Research findings on the nature of constructs in schizophrenics

Abstract

Using a personal construct theory approach, Radley (1974) proposes a theoretical view about the nature and genesis of schizophrenic thought disorder. In this study, we replicate some results of previous studies on which Radley relies and we test some implications of his view. A test, consisting of the four possible combinations of elicited and supplied constructs and elicited and supplied elements was administered on a group of schizophrenics, part of them being thought disordered (TD), part of them being not thought disordered (NTD) at the moment of testing and on a matched group of normals. An additional test was administered in order to obtain a maldistribution score. Our findings confirm most of the characteristics of the TD and NTD phase in schizophrenics, as proposed by Radley and they suggest some additions to that view. Moreover, they call for some changes in the scoring system of the Grid Test for Schizophrenic Thought Disorder (Bannister & Fransella, 1967) by using the Element Consistency, Social Agreement and Maldistribution scores and Intensity and Differentiation scores of only the retest.