Comments on an article by P. S. De Q. Cabot regarding adolescent personality and physique. The reviewer contends that this monograph is a notable investigation of Kretschmer's theory of types at the adolescent stage of development. It centers around a group consisting of 9 pyknosomes, 28 leptosomes and 25 athletosomes, selected on the basis of careful estimates of judges from a large male high-school population. A variety of psychological data was obtained concerning each subject from interviews, ratings, and questionnaires; these dealt with such features of personality as cyclothymic and schizothymic pattern, introversion, ascendance, leadership, etc. Contrary to the assertions of Kretschmer, the author finds few significant differances between the personality measures of the leptosome and pyknosome groups. The interesting and novel findings reported by Cabot deserve further investigation. It is concluded that Dr. Cabot's study is notable for the painstaking care with which it was planned and for the caution and fairness revealed in the interpretation of the findings. If this investigation opens many new questions and fails to answer decisively many old questions, the explanation lies clearly in the inherent difficulties within this area of research rather than in easily avoidable obstacles. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)

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