George A. Kelly's Personal Construct Theory: An Alternative Approach to Personality, Study notes of Personality Development

Download George A. Kelly's Personal Construct Theory: An Alternative Approach to Personality and more Study notes Personality Development in PDF only on Docsity! Further reading Carrithns, M., Collins, S. and Lukes, S. (1985) The Category qf the Person, Cambridge. personal construct theory Personal construct theory was presented by Kelly (1955) as an alternative to existing psychological theo­ ries. Its basic philosophical assumption, constructive alternativism, asserts that all interpretations of the world are replaceable. People are regarded as operating like scientists, formulating hypotheses, testing these out, and revising those which are invalidated. This process involves the development of a hierarchical system of bipolar personal constructs (e.g. 'kind--unkind'), not all of which have verbal labels. Each construct offers a choice, in that an element of the individual's experi­ ence may be construed at one of its poles, the other, or neither, and Kelly considered that people make those choices which most facilitate the anticipation of events. Although there are commonalities between people's construing, particularly within the same cul­ ture, each individual's construct system is unique. The essence of all intimate relationships is the construal of another person's construction processes. Personal construct theory views the person holistic­ ally, rejecting distinctions between cognition, conation and affect. Emotion is viewed as the awareness of a transition in construing. In threat, this transition is in core constructs, those central to one's identity. Guilt is the awareness of behaving in a way which is discrepant with one's core role, the constructions deter­ mining onc's characteristic ways of interacting with others. Anxiety is the awareness that one's constructs do not equip one to anticipate events. Aggression is the active elaboration of construing, while hostility is the attempt to extort evidence for a prediction rather than revising it when invalidated_ Other strategies used to cope with invalidation and inconsistencies in construing include constricting one's world to exclude unpredictable events, and, conversely, dilating in an attempt to develop a way of construing the new ex­ periences which one confronts. One may also loosen construing, making one's predictions less precise, or tighten, and more clearly define these predictions. The optimally functioning person is characterized by interplay of such strategies while formulating and revISIng constructions. However, in psychological disorder the person continues to employ a certain construction despite consistent invalidation. Personal construct psychotherapy therefore aims to facilitate reconstruction. As well as its extensive elinical applications (Winter 1992), the theory has been employed in numerous other areas, including educational (Pope and Keen PERSONALITY 599 1981) and business (Jankowicz 1990) settings. A partic­ ularly popular technique derived from it is the reper­ tory grid, a method of assessment of construing. Although there have been attempts at integration of personal construct theory with alternative approaches, it contrasts with most other theories, particularly those with reductionist and mechanistic assumptions. However, it has been regarded as exemplifying an approach termed constructivislIl (Mahoney 1938), the influence of which has permeated numerous areas of psychology as well as other fields. References David Winter Barnet Health Care Jankowicz, n (1990) 1\pplications of personal construct psychology in business practice', in G. J Neimeyer and R. A. Neimeyer (cds) Advances in Personal ConstrucL PrydlOlogy, vo!. I, Grecnwich, CT Kclly, G. A. (1955) 1hc Psychology qf Personal C01lJtrurLI, New York. Mahoncy, M. J. (1988) 'Constructive metatheory: I. Basic features and historical fi)undations', internatwnal Journal qf Personal Construct Psychology 1. Popc, M. and Keen, T (1981) Personal Construct PSJlchology and Education, London. Winter, D. A. (1992) Personal CortStruct Psychology arul Clinical Practice: Theory, Research arul AppliratioTlJ, London. See also: personality; personality assessment. personality Personality (from the Latin persona, an actor's mask) is an ill-defined concept embracing the entire constella­ tion of psychological characteristics that differentiate people fium onc another. There is no consensus on its precise definition: in 1937 Gordon W Allport quoted more than filly distinct definitions, and the list has grown considerably since then. The underlying assumptions common to all definitions are that people have more or less stable patterns of behaviour across certain situations, and that these behaviour patterns differ from one person to the next. Whereas most areas of psychological research are concerned with univer­ sal aspects of behaviour and mental experience, the study of personality focuses specifically on individual differences. The earliest personality theory of note, uncertainly attributed to Hippocrates (c.400 BC) and Galen (AD c.170) and widely accepted throughout the Middle Ages, is the doctrine of the four temperaments. People can be classified into four personality types according to the balance of humours or fluids in their bodies. Optimistic people are governed by blood (sanguis), 600 PERSONALITY depressive people by black bile (melas chole) , short­ tempered people by yellow bile (chole) and apathetic people by phlegm (phlegma). The physiological hasis of this theory collapsed during the RenaissalHT with advances in biological knowledge, but the under­ lying typology survived in some modern personality theories. The first systematic investigation of individual difler­ ences using modern empirical methods was Francis Galton's study of intelligence in England in I aH4. A more reliable method of measuring intelligence, devel­ oped by the French psychologists Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon in 1905, stimulated research into other kinds of individual differences. Work on intelli­ gence continued to flourish independently and is still (illogically) excluded from most academic discussions of personality. The simplest personality theories focus on single traits or eharacteristics. Among the most ('xtensively researched of the single-trait theories are those concerned with authoritarianism, field dependence, and locus of control. Field dependence is a personality trait, first identi­ fied by Wit kin in 1949, associated with the way in which people perceive themselves in relation to the environment. A hcld dependent person is strongly influenced by the environment and tends to assimilate information non-selectively; a field independent per­ son, in contrast, is more rcliant on internally generated cues and more discriminating in the use of external information. The trait was originally investigated with the rod and frame test, in which the subject, seated in a darkened room, tries ~o adjust a luminous rod to the vertical position within a tilted rectangular frame. Ficld dependent people are unduly influenced by the tilted frame, whereas field independent people are more able to discount the frame and concentrate on internal gravitational cues in judging the verticaL Researchers later developed more convenient measures of field dependence, notably the paper-and-pencil embedded figures test, which involves the identification of simple geometric figures embedded in larger, more complex diagrams. Scores on these tests are predictive of behaviour across a wide range of situations. Witkin and Goodenough (1977) concluded from the volumi­ nous published research that field independent people are especially adept at certain forms of logical thinking, tend to gravitate towards occupations such as engi­ neering, architecture, science teaching and experi­ mental psychology, and are often regarded by others as ambitious, inconsiderate and opportunistic. Field dependent people excel at interpersonal relations and are generally considered to be popular, friendly, warm and sensitive; they are most usefully employed in such occupations as social work, elementary school teaching and clinical psychology. Field dependence generally declines with age, and women are more field depen­ dent, on average, than men. Locus of control is a personality trait first described by Phares (1957) and incorporated by Rouer (1%6) into his social learning theory. It indicates the degree to which people consider their lives to be under their own personal controL It is measured on a continuum from internal to external by means of questionnaires constructed by Rotter and others. People whose locus of control is internal tend to believe that they arc largely responsible for their own destinies, whereas those whose locus is external tend to attribute their successes and failures to the influence of other people and uncontrollable chance events. According to Rotter and his followers, a person's locus of control allects the way that person will perceive most situations and influ­ ences behaviour in pn:dictablc ways. Research has consistently shown that people whose locus of cOlltrol is internal, as compared to those whose loclls is external, are more likely to adopt health-promoting activities such as weight-watching, giving lip smoking, visiting dentists regularly, and taking exercise; they an: relatively resistant to social influence and persuasion, and an~ generally better adjusted and less anxiolls thall those whose locus of cOlltrol is externaL Mental dis­ orders such a~ schizophrenia and depression arc gener­ ally associated with external locus of controL More ambitious multi-trait theories of personality arc intended to account for human personality as a whole rather than just onc aspect of it. Their aim is to identify the constellation of fundamental traits that constitute the structure of personality, and to explain dillerenccs between people according to their location on these dimensions. Allpo(t and Odbert (I ~J:-\(j) f(llllld 4,500 words denoting personality traits in a standard English ·dictionary. The first task of any lIlult.i-trait theory is to identify the most important of these, taking into account the considerable overlap between thelll. A statistical technique designed for this purpose, called factor analysis, reduces the measured correlatiolls between a large number of traits to a relatively sllIall number of dimensions or factors. These primary factors, which will generally be found to correlate with onc another, can then be reduced to a still smaller number of higher-order factors. This is analogous to reducing the multitude of distinguishable sha<ks of colour to the three dimensions of hue, saturation and brightness, which suflicc (0 explain all the difkrcnccs. The most influential multi-tl·ait theories are those of Raymond B. Cattell, who has concentrated mainly cm primary factors, and Hans J. Eysenck, who prdi:~rs higher-order f1u:tors. Cattcll's theory (Cattell and Kline 1977), which he outlined in the 1940s and elaborated over the