Abstract
Conceived within the framework of Kelly's personal construct theory, the study tested the influence of social reinforcement on construct-use by normal college students and subgroups of schizotypes and nonschizotypes as identified by the Sc scale of the MMPI. In an adaptation of a procedure first used by Rehm, 40 subjects were contingently reinforced for attributing 2 typically related constructs (kind and sincere) to people in an atypical, inversely related manner (unkind and sincere or kind and insincere). Five groups of 20 photos were rated with the ostensible purpose of assessing subjects' ability to judge personality from photographs. 40 control subjects rated the photos without feedback. As predicted, subjects in the contingent reinforcement condition exhibited progressive loosening of the initial construct relation while the control group remained unchanged. The schizotypic subgroup showed significantly greater loosening under contingent reinforcement than the nonschizotypic subgroup.
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