ABSTRACT
Psychologists have long recognized the importance of individual differences in the range and contents of experience. Psychologists have performed a host of studies inspired by concepts bearing in some way on the openness or restriction of experience—for example perceptual defense, complexity, and tolerance of ambiguity. This chapter describes relationships among the three tests—the Experience Inventory, Early Memories, and the Activity Checklist—and their relationships to other measures were examined for the 361 subjects who took the entire battery. E. T. Fitzgerald’s questionnaire served as a starting point, but it seemed desirable to broaden the scope of item content to embrace experiences not particularly regressive in nature. One further test was added to the battery to provide information pertaining to the scope of experience. Sigmund Freud obviously saw value in the broadening of awareness, for most of his therapeutic endeavors were directed toward an undoing or circumventing of repression.
