Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T10:07:08.472Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Personal Relevance and the Choice of Constructs for the Repertory Grid Technique

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

T. M. Caine  and
D. J. Smail
T. M. Caine
Affiliation:
Claybury Hospital, Woodford Bridge, Essex
D. J. Smail
Affiliation:
Claybury Hospital, Woodford Bridge, Essex
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

A number of studies have shown with psychological testing that the form a particular response takes will depend on the personal relevance to the subject of the stimulus, and that the more personally relevant the stimulus the less the effects of other response determinants. For example, Dahlstrom (1962) has listed six “contextual” and five “mediating” variables which he feels account for responses to such test items as those composing the M.M.P.I. These variables include the experimental setting, the examiner and the specific test items (contextual variables), and the veridical facts, personality styles, test instructions (mediating variables). Similar arguments have been advanced with regard to projective testing by Hutt (1951, 1954) and Wertheimer (1957), among others. Caine (1967) has shown that response suppression operates in a sentence building test only when the test material is of limited personal significance to the subject, and that the consistency of response between different testing levels along the overt/covert dimension pertains only when the stimulus material is of psycho-pathological significance. With the T.A.T., Smail (1966) has argued that if meaningful results are to be obtained responses must be interpreted in the light of the patient's particular situation much more than is the general practice, and that responses which are clinically typical of a given diagnostic group may only appear where the stimulus card accurately reflects the situation in which the patient finds himself.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 113 , Issue 498 , May 1967 , pp. 517 - 520
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1967 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bannister, D. (1963). “The genesis of schizophrenic thought disorder: a serial invalidation hypothesis.” Brit. J. Psychiat., 109, 680–686.Google Scholar
Bannister, D. (1965). “The genesis of schizophrenic thought disorder: re-test of the serial invalidation hypothesis.” Ibid., 111, 377–382.Google ScholarPubMed
Bannister, D., and Fransella, F. (1966). “A grid test of schizophrenic thought disorder.” Brit. J. soc. clin. Psychol., 5, 95–102.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Caine, T. M. (1967). “Perceptual sensitization, response suppression and psychopathology.” Brit. J. Psychol. (in press).Google Scholar
Caine, T. M. (1967). “Response consistency and testing levels.” Brit. J. soc. clin. Psychol. (in press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cromwell, R. L., and Caldwell, D. F. (1962). “A comparison of ratings based on personal constructs of self and others.” J. clin. Psychol., 18, 43–46.Google Scholar
Dahlstrom, W. G. (1962). “Commentary: the roles of social desirability and acquiescence in responses to the M.M.P.I.” In: Messick, S., and Ross, J. (eds.) Measurement in Personality and Cognition. New York and London: Wiley, 157–168.Google Scholar
Foulds, G. A. (1965). Personality and Personal Illness. London: Tavistock, 100–132.Google Scholar
Hutt, M. L. (1951). “The assessment of individual personality by projective tests: current problems.” J. proj. Tech., 15, 388–393.Google Scholar
Hutt, M. L. (1954). “Towards an understanding of projective testing.” Ibid., 18, 197–201.Google Scholar
Isaacson, G. S., and Landfield, A. W. (1965). “The meaningfulness of personal and common constructs.” J. indiv. Psychol., 21, 160–166.Google Scholar
Kelly, G. A. (1955). The Theory of Personal Constructs. I. New York: W. W. Norton & Co.Google Scholar
Landfield, A. W. (1965). “Meaningfulness of ideal, self and other on client and therapist constructs.” Psychol. Reports, 16, 605–608.Google Scholar
Smail, D. J. (1966). “A multiple-choice version of the TAT as a measure of aggression in psychiatric patients.” Brit. J. med. Psychol., 39, 163–169.Google Scholar
Wertheimer, M. (1957). “Perception and the Rorschach.” J. proj. Tech., 21, 209–216.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.