Differences between persons seeking encounter group experiences and others on the Personal Orientation Inventory.

Administered the Personal Orientation Inventory (POI) to 39 male and 40 female undergraduates who participated in encounter groups and 40 male and 44 female undergraduates who declined to participate. Differences discovered were attributable primarily to the more self-actualized nature of the females who sought encounter group experiences. The Sex * Participatory Status interaction was significant for the 2 major POI scales, Time Competent and Inner Directed. Participating females had higher scores on 9 of the 10 minor POI scales, while participating males were lower than each of the other groups on 7 of the scales. It is suggested that females may be more likely to seek novel experiences in a variety of ways and that males may be seeking encounter group experiences because of a deficiency motivation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)