ABSTRACT
A person can use conventions to constrict another’s response activity, and one can often count on conventions to elicit a predictable response. Hiding behind convention insulates further. So the delicious sense of satisfaction results from this compromise—and keeps the pattern in motion. Complex process undoubtedly takes place in many subtle ways in the interaction between most people. Using certain conventions or standard patterns, an individual first creates a mind-set in the respondent that limits his response activity, and then introduces stimuli that represent the sender’s hidden purposes and desires. The maladjusted person who has developed blind spots for conventional information or who uses conventions to express private, unusual, unconventional meanings is necessarily socially deprived, even though this person may be successful in achieving a response that fits into his private psychological economy. In trying to understand maladjustment, it is important to discover how the patient hides meanings with conventions.
