Some psychological hypotheses concerning the evolution of constructs

Evidence supporting five hypotheses concerning the psycholinguistic properties of constructs is presented: (1) The negative poles of overtly marked constructs have lower imagery values than their positive poles; (2) Overtly marked constructs are introduced later in the history of language than are constructs which are not overtly marked; (3) Overtly marked constructs are used less frequently than are constructs which are not overtly marked; (4) The more recently the positive pole of a construct has entered the language, the smaller the difference between its date of entry and that of its negative opposite; and (5) Constructs used primarily to describe psychological events enter the language later than those used primarily to refer to physical events. These findings are discussed in relation to Kelly's (1955) personal construct theory.