ABSTRACT
One hypothesis which was widely held during the nineteenth century was that psychological shock might be in part responsible for the development of cancers. When cancer patients and non-cancer patients are compared it is more frequently among the former than the latter that some recent event has occurred causing psychological shock to the patient. Taking extraversion first it was found that there were hardly any differences between cancer and control patients when the groups without psychosomatic disorder were compared. Higher extraversion scores of the cancer patients were found in all three age groups but most strongly in the middle one (55-64 years). When we look at the neuroticism scores it is surprising to note that the control group has much higher scores than the cancer group regardless of psychosomatic involvement. Again it is found that the lung cancer patients are very significantly lower on neuroticism scores than are the other patients.
