Abstract: The electric field-strain and electric field- electric displacement responses of thePZT53 with a constant compressive or tensile pre-stress with perpendicular or parallel to thepoling direction have been investigated experimentally in this paper. Obtained results show thatthe pre-stress when applied along the poling direction has a significant effect on electromechanicalbehavior of PZT53 (e.g., the electric hysteresis loops and the butterfly loops) whilst the pre-stressin a direction transverse to the poling direction has negligible effect on the electric hysteresisloops and coercive electric field. The concept of two successive non-1800 domain switching isused to explain the observed experimental phenomenon. Obtained results shed insightful light intothe multi-axial constitutive modeling of the electromechanical behavior of ferroelectric ceramics.