Cognitive Perspective of Personality – Key Vocabulary

Vocabulary flashcards summarizing key terms and concepts from the lecture on the cognitive perspective of personality, focusing on George Kelly’s Personal Construct Theory, related assessment tools, emotional implications, and later extensions by Piaget and Beck.

Cognitive Perspective of Personality

An approach that explains personality through mental processes used to interpret, anticipate, and act on the world.

George Kelly

Psychologist who founded the cognitive perspective of personality and developed Personal Construct Theory.

Personal Construct Theory

Kelly’s framework stating that people act like scientists, forming and testing personal constructs to predict events.

Personal Construct

A dichotomous mental categorization people use to interpret experiences (e.g., optimistic–pessimistic).

Constructive Alternativism

Kelly’s idea that multiple alternative constructs can explain the same event or person.

Fundamental Postulate

Kelly’s central statement that psychological processes are channeled by the ways individuals anticipate events.

Dichotomous Constructs

Kelly’s view that constructs are organized in bipolar opposites (e.g., warm–cold).

Range of Convenience

The set of situations to which a particular construct applies; some are broad, others narrow.

Core Constructs

Central beliefs that are critical to a person’s identity and resistant to change.

Peripheral Constructs

Less important beliefs that can change without greatly affecting self-identity.

Superordinate Construct

A broad, high-level category under which more specific (subordinate) constructs are organized.

Similarity Pole

The side of a construct that groups two stimuli perceived as alike.

Contrast Pole

The side of a construct that distinguishes a third stimulus from the two similar ones.

Role Construct Repertory Test (REP Test)

Kelly’s assessment method that uncovers a person’s constructs by comparing triads of people or objects.

Cognitive Complexity

The degree to which an individual uses many differentiated constructs to understand people or events.

Anxiety (Kelly)

Emotion arising when events fall outside the range of one’s construct system, creating uncertainty.

Guilt (Kelly)

Emotion experienced when one’s behavior violates a core construct about the self.

Jean Piaget

Developmental psychologist who introduced the broader concept of schemas influencing cognition.

Schema

A cognitive structure that organizes knowledge and guides information processing; not necessarily dichotomous.

Self-Schema

Schema containing beliefs and knowledge about oneself (e.g., “I am studious”).

Aaron Beck

Psychiatrist who extended cognitive ideas to therapy, proposing the cognitive triad in depression.

Cognitive Triad

Beck’s three depressive schemas: negative views of the self, the world, and the future.

Automatic Thoughts

Rapid, involuntary cognitions influenced by schemas; often negative in depression.

Cognitive Distortions

Systematic thinking errors (e.g., overgeneralization) produced by maladaptive schemas.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

Beck-based treatment aiming to identify and modify maladaptive schemas, thoughts, and behaviors.

Preverbal Constructs

Early, non-linguistic constructs formed in infancy before language development.

Cognitive Perspective of Personality

An approach that explains personality through mental processes used to interpret, anticipate, and act on the world.

George Kelly

Psychologist who founded the cognitive perspective of personality and developed Personal Construct Theory.

Personal Construct Theory

Kelly’s framework stating that people act like scientists, forming and testing personal constructs to predict events.

Personal Construct

A dichotomous mental categorization people use to interpret experiences (e.g., optimistic–pessimistic).

Constructive Alternativism

Kelly’s idea that multiple alternative constructs can explain the same event or person.

Fundamental Postulate

Kelly’s central statement that psychological processes are channeled by the ways individuals anticipate events.

Dichotomous Constructs

Kelly’s view that constructs are organized in bipolar opposites (e.g., warm–cold).

Range of Convenience

The set of situations to which a particular construct applies; some are broad, others narrow.

Core Constructs

Central beliefs that are critical to a person’s identity and resistant to change.

Peripheral Constructs

Less important beliefs that can change without greatly affecting self-identity.

Superordinate Construct

A broad, high-level category under which more specific (subordinate) constructs are organized.

Similarity Pole

The side of a construct that groups two stimuli perceived as alike.

Contrast Pole

The side of a construct that distinguishes a third stimulus from the two similar ones.

Role Construct Repertory Test (REP Test)

Kelly’s assessment method that uncovers a person’s constructs by comparing triads of people or objects.

Cognitive Complexity

The degree to which an individual uses many differentiated constructs to understand people or events.

Anxiety (Kelly)

Emotion arising when events fall outside the range of one’s construct system, creating uncertainty.

Guilt (Kelly)

Emotion experienced when one’s behavior violates a core construct about the self.

Jean Piaget

Developmental psychologist who introduced the broader concept of schemas influencing cognition.

Schema

A cognitive structure that organizes knowledge and guides information processing; not necessarily dichotomous.

Self-Schema

Schema containing beliefs and knowledge about oneself (e.g., “I am studious”).

Aaron Beck

Psychiatrist who extended cognitive ideas to therapy, proposing the cognitive triad in depression.

Cognitive Triad

Beck’s three depressive schemas: negative views of the self, the world, and the future.

Automatic Thoughts

Rapid, involuntary cognitions influenced by schemas; often negative in depression.

Cognitive Distortions

Systematic thinking errors (e.g., overgeneralization) produced by maladaptive schemas.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

Beck-based treatment aiming to identify and modify maladaptive schemas, thoughts, and behaviors.

Preverbal Constructs

Early, non-linguistic constructs formed in infancy before language development.

Assimilation (Piaget)

Piaget’s process of fitting new information into existing schemas.

Accommodation (Piaget)

Piaget’s process of modifying existing schemas or creating new ones to incorporate new information.

Circumspection-Preemption-Control (CPC) Cycle (Kelly)

Kelly’s cycle describing how people use constructs: surveying options (Circumspection), choosing one based on its relevance (Preemption), and acting upon it to test predictions (Control).