A NOTE CONCERNING THE MATCHED GROUP DESIGN

Despite its strong logical and technical appeal, the employment of the matched group design in applied psychological research has been restricted by practical problems associated with its use. A procedure which circumvents several of the problems of conventional matching was described. Basically, the procedure involves pairing of subjects from two or more treatment pools after the completion of training or other treatment, but without knowledge of the performance of the subjects. Three empirical tryouts of the procedure were summarized. The procedure worked quite well when only two groups were involved and was fairly satisfactory when applied to four groups. Other experimental designs may be better when more than two groups are involved. It was concluded that matching from treatment pools after differential treatment of the pools warrants more extensive use in applied psychological research than it has been accorded in the past.     

TWO PSYCHOTIC PLAYWRIGHTS AT WORK: THE LATE PLAYS OF AUGUST STRINDBERG AND TENNESSEE WILLIAMS

August Strindberg and Tennessee Williams both became severely deranged during their playwriting careers. Both emerged from the most intense form of their derangement and wrote plays afterward. Strindberg, however, wrote his greatest plays after his psychosis; Williams, before his. Strindberg's psychosis spurred his creativity; that of Williams severely damaged his. This paper proposes that Strindberg mastered his psychosis and that in his late plays he dramatically symbolized psychotic processes. Williams, on the other hand, could neither access nor master his, and his late plays embody the repeated, unsymbolized acting out of his psychosis within an aesthetic context. These differences between the two playwrights become clear not through analysis of dramatic characters, but through changes that each playwright made to the dramatic medium itself.