Interpersonal conceptual structures of emotionally disturbed and normal boys.

Twenty-four disturbed and 24 normal boys with a mean age of 10.5 years were asked to construe 12 persons known personally to them and 12 familiar inanimate objects on two sets of 12 S-point bipolar constructs. Subjects were also asked to arrange the people and inanimate objects into personally meaningful groups. There was significantly lower differentiation and articulation but not integration in the interpersonal conceptual structure of disturbed boys as compared with normal controls. No differences were found in construing inanimate objects. The results are interpreted as indicating that disturbed boys are handicapped by a limited interpersonal conceptual structure for anticipating and predicting their social environment. Kelly's personal construct theory (1955) asserts that man is a scientist who interprets and anticipates (i.e., construes) events by means of a system of unique bipolar constructs and that the way he behaves depends on how he organizes and interprets the world about him. Conceptual structures vary in differentiation, articulation, and integration