Construing contexts: Problems and prospects of George Kelly's personal construct psychology

Abstract

Kelly's concept of man is that of a scientist formulating hypotheses about the world and revising them in the light of their predictive utility. His position is one of subjective realism by which each of us interprets the world according to personal dimensions termed constructs. Establishing knowledge about how others construe the world is made possible in clinical situations by recourse to two Kellyan methods: the character sketch and the role construct repertory test. The former relies on clinical observation, the latter on statistical sophistication. This divergence in methods has led to an ideological split in the following that Kelly spawned, which need not, however, be a barrier to clinical research in this field. Although not all cognitive therapists are constructivists, they share with the latter the desire to look for core patterns underlying individual maladaptive thoughts and actions. Kelly's methods can be applied to the functional analysis favoured by cognitive behaviourists, with clinical gains resulting from the quicker access this provides to personal meaning. But cognitive psychology's schematic approach to organization is a challenge to Kelly's, which conceives of everyday experience solely in terms of the logical nature of construing. Some constraints and assumptions of Kelly's dialectical logic may be avoided by adopting a more phenomenological approach to construing.

Team, Career, and Management: Mental Maps of Working Conditions and Intention to Stay of Physicians in Academic Medicine

“…Repertory Grids: Based on Kelly's personal construct theory (Blowers and O'Connor, 1995) Kelly Grids (or Repertory Grids) measure the valence of predefined elements in terms of personal constructs. Repertory Grids combine both qualitative and quantitative methods and eliminate interviewer bias, because participants essentially create their own questionnaire (Winter, 2003).…”

Rescuer and rescued: Applying a cognitive analytic perspective to explore the ‘mis‐management’ of asthma

“…Core reciprocal roles are fundamental in in uencing both intra-and interpersonal functioning through parental and child role re-enactments. The second theoretical strand emerges out of the work of Kelly (1995) in which the individual is seen as striving to make sense of their subjective world and that this process of active sense-making predicts appraisal and action sequences in the external world (Blowers & O'Connor, 1995;Leiman, 1997;Ryle, 1975). The PSORM connects both elements by establishing that our early experience of dependency upon powerful others in uences response and coping procedures in the present.…”

Role of Research in Teaching: Analysis of PhD Programs and PhD Graduates at the Open University of Tanzania

“…The advantage of PCT is on the ability to uncover tacit knowledge which is used by individuals but very hard to verbalise. Although PCT has been critique but there seems to be tacit agreement amongst cognitive psychologists that the meaning of a person's thoughts is best understood within a personal context of relatedness (Blowers & O'Connor, 1995). The application of PCT is evident in various fields such as clinical, education and organization (Walker & Winter, 2007).…”