Transcript Document

An Introduction to Personal
Construct Psychology
Helen Jones
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Introduction
A brief overview of the key features of
George Kelly’s work – The Psychology of
Personal Constructs (Norton, 1955
 A theory that helps people to make sense
of their personal perspectives and values
and to understand other people’s points of
view
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Constructive Alternativism
Basic Postulate: “A person’s processes are
psychologically channelised by the ways in
which (s)he anticipates events”.
 The person as scientist
 All behaviour is an experiment
 Validation or invalidation are equally
useful
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Four Points of View
Listen to yourself – so that you can
suspend your views
 Listen to others, in their own terms
 Listen to, and check out, the implications
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of the words you hear
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 Take responsibility for predicted outcomes
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Self Reflexivity
A theory of personality which is not
applicable to the person practising it is not
likely to apply to relate well to others
either!
 It is PERSONAL
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The credulous approach

The credulous approach implies a belief in
what the other person says is true for them
and viable for them.

The approach implies work on the part of
the listener to suspend his or her own
personal perspectives in order to
understand the theories of the other person
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Some assumptions behind
Kelly’s theory of personality
There is an integral universe
 No one person has direct access to it
 Each individual has a unique personal
construct system which makes total sense
to that individual
 We share some common understandings
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Assumptions - continued
We tend to see the world through sets of
filters – seeing some things as alike and
thereby different from others
 We differ in the ways we make
discriminations
 All our ways of seeing things are linked
internally in a hierarchical fashion
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More assumptions….
We communicate with others only when
we begin to understand their value systems
as well as our own
 Our core beliefs are few and highly
resistant to change
 Organisations have their core structures as
do individuals – understanding this helps
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Creativity and Decision Making

Kelly describes creativity as the constant
weaving between LOOSENING (vague
thoughts and ideas) and TIGHTENING
(making things happen)

A human tragedy is to live only one, or
other, of these aspects of the cycle
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Decision Making
Kelly describes this as the CPC Cycle
 We CIRCUMSPECT (C) (collect
data/information)
 We PREEMPT (P) (make decisions)
anticipating that the outcome will allow us
 CHOICE/CONTROL(C) over our
immediate and longer term futures
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PCP and emotion – transitional
constructs
Kelly suggests that we are “nothing but” a
bundle of constructs rolling along in time
and space
 So emotion is not separate from thinking –
it is more the awareness of the need to
reconstrue – a heightened awareness of
one’s own construct system
* Kelly chooses to use the term “transition”
– a change of gear
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Kelly’s Emotional vocabulary
Guilt – is a dislodgement of the self from
one’s core constructs
 Threat – is an awareness of an imminent
change in one’s core constructs
 Anxiety – is an awareness that one does
not immediately have the constructs
available to deal with a particular situation
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More emotional vocabulary

Aggression ( more akin to assertiveness these
days) is an active elaboration of a person’s
perceptual field – doing things in a consciously
different way

Hostility (more like cooking the books) is an
attempt to extort evidence in favour of a social
prediction which has not worked
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Further references
“The Psychology of Personal Constructs”
– George Kelly, latest edition
18/12/00Wiley, 1991
 A Psychology for Living – Peggy Dalton
and Gavin Dunnett, Wiley, 1992
• Inquiring Man – Don Bannister and Fay
Fransella, Penguin, 1971
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