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What kinds of thoughts and feelings do “average” people have when they can communicate them in an uninhibited manner in a free association format? Although the free associations of patients undergoing psychoanalysis presumably represent a free flow of ideas and feelings and have been extensively reported, patients' productions in a treatment situation cannot be generalized to the non-patient population. By definition, patients are emotionally disturbed and what they say is for purposes of achieving a therapeutic goal. It is also communicated in the presence of a psychoanalyst, which adds an additional dimension to the communication.
To ask “average” persons to report their free associations would itself involve the variable of the experimenter and the artificiality of the subject being asked to associate for no functional reason other than the needs of the experiment. Public opinion polls, on which is based most of our formal knowledge of what people think, have the inherent disadvantage of eliciting opinions and attitudes only on matters about which questions are asked. Respondents cannot express themselves if they are not asked questions.
This is a report on an attempt to obtainsome clues to the parameters of the thoughts and expressions of the general public in New York City from a non-patient population which is expressing its feelings. It is based on the examination of three