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A Study of the Reliability and Validity of the Repertory Grid Technique as a Measure of the Hysteroid/Obsessoid Component of Personality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

T. M. Caine
Affiliation:
Claybury Hospital, Woodford Bridge, Woodford Green, Essex
D. J. Smail
Affiliation:
Claybury Hospital, Woodford Bridge, Woodford Green, Essex

Extract

One of the most attractive features of the Repertory Grid Technique from the clinician's point of view is that it provides a quantifiable test of hypotheses concerning data which are not readily measurable by more traditional standardized instruments (such as questionnaires). An example of such a situation as this would be where the psychologist wishes to measure change in a person's construing of his world before and after psychotherapy. This immediately involves, however, questions concerning the “reliability” and “validity” of the particular grid or grids used. How do we know whether reasonably stable psychological processes within the individual are reflected in equally stable mathematical relationships between constructs, and how do we know that we have chosen, or elicited, those constructs which really are most psychologically meaningful to the subject, or indeed psychologically meaningful at all ?

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1969 

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