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A Grid Test of Schizophrenic Thought Disorder
Author(s) -
BANNISTER D.,
FRANSELLA FAY
Publication year - 1966
Publication title -
british journal of social and clinical psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.479
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 2044-8260
pISSN - 0007-1293
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8260.1966.tb00961.x
Subject(s) - repertory grid , normative , psychology , construct (python library) , test (biology) , thought disorder , schizophrenia (object oriented programming) , personal construct theory , short forms , grid , cognitive psychology , developmental psychology , clinical psychology , psychiatry , psychosis , social psychology , epistemology , paleontology , philosophy , geometry , mathematics , computer science , biology , programming language
In two previous studies (Bannister, 1960 and 1962) thought disordered schizophrenics were discriminated from normals and other psychiatric groups (including non‐thought disordered schizophrenics) by forms of the repertory grid test. The primary characteristics of thought disordered schizophrenics, in terms of such tests, appear to be their failure to manifest substantial intercorrelations between constructs and their inability to maintain in a second grid the specific pattern of intercorrelations found in the first. In Construct Theory terms (Kelly, 1955; Bannister, 1962 a ) schizophrenics are limited to an overly loose and inconsistent subsystem for construing people, in conventional terms their ideas about people are both poorly related and unstable. The forms of repertory grid test used in the two previous studies are not suitable for clinical purposes in that they are cumbersome and lacking in normative data. The purpose of the present study was to produce a clinically economic and adequately standardised grid test for detecting the presence of schizophrenic thought disorder.