The Consistency of Behavior, a Study in Personal Construct Theory Robert Allan Marcantonio Iowa State University
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Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Retrospective Theses and Dissertations Dissertations 1975 The consistency of behavior, a study in Personal Construct Theory Robert Allan Marcantonio Iowa State University Follow this and additional works at: https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd Part of the Psychology Commons Recommended Citation Marcantonio, Robert Allan, "The onc sistency of behavior, a study in Personal Construct Theory " (1975). Retrospective Theses and Dissertations. 5431. https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd/5431 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Dissertations at Iowa State University Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Retrospective Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Iowa State University Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INFORMATION TO USERS This materia! was produced from a microfilm copy of the original document. 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Xerox Unlversily Microfilms 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 75-25,343 MARCANTONIO, Robert Allan, 1942- THE CONSISTENCY OF BEHAVIOR; A STUDY IN PERSONAL CONSTRUCT THEORY. Iowa State University, Ph.D., 1975 Psychology, general Xerox University Microfilms, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 ^Copyright by ROBERT ALLAN MARCANTONIO 1975 The consistency of behavior: A study in personal Construct Theory by Robert Allan Harcantonio A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Partial Fulfillment of The Seguirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Major: Psychology Approved: Signature was redacted for privacy. In Charge of Major Work Signature was redacted for privacy. For the Major Department Signature was redacted for privacy. For t%e Graduate College Iowa state University Ames, loea 1975 Copyright © Robert A. Harcantonio, 1975. All rights reserved. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION 1 REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE U Personal Construct Theory The Septest 24 Construct Change and Validation 46 Identification 52 Cognitive Complexity 56 The Reptest and Other Measures 68 Schizophrenia and Personal Constructs 76 Clinical and Therapeutic Studies 87 Commentary on Personal Construct Theory Research 101 Mixed-Motive Games 106 Summary and Hypotheses 113 METHOD 124 Sample 124 Procedure and Instrumentation 124 Analysis 131 RESULTS 139 Construction of Stimuli 139 Differentiation of Construction 146 Testing of Hypotheses 149 Further Investigation 172 DISCUSSION 185 iii PAGE CONCLUSION 206 REFERENCE NOTES 209 REFERENCES 210 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 247 APPENDIX A EXPERIMENTAL MATERIALS AND SAMPLE PROTOCOL WITH CALCULATIONS 249 APPENDIX B VIDEOTAPE TRANSCRIPTS 265 iv LIST OF TABLES Table Page 1. Analysis of Variance of Chicken Behavior 136 2. Analysis of Variance for Coaparison of Stimuli 140 3o Mean Ratings on the Provided Constructs 142 4. Correlations between construct Ratings 144 5. Summary of DC Scores 150 6. Correlations between DC Scores 151 7c Analysis of variance of chicken Behavior 152 8. Variance Components and Percentages of Total Variance 159 9. Variance Component Percentages Divided into Groups 161 10. Regression Analyses of Chicken Variation on DC-Own Scores 164 11. Regression Analyses of Chicken Variation on DC-Provided Scores 165 12. Ssgression Analyses of Chicken Variation on DC-Total Scores 166 13. Means and Standard Deviations of Cognitive Com plexity Measures 163 14. Intercorrelations of Cognitive Complexity Measures 168 15. Regression Analyses of Chicken Variation on FICp Scores 170 16. Regression Analyses of Chicken Variation on Sum-C Scores 171 17. Multiple Correlations of Cognitive Differentiation Measures with Chicken Variation in Block 1 174 18. Multiple Regression Analyses of Chicken Variation, Block 1, on Cognitive Differentiation Measures 175 V Page 19. Multiple Regression of Chicken Behavior, Block on Construct Ratings 178 20. Multiple Regression of Chicken Behavior, Block 2, on Construct Ratings (Data from Rick, Barb, and Dot) 179 21. Multiple Regression of Chicken Behavior, Block 3, on Construct Ratings 181 22. Regression Analysis of Chicken Behavior, 12 Trials, on Ratings of the Construct Dominant- Submissive 182 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1. Sample matrices for Prisoner's Dilemma and Chicken 107 2. Sample portion of P.eptest grid with illustrations of transformation, standardization, and DC scores 127 3. Comparison of the construction of stimulus opponents on nine provided constructs im 4. Sex of Subject by Construct interaction 145 5. Sex of Stimulus by Construct interaction 1U7 6. Sex of Subject by Sex of Stimulus interaction 148 7. Mean cautious choices over trial blocks of Chicken 156 1 INTRODUCTION Psychology has as its main goal the understanding of be havior, especially human behavior. Toward this end, one of its main areas of endeavor has been personality theory. Taking "personality" as a construct summarizing an individu al's characteristic behaviors, personality theorists have at tempted to formulate laws describing the causes of stability and differences in behavior, both among individuals as well as within individual persons. In the past century various theories or conceptions of personality have been advanced to explain what causes man to act as he does. Many of these theories have been formulated in connection with the clinical endeavors of the theorists. These various conceptions of personality can be grouped ac cording to their similarities, basic assumptions, and re search methodologies (cf. Levy, 1970; Mischel, 1971). Needless to say, many pages have been written concerning the advantages and disadvantages of particular theories. One point of controversy among the various schools of thought concerns the locus of causation of behavior. Questions have focused on whether the direction of behavior derives primarily from some force or tendency internal to the person, or if^ on the other hand, the situations, the various stimuli impinging upon a person, are mainly responsible for 2 the behavior exhibited, Psychodynamic and trait theorists have favored the former explanation where the major emphasis is placed on person variables, while those of the learning or behaviorist school have stressed the latter, the importance of situation variables. Recent examples of this discussion include articles by Hachtel (1973a, 1973b) and Hischel (1973a, 1973b). In order to build a theoretical structure which can answer these questions of causation, evidence must be gathered which demonstrates that a given hypotheses is sup ported consistently in a number of situations. Consistency of results under controlled conditions is desired if behavior is to be predicted by a given theory. Consistency is what makes behavior describable by theoretical laws. However, the consistency observed is somewhat dependent on the hypotheses tested and the experimental methodology used. Part of the controversy about the primary locus of causation of behavior has been caused by psychology's use of the scientific method vith its stress on the observable and measurable. It is not possible to measure inner drives or concepts in the same way one can observe the number of food pellets a rat consumes under varying conditions. Therefore, some psychologists, especially those in the "learning" camp of personality theory, saw fit to observe the reactions of the individual to different situations, using a stimulus- 3 response (S-B) paradigm in preference to a stimulus-organism- response (S-0=R) model. Eysenck (1970) opined that many studies in the S=R mold have failed to obtain significant results because the variance due to persons (trait variance in his view) has been treated as error variance. He did admit, however, that many behaviorists have switched