparts.…”

Families of Children with Repeated Accidents

“…By only including children with at least two accidents in the preceding 12 months, a group has been selected with a very high accident rate. Krall (1953), in a group of 5to 8-year-old children, defined her high accident group as those with three or more hospital -attended accidents in a 4-year period. A recent survey of 600 children in Nottingham showed that there was a group that had had 3 or more hospital-attended accidents in a 6-year period.…”

Intactness of the Home and Behavioural Problems in Children

“…A study conducted by the White House Conference of 1934 emphasized the significance ofthe home for personality development ofthe child and the damage resulting from the broken home. The broken home has been shown to be a factor in juvenile delinquency (Glueck and Glueck, 1950;Monahan, 1960), in schizophrenia (Pollack, Malzberg and Fuller, 1939;Hilgard and Newman, 1961), in depression in psychiatric patients (Beck, Sethi and Tuthill, 1963), in mental disturbance among children in lower socio-economic homes (Cobliner, 1963), in accident-proneness in children (Krall, 1953), and in adverse performance on intelligence and personality tests (Altus, 1958;Lcichty, 1960;Stephens, 1961;Maxwell, 1963). However, other studies have found no relationship between broken homes and the factors mentioned above (Burchinal, 1958;Myers and Roberts, 1959;Pitts et al, 1965).…”