HUMAN RELATIONS INVENTORY
Author: Raymond E. Bernberg
Publisher: Psychometric Affiliates
Copyright: 1959
Forms: Form A
Age level: grades 9-16; adults
Costs: $2 per 20 tests; $1 per specimen set (including manual)
Description:
The Human Relations Inventory (HRI) is an instrument designed to measure
social conformity as defined by “tendencies of members of a society to manifest
communality of attitudes” in six “determinant areas”: moral values, positive
goals, reality testing, ability to give affection, tension level, and impulsivity.
The test consists of 37 items, each presented as a five-option, multiple-choice
question about the percentage of some group which holds or exercises a certain
belief in one of the determinant areas (e.g., “Social studies reveal what
percentage of young men feel women are inferior or dirty? (a) 10% (b) 20%
(c) 30% (d) 40% (e) 50%). Since there is presumably no foundation in
fact for a choice among possible answers, the tendency of the respondent to
deviate toward one extreme or the other is thought to express a direction
of perception based on his or her need-value system.
Administration, Scoring, and Interpretation:
The HRI can be administered to an individual or group, and can be completed
in approximately 20 min, although no specific time limitations are set.
The respondent circles one of the five responses to each question.
The test can be hand-scored using a key. Each item is weighted according
to its capacity to discriminate between conformity and non-conformity, with
the five possible responses numbered accordingly (i.e., a non-conforming response
to a heavily weighted item is worth 5 points, a non-conforming response to
a more neutral item is worth 2-3 points, and a conforming response is worth
0 points). The numbers recorded for each item are then summed to yield
a total score.
A high score on the HRI is indicative of a non-conforming individual, whereas
a low score suggests conformity. A score can also be compared to one
of seven norm groups given in Table 1 of the manual. Only the 25th,
50th, 75th, and 99th percentile ranks are given, so interpolation may be necessary
to determine an exact percentile rank equivalent of a raw score.
Reliability:
Using the Spearman-Brown prophecy formula, a split-half reliability coefficient
of .77 was found when the HRI was administered to a group of 160 male inmates
at a California youth prison (mean age = 21 yr).
Validity:
Studies have been conducted to establish convergent validity. Comparisons
were made between the mean scores on the HRI of behaviorally defined non-conforming,
standard, and conforming groups. The non-conforming group consisted
of 160 male inmates of a California youth prison, the standard group included
100 high school senior boys (mean age = 18 yr), and the conforming group had
157 regular church goers and 101 police officers. The means of these
groups were as follows: non-conforming = 18.6, standard = 12.5, and conforming
= 11.4. The means were significantly different in the hypothesized direction
(p < .001). Additional norms were established for a standard
group of college students and for non-conforming groups, such as male and
female adult jail inmates and vocational and reform school boys. Again,
differences in the distributions of scores between groups were in the expected
direction, indicating successful cross-validation.
The manual also provides evidence of the HRI’s discriminant validity in
tables showing low correlations with scale scores on the Guilford-Zimmerman
Temperament Survey and MMPI.
The manual states that conformity scores are not significantly influenced
by the intelligence, socioeconomic status, cultural background, age, sex,
or religious affiliation.
Applicability and Evaluation:
The HRI makes use of an interesting method to assess a person’s “need-value
system.” The respondent believes that he or she is estimating percentages
based on actual statistical data when presumably expressing a direction of
perception in choosing between alternatives based on the rationale that he
or she will perceive others to be similar. However, while validation
data suggests that the HRI measures social conformity, at least as behaviorally
defined in terms of typical conforming and non-conforming groups, the lack
of evidence for predictive validity argues against its use as a diagnostic
or screening device. In this regard, the author suggests that the HRI
be used as a research tool or as an indirect measure of attitudes. The
relevance of the six determinant areas is also questionable since no bases
are given for their identification, nor is data provided to support the contention
that they represent distinct areas. In sum, the HRI lacks sufficient
empirical support to warrant its use in any setting, notwithstanding its
creative approach to measuring social conformity.