Chapter 18: KELLY – PERSONAL CONSTRUCT THEORY (COMPREHENSIVE NOTES)

Vocabulary flashcards covering George Kelly’s Psychology of Personal Constructs, including key theoretical concepts, corollaries, therapeutic methods, and research applications.

Personal Construct Theory

Kelly’s framework that people interpret and predict events through unique, evolving systems of mental templates called personal constructs.

Personal Constructs

Bipolar dimensions (e.g., friendly–unfriendly) individuals use to perceive similarities and differences among people or events.

Constructive Alternativism

The philosophical view that any event can be understood in multiple ways and current interpretations are always open to revision.

Basic Postulate

Assumes that a person’s psychological processes are guided by how they anticipate future events.

Construction Corollary

People anticipate future events by construing their replications; we use recurring themes to predict what will happen.

Individuality Corollary

Because individuals have different experiences, they construe the same events in different ways.

Organization Corollary

Personal constructs are arranged hierarchically, with superordinate and subordinate relationships that minimize incompatibilities.

Dichotomy Corollary

Every construct is bipolar; people interpret events in either-or terms (e.g., good vs. bad).

Choice Corollary

People choose the pole of a construct that they believe will extend and refine their future construction system.

Range Corollary

Each construct applies only to a finite set of events—its ‘range of convenience.’

Experience Corollary

Construct systems change as individuals successively interpret the outcomes of their experiences.

Modulation Corollary

Change in a construct system is limited by the permeability (flexibility) of its constructs.

Fragmentation Corollary

People can employ mutually inconsistent subsystems of constructs without losing overall coherence.

Commonality Corollary

To the extent two people construe experiences similarly, their psychological processes are alike.

Sociality Corollary

Effective interaction depends on correctly construing another person’s construction system and playing an appropriate role.

Person-as-Scientist

Kelly’s metaphor that ordinary people, like scientists, form hypotheses, test them, and revise theories to navigate life.

Scientist-as-Person

Recognition that scientists’ observations are influenced by their own constructs, making their findings open to reinterpretation.

Core Role

Central self-definition that provides identity and guides major life choices.

Peripheral Role

Less central patterns of behavior that can change more easily without altering one’s identity.

Permeability

A construct’s ability to admit new elements; high permeability permits learning and change.

Range of Convenience

The span of situations or events to which a construct is relevant.

Superordinate Construct

A higher-level construct that subsumes and organizes subordinate constructs within the hierarchy.

Subordinate Construct

A lower-level construct nested under a broader superordinate construct.

Threat (Kelly)

Awareness of imminent, comprehensive change to core constructs.

Fear (Kelly)

Recognition of incidental change within the construct system, less global than threat.

Anxiety (Kelly)

Feeling that events lie outside the range of convenience of one’s construct system.

Guilt (Kelly)

Sense of having lost or betrayed one’s core role structure.

Fixed-Role Therapy

Technique where clients enact a carefully written role to experiment with new constructs and behaviors.

Role Construct Repertory (Rep) Test

Assessment method in which individuals compare triads of significant people to elicit their personal constructs.

Repertory Grid

Matrix used to record constructs (rows) against role figures (columns) from the Rep test.

Abnormal Development (Kelly)

Persistent use of invalidated constructs due to rigidity (impermeability) or excessive looseness of the construct system.

Teleological View

Perspective that behavior is guided by future goals and anticipations rather than past causes.

Elaborative Choice

Selecting options that expand the future range of one’s construct system.

Idiographic Approach

Focus on the uniqueness of individuals’ meanings, exemplified by Kelly’s construct assessments.

Metatheory

A ‘theory about theories’; Kelly’s label for personal construct theory’s broad, flexible framework.

Construct System Rigidity

Tendency of impermeable constructs to resist modification despite contradictory evidence.

Construct System Flexibility

Quality of allowing new experiences to reshape constructs, fostering adaptation.

Psychological Disorder (Kelly)

Any construct repeatedly used despite consistent invalidation by experience.

Role

Pattern of behavior that arises from understanding another person’s constructs within a shared task.

Gender as a Personal Construct

Research finding that individuals differ in how strongly they organize perceptions of others around gender categories.

Perceived Similarity

Recognition that two elements share qualities within a construct’s emergent pole.

Contrast Pole

The opposing end of a dichotomous construct highlighting how an element differs from others.