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The organization of judgements based on positive and negative adjectives in the Bannister‐Fransella Grid Test
Author(s) -
AdamsWebber J.
Publication year - 1977
Publication title -
british journal of medical psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.102
H-Index - 62
eISSN - 2044-8341
pISSN - 0007-1129
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8341.1977.tb02410.x
Subject(s) - psychology , variance (accounting) , test (biology) , schizophrenia (object oriented programming) , cognitive psychology , validation test , developmental psychology , social psychology , clinical psychology , psychometrics , test validity , psychiatry , paleontology , accounting , business , biology
This study compared the level of organization of judgements involving evaluatively positive (E+) adjectives such as kind with that of judgements involving evaluatively negative (E‐) adjectives such as stupid in the Bannister‐Fransella Grid Test. The grids of 275 subjects, including 43 normals, 24 thought‐disordered schizophrenics, 30 non‐thought‐disordered schizophrenics, 50 ‘mixed’ schizophrenics, 18 depressives, 16 neurotics, and 94 undiagnosed new admissions were examined. The organization of judgements based on E‐ adjectives was significantly more random than that of judgements based on E+ ones across all ten groups. These results are inconsistent with the ‘null hypothesis’ that the grids of thought‐disordered schizophrenics contain only random ‘error variance’ since they reveal a source of systematic variation in the grids of thought‐disordered schizophrenics as well as those of other populations. These data were discussed also in relation to the hypothesis that comparative judgements involving E‐ adjectives are more difficult than those involving E+ ones.