The representation of personal relationships: an automated system

This paper outlines the technical details of a psychological instrument called the Personal Relations Index (PRI). The instrument produces a graphical representation of any two-person relationship as seen by one member of the interaction. Several stages are involved.

• During a free discussion the respondent is asked to describe himself and the other person in the context of their relationship. These descriptions include attitudes, feelings or behavioural states which are referred to as elements.

• The elements are fed into a computer which produces a questionnaire unique to the respondent. In answering the questionnaire the respondent imposes order on his impressions by indicating how he is most likely to react to each of the other person's elements and how the other person is most likely to react to his (the respondent's) elements.

• A graphical representation showing the dynamic interaction between the elements and therefore the two people, is constructed by interconnecting each element with its most likely outcome(s).

• This graphical representation is presented to the respondents in a readily comprehensible form and enables them to understand their own problem situation and hence aids them in resolving it.

• Successive graphical representations of later states of affairs are also fed back to the respondents so that the improvements (in what is a complex dynamic situation) are apparent to them.

The logic of the method, the syntactical structure of the questionnaire and the process of automation are described. Details of the graphs and their properties are given which emphasize the capacity of the PRI to accommodate great variability. Operational definitions and evidence of both validity and reliability are given. The penultimate section of the paper presents three examples of the use of the PRI. The paper concludes with a discussion of the feasibility of implementing the PRI in the clinical setting, details of ongoing work, and the suggestion that automated techniques provide the means of producing idiographic psychological assessments.