A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Arts
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
for the Degree of Master of Arts
Johannesburg, 1993 / The realization has recently been reached that personality psychology is in a
state of crisis, this being even more true of the cross-cultural assessment of
personality. In this dissertation traditional methods of assessing personality are
critically examined 871d the appropriateness of the use of various assessment
methods in South Africa is considered. Interactionism is put forward as' an
alternative approach and its usefulness in assessment is evaluated. One method
of operationalizing interacticnism is Kiesler's Interpersonal Circle. In the light
of the limitations of existing assessment methods, it is :1ut forward that a
contextual-behavioural representation of Kiesler's theory would solve many
problems. An instrument was developed to allow the feasibility of this approach
to be tested. In this instrument the testee interacts with a number of fictitious
people with different characteristics. A study was conducted in which the 680
items were rated by 24 experts to establish if it is possible to obtain an
acceptable level of agreement on the quadrant of the circle represented by the
items. Overall, 16,7% of the items had to be revised. In the second study all
items met the criteria set. The conclusion reached is that a contextual..
behavioural representation of Kiesler's theory is feasible. The implications for
assessment are considered. / MT2017
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/22722 |
| Date | January 1993 |
| Creators | England, Lara Jane |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | Online resource (173 leaves), application/pdf |
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