Social adjustment and familial schema

The Social Schemata Technique as a Projective Device

The construct validity of a modified version of Kuethe's social schemata technique was studied. The major hypothesis was that the placement and replacement responses of pairs of silhouette figures to which unfavorable attributes were ascribed would be more distant than the distances between figures to which more favorable characteristics were attributed. When the data of 160 male college students, performing under five sets, two directions of set, and on two tasks, were analyzed, the direction of set effect, i.e., favorable or unfavorable characterizations of stimuli, was significant. Positive sets led to significantly closer placements than negative sets but only on the free-placement method.

Sensory extenders versus meters and predictors: clarifying strategies for the use of objective tests in family therapy

Cromwell and Peterson's goal of introducing quantitative testing into family assessment and therapy is laudable; the system they propose--the Multisystem-Multimethod (MS-MM) approach is not. MS-MM is confusing, deceptive, and misleading for clinicians who want to use tests to sharpen their diagnostic assessments and predictions. What is needed is specific theory linking various family processes and individual behaviors, as well as equally specific information about the reliability and validity of the tests. Likewise, the MS-MM approach is completely inadequate for clinicians seeking to use tests to enlarge their clinical imaginations. What is needed is a more down-to-earth examination of the influence of testing on the family therapy system.

Families' schemata of social relationships

Variation in views of the social environment held jointly by members of family units was examined from a theoretical perspective that specifies distinct kinds of variation among families in their beliefs about the fundamental nature of the social world. Associations compatible with theory were found between direct measures of family interaction and families' schemata of social relationships as assessed by using a felt figure technique. Additional evidence indicated that variation among families in the schemata displayed resulted from similar contributions by all individuals in a family studied. Findings support the existence of family social schemata--a family group's set of views about the organization of relationships in the social world--and indicate several dimensions by which these schemata vary from family to family.

The Felt Figure Replacement Technique as a Personality Assessment Device: Validity Reconsidered

Conclusions from an earlier study testing the validity of the Felt Figure Replacement Technique (FFRT) were questioned and three new measures of FFRT performance were developed. The reliability of these three measures, and the conventional measure of distance error, was checked using a sample of 54 female and 49 male undergraduates at Oregon State University. These subjects also completed an established personality inventory. Three of the four FFRT measures tested proved to be reliable, and it was found that models combining the three reliable FFRT measures could yield successful predictions on the personality dimensions for females but not for males; although males and females perform similarly on the FFRT. Both groups made the same kinds of errors relative to the standard placement. Also, males and females differ on only one of the three reliable FFRT measures. It was concluded that the FFRT may yet prove a valuable assessment approach, and the implications of these conclusions for personality assessment were discussed.

Effects of procedural variations in measuring interpersonal distance by means of representational space

To determine whether two commonly employed variations in the administration of personal space measures would significantly influence performance, 40 male and 40 female college students were administered the task under two conditions: placing a number of self figures in relation to fixed social objects and placing the same social objects in relation to fixed self figures. There were no significant differences in separation distances or in vertical positioning under the two conditions. The study also investigated the degree to which the selected personality dimensions of extraversion, neuroticism, and internal versus external control related to schematic space.