Relationships between spider constructs in phobics.

An index of tight construing was derived from a Kelly grid in which the elements were spiders. This index, the coefficient of concordance, corresponds to the average correlation between constructs. Concordance was significantly higher in spider phobics than controls, in line with the hypothesis that emotional disorders are associated with higher correlations between symptom-related constructs (i.e. 'tight' construing). Desensitization, though it reduced phobic anxiety, had no effect on concordance.