Construct contents of college women with a history of childhood sexual abuse were compared to those of college women with no abuse history using Landfield's (1971) content coding system. The sexual abuse survivors were best discriminated by fewer constructs referring to emotional arousal; to experiences of calm, peacefulness, and relaxation (low forcefulness), and to moral or religious standards. Abused women also used more factual descriptions and fewer constructs referring to freedom from care (low involvement). Sexual abuse history and use of fewer constructs expressing emotional arousal were related to increased symptom distress. Findings are discussed with reference to the constructivist literature on sexual abuse and to the contemporary applicability of Landfield's system for coding Repertory Grid content.George Kelly proposed that humans are inherently creators of meaning. Using the metaphor of "person as scientist," he described people as continually formulating, testing, and revising personal theories that allow them to anticipate events. Kelly described the basic units comprising personal theories as bipolar contrasts, referred to as personal
In spite of sensitivity to right frontal lobe dysfunction, the Design Fluency Test (DFT) has been limited by one global score with little psychometric data. This study developed an expanded scoring system with standardized instructions for multiple dimensions of design performance and provided reliability and validity data in a college (n = 64) and diverse neuropsychological sample (n = 165). The scoring system allowed reliable scoring of number of novel designs, complexity of designs, variations in designs, and concrete, frankly perseverative, and scribbled responses. Performances for a college sample were relatively stable at 1-month retest, but showed practice effects for number of novel designs and complexity. Two principal components showed modest, expected relationships to other neuropsychological measures in the clinical sample. Clinical subjects with a history of closed-head injury or dementing disorder showed impaired DFT performances, with complexity the most sensitive indicator of impairment.
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