The Japanese Journal of Criminal Psychology

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The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship between delinquents’ problems and their cognition of characters in “THE SPIDER WEB” , which is a story written by R. Akutagawa. The delinquent was asked to compare “Kandata” and “Buddha” , being the characters in the story, to himself and his environment. The aim was to elucidate how to recognize the two characters and also how to identify himself with the two characters. His own image was supposed to be projected on “Kandata” and the image of authorities was on “Buddha” . Consequently, according to the cognitive balance of the tripartite relation among “Kandata” , “Buddha” and himself as reader, the responses were marked expediently and the delinquents were classified into some groups. On the other hand, delinquents’ problems were the result of the classification, that of the trial, the prognosis, the personality trait and so on.

The results were obtained as follows: (1) The delinquent who was positive and ego-alien to “Kandata” tended to overestimate his ability and have higher risk of reentrance to the Classification Home. (2) That who was negative and ego-syntonic to “Kandata” objectified himself and had a great potential for re-adapting himself to the circumstance. (3)That who was negative and ego-alien to “Kandata” was trouble because he lacked ability for reflecting on himself and examining the matter closely. (4) Attributing to the external, that who was negative to “Buddha” couldn’t be reassured for his prognosis, (5) Especially for that who was negative to both “Kandata” and “Buddha” , it was difficult to internalize what educators taught.

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