COURSE NOTES: Personality

denotes a term that you should know how to define, and to recognize and give examples. denotes an important person. You should remember this person's name and what (s)he has done. denotes an important research finding. denotes an issue that you should be able to discuss or explain.

Chapter 13: 

Kelly: Personal Construct Theory

personal construct: a person's concept for predicting events

• insensitive men
• loyal friends you can rely on

man-the-scientist: Kelly's metaphor for human personality

Constructive Alternativism

• I believe in the power of hard work (so far, but maybe I'll change my mind later).
• The teacher is (a) a tyrant, or (b) a professional with high standards.

Fundamental Postulate: "A person's processes are psychologically channelized by the ways in which (s)he anticipates events."

The Experience Cycle [graphic: See Figure 13.1 in the Cloninger text on page 387.]

validation or invalidation

The Process of Construing

• The Construction Corollary
• The Experience Corollary
• The Choice Corollary
• The Modulation Corollary

Construction Corollary: "A person anticipates events by construing their replications."

preverbal constructs (such as emotions)

• "When my husband touches me, I feel a chill go through me. I don't know why, as he is really a caring man and I know he would not hurt me." (Cummins, 1992, p. 360)
• Preverbal constructs can produce psychosomatic disorders.
  • headaches
  • stomach problems
  • bowel problems
  • high blood pressure

Experience Corollary: "A person's construction system varies as he successively construes the replications of events."

Choice Corollary: "A person chooses for himself that alternative in a dichotomized construct through which he anticipates the greater possibility for extension and definition of his system."

• the "elaborative choice"
• (Incidentally, current personal construct theorists have suggested that although people should make the elaborative choice, they don't always. It's a goal, not a given.)

Modulation Corollary: "The variation in a person's construction system is limited by the permeability of the constructs within whose ranges of convenience the variants lie."

• permeable construct: a construct that is open to adding new elements
  • people I like
  • movies I enjoy (assuming that I'm open to liking new people and enjoying new movies)
• concrete construct: a construct that is not open to new elements
  • miracles [by one who doesn't believe they happen now]
  • honest politicians [by one who believes they are all crooked]

The Structure of Construct Systems

• The Dichotomy Corollary
• The Organization Corollary
• The Fragmentation Corollary
• The Range Corollary

• ex: "good-bad"; "difficult-easy"; "fair-unfair"
• One pole of the construct system seems more desirable than the other.
• The contrast pole might not be what you expect. [cartoon in lecture]
  • success -- failure
  • success -- learning experiences
• Or even ...
  • success -- depression
  • success -- rage
• Within one person, we expect one or the other pole to be active at a given time. Because constructs are personal, we can't assume that the same objective reality will be recognized by everyone.

slot movement: abrupt change from one pole of a construct to its opposite, often precipitated by stress

• an honest cop who turns to crime
• a former drug addict who recovers and becomes a counselor
• or a successful person who, when success stops, moves to the other pole (failure? depression? rage?)

• What are these ordinal relationships?
  • superordinate constructs: apply broadly; generally abstract
    • core constructs: central to identity
  • peripheral constructs: narrower and more readily changed
• The "laddering technique" is used in therapy to identify these ordinal relationships.
  • Sometimes people move up to superordinate relationships too quickly.

• a tyrant at work; a pussycat at home

• "range of convenience"

The Social Embeddedness of Construing Efforts

• The Individuality Corollary
• The Commonality Corollary
• The Sociality Corollary

Individuality Corollary: “Persons differ from each other in their constructions of events.”

Commonality Corollary: “To the extent that one person employs a construction of experience which is similar to that employed by another, his (or her) psychological processes are similar to those of the other person.”

Sociality Corollary: “To the extent that one person construes the construction processes of another, he may play a role in a social process involving the other person.”

• It's very difficult to have a social relationship with someone who is psychotic. The psychotic person does not understand your constructs, and you likely can't understand hers or his. (It's easier to have a social relationship with a criminal.)

The Role Construct Repertory (REP) Test

Cognitive Complexity

• Evidence: different ratings of the target people with Construct 1, Construct 2, Construct 3, etc.
• If the ratings are similar on Construct 1, Construct 2, Construct 3, etc., that shows low complexity, EVEN IF THE VERBAL LABELS OF THE CONSTRUCTS ARE DIFFERENT.
• example:
  • rich–spoiled–unhappy–irresponsible–selfish people
  • poor–disciplined–happy–responsible–giving people
  • (NO rich–disciplined–unhappy–responsible–giving people)

Personality Change

Emotions Related to Change

• threat: "the awareness of imminent comprehensive change in one's core constructs"
  • produces guilt
• hostility: "the continued effort to extort validational evidence in favor of a type of social prediction which has already proved itself a failure"
  • ex: stubbornly continuing to find evidence that a failed marriage is viable

Effective Action: The C-P-C Cycle

• C: circumspection: trying out several constructs for a situation
• P: preemption: selecting one construct
• C: control: acting on the construct

Loosening and Tightening Constructs: The Creativity Cycle

• loosening or tightening constructs
• ex: brainstorming to loosen constructs

Therapy

Understanding the Client’s Constructs

Exploring and Changing Constructs

• time binding: "That sort of thing happened a long time ago, in childhood. It doesn't happen any more; it can't. You wouldn't react the same way now, as an adult."
• word binding: "That's not love; that's control.“ or "That's not sex; that's aggression."

Fixed-Role Therapy

Constructs in Context: Personal Stories

Research Findings

Clinical Populations

Business Applications and Vocational Choice

Other Research

Constructivism, Social Constructionism, and Postmodernism

Personal Construct Psychology: George Kelly
http://ksi.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/PCP/Kelly.html

Back to Top