approaches would later become known as grounded theory and inductive thematic analysis. Graves settled on the following questions to frame his experiments: What will be the nature and character of conceptions of psychological maturity, in the biologically mature human being, produced by biologically mature humans who are intelligent but relatively unsophisticated in psychological knowledge in general, and theory of personality in particular? What will happen to a person's characterization of mature human behavior when s/he is confronted with the criticism of his/her point of view by peers who have also developed their own conception of psychologically mature behavior? What will happen to a person's conception of mature human behavior when confronted with the task of comparing and contrasting his/her conception of psychologically mature human personality to those conceptions which have been developed by authorities in the field? Into what categories and into how many categories, if any, will the conceptions of mature human personality produced by intelligent, biologically mature humans fall? If the conceptions are classifiable, how do they compare structurally and how do they compare functionally? If the conceptions are classifiable, how do the people who fall into classes compare behaviorally as observed in quasi-experimental situations and in every day life? If the conceptions are classifiable, how do the people who fall into one class compare to people who fall into other classes on standardized psychological instruments? These questions led him to design a four-phase experiment, in which collected pertinent data from his psychology students and others. His initial research, conducted between 1952 and 1959, involved a diverse group of around 1,065 men and women aged 18 to 61. Supplemental studies were carried out over the next twelve years. Phase one: Essays on personal conceptions of the mature adult human Students in Graves's class on "Normal Psychology" were assigned to develop their own personal conception of the psychologically mature adult human. These students included full-time male undergraduates, coed graduate students in teacher education and industrial management, and coed night school students. The students were given four weeks to produce the essay, during which the class covered relevant topics around the nature of personality and relevant human behavior for developing such a conception. Graves's students were not aware of the research project, and were told that the papers would be graded on: Breadth of coverage of human behavior. Concurrence with established psychological fact. The internal consistency of the conception. The