Deck 11: George Kelly: Personal Construct Theory

Question 1

What factors influence the ways we anticipate those events that are similar to past events?

Answer 1

Mr. K's approach in regard to personality:
Personal construct theory is cognitive way of describing one's personality. It delivers a thought that an individual can interpret events and behaviors understanding ways to guide and forecast his/her behavior. This helps them to predict behavior of another person.
Mr. K's theory was unique and did not derive or was build from other theories. This emerged from interpreting a person's own constructive system and data provided with clinical practice. In personal view, its originality exhibits parallel message capable to develop life's framework.
Factors influences the way of anticipating events:
The following are the factors that influence the way of anticipating events that are similar to past events:
• Similarities among the events
• Individuality in interpreting events
• Relationship among constructs
• Exclusive alternatives
• Freedom of alternatives
• Range of convenience
• Exposure of and adapting to new experience
• Competition
• Interpersonal relationship

Question 2

How do we choose between the two alternatives offered by a construct?

Answer 2

Mr. K's approach in regard to personality:
Personal construct theory is cognitive way of describing one's personality. It delivers a thought that an individual can interpret events and behaviors understanding ways to guide and forecast his/her behavior. This helps them to predict behavior of another person.
Mr. K's theory was unique and did not derive or was build from other theories. This emerged from interpreting a person's own constructive system and data provided with clinical practice. In personal view, its originality exhibits parallel message capable to develop life's framework.
Way of choosing the alternatives:
It is important to choose the alternatives that are appropriate and work best for every situation. The chosen alternatives should allow predicting or anticipating the result of future events. People should select the alternatives between the high risk, high-reward adventurous choice and the low-risk, low-reward secure choice.

Question 3

How does our anticipation of events, and of how other people will behave, influence our personality?

Answer 3

Anticipation of events and impact of behavior influences individual personality:
The construction corollary is the similarity within repeated events. Mr. K believed no life event or experience reproduced what has occurred exactly in the first. A event is repeated, however it does not experience same precisely.
For example: In case one watches a movie that he had already seen last month. The experience of it will vary.
An individual's mood will not remain same and during the month that elapsed. In consideration, that the person was exposed to other events affecting his/her attitudes and emotions.
Moreover the repetition of events is not experienced to be identical, with recurring aspects. Certain situational aspects are similar to earlier experience; while others are not. In regard to the similarities one predicts or establishes anticipation of how to deal on different future events.
The predictions rely on idea of future events and not duplicates of past. Here, the others behavior influences the current thinking of the individual.
For example: The individual has seen a chasing in reality as in movie. He has also seen the outsider suffering. Here, the individual would have seen the heroic effects previously. Now, he would see the struggles of third party in specific event.
However, the base behavior on anticipation is like chasing that explains how to choose to see the movie again.

Question 4

Explain how the individuality corollary differs from the organization corollary.

Question 5

What is a construct's range of convenience?

Question 6

In your construct system, what is the range of convenience for the construct cheerful versus sad?

Question 7

What mechanism did Kelly propose to account for changes in a construct's range of convenience?

Question 8

How is it possible to hold incompatible or inconsistent constructs?

Question 9

Why is it important to construe the constructs of other people in our daily lives?

Question 10

What is Kelly's position on the issue of free will versus determinism?

Question 11

What did Kelly mean when he suggested that we all function like scientists in trying to predict and control the events in our lives?

Question 12

What is a self-characterization sketch? How is it used in therapy?

Question 13

How does Kelly's approach to personality differ from the other approaches we have discussed?

Question 14

Describe how the Role Construct Repertory Test works with clients.

Question 15

What is the relationship between Kelly's cognitive theory and modern cognitive psychology?

Question 16

What is fixed role therapy? How does it relate to role playing?

Question 17

How might Kelly's theory have been influenced by the kinds of clients he treated?

Question 18

How do people high in cognitive complexity differ from people high in cognitive simplicity?

Question 19

What is Kelly's definition of the term construct? Why must constructs be dichotomous?

Question 20

How do people who are high in attributional complexity view the behavior of those around them, compared to people who are low in attributional complexity?

Question 21

Why did Kelly believe that we must always be revising our constructs?

Question 22

Discuss some of the criticisms that have been made of Kelly's approach to personality.