Response patterns in a continuous word association task

Abstract

Forty male college students participated in a study to clarify response patterns in a continuous word association task on the assumption that response pattern may be related to one's "complex"(Jung, 1973). Each subject was asked to produce 10 “response” words to each of 17 "stimulus" words, 10 of whichwere "complexrelated" (C-words), seven of which were "neutral" (Nwords). These stimulus words were selected from the set of 100 words comprisingthe VAT pertaining to the "complex indicator" (Jung, 1973). The results were as follows: (1) emotionally positive and negative responses were given more frequently to C-words than to N-words; (2) subjects became more emotionally unstable to C-words than to N-words; (3) the word “man” was given more often as a response to C-words than to N-words and was often the first response word givens Overall, it was revealed that the continuous word association task is a useful device for investigating associative response patterns, especially the objective characteristics of them. © 1986, The Japanese Psychological Association. All rights reserved.