This is an attempt to articulate an important area within the realm of ego psychology—the area of interests. Personality, MacCurdy maintains, is in large part a matter of the relative value placed upon interests which are widely distributed. Criteria other than self-ratings which may be employed to assess the relative importance of different interests of the individual are: degree of compulsiveness, intensity of emotional reaction, response to conflicts of fealty, effect on moral judgments, and level of psychic 'reality' of beliefs associated with interests. Gradations in the strength of the feeling of the 'reality' of various beliefs greatly influence the effectiveness of communication and the extent of mutual understanding between individuals and between groups.