which is now more on constructs and behavior than on constructs and
attitudes. It was not my intention to discourage anyone's efforts to
relate constructs to behavior. Actually my intention is to encourage
this kind of research. My position is:
If I had to predict who among a large group of man uses condoms under
certain circumstances and who does not, I would focus on the Theory of
reasoned action, not on PCT. This position is merely based on
a personal estimate of what might be the most promissing starting
point.
The personal construct - behavior relationship can and has obviously be
studied from several perspectives (even within PCT). Behavior as
subordinate construct, behavior as a result of (personally) calcualting
the utility of alternative routes have been suggested in this discussion.
Ute Klein, a student of mine, is just analysing the data of a 'zero
aquaintance' study. She had about 70 students to complete a standard
repgrid and a standard personality questionnaire (NEO-FFI). The
repgrids were typed and given to a group of raters (advanced
psychology students) who completed the peer rating version of the same
questionnaire. It turned out, that these raters who had nothing but
the repgrid where able to predict the self-report data. The accuracy
of these predictions is about as high as that for raters who (in other
zero aquaintance studies) had observed a behavioral episode of that
person. In my view, this study demonstrates that repgrids contain
valid information about the persons' behaviors and that there is a
relation between behavior and constructs (see Brunswik's (1956) lens
model). Comments on this kind of study are welcome.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Rainer Riemann Phone: <0>521 106 4529
Universitaet Bielefeld Fax: <0>521 106 5844
Fakultaet fuer Psychologie e-mail: upsyf077@hrz.uni-bielefeld.de
und Sportwissenschaft
Postfach 100131
D-33501 Bielefeld
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