Qualitative Grids,the Relationality Corollary and the Levels of Interpersonal Construing

Qualitative grids are powerful tools for mapping interpersonal construing and provide a new method of interviewing, research and intervention into social situations. This article introduces some of their forms after discussing the theoretical framework from which they are derived. Although they are based within personal and relational construct psychology, they can be used within any theoretical approach interested in the study of and intervention in human relationships. Kelly's sociality corollary is a deeply heuristic formulation that presages many similar concepts in contemporary use, such as theory of mind and mentalization. But the corollary is open to critique and further elaboration. As originally stated, it is restricted to the construing of one other person or position in a relationship. This enables us to elaborate the relationality corollary that includes a person's construing of relationships and interactions with two or more others, giving us a deeper understanding of group situations. This involves developing a conception of different levels of interpersonal construing. These can be nicely captured using qualitative grids, and an understanding of this helps the interviewer in designing the grid form suitable for the task in hand.     

Positive-negative asymmetry and bipolar contrast

Abstract

Repertory grids in which personal acquaintances were evaluated on the basis of bipolar constructs (e.g., generous-stingy) were completed by 58 undergraduates. A “person format”, with all constructs applied to each acquaintance in turn, was assigned randomly to 29 students; a “construct format”, in which these acquaintances were evaluated successively on only 1 construct at a time, was assigned to the other 29. The relative frequency of positive evaluations in the construct format grids (0.62) was consistent with the golden section hypothesis, whereas that in the person format grids (0.66) was significantly higher. Theoretical implications of these findings were discussed in terms of H. Frank's (1964) theoretical definition of strikingness and V. A. Lefebvre's (1990) computational model of reflexion.     

Rose's Prevention Paradox

Geoffrey Rose's ‘prevention paradox’ occurs when a population‐based preventative health measure that brings large benefits to the community – such as compulsory seatbelts, a ‘fat tax’, or mass immunisation – offers little to each participating individual. Although the prevention paradox is not obviously a paradox in the sense in which philosophers understand the term, it does raise important normative questions. In particular, should we implement population‐based preventative health measures when the typical individual is not expected to gain from them? After canvassing other attempts to address the paradox, I argue that what is significant about the prevention paradox is that it involves intra‐personal trade‐offs; the costs and benefits of the choice to implement or not implement a preventative health measure fall on the same individuals. The intra‐personal nature of these trade‐offs has two implications. First, the solutions to the paradox proposed by other authors are deficient. Second, the policy choice to not implement some preventative health measures can be normatively justified.     

Kelly and the concept of developmental stages

Abstract

Although personal construct theory (PCT; Kelly, 1955) shares with developmental-stage theories an emphasis on process and qualitative change, the concept of developmental stages is incompatible with PCT in several ways. Building on biological analogies of maturation and evolution, developmental-stage theories posit an inevitability of content or structure in the occurrence of stages and a directionality of the developmental process toward extraspective (as opposed to introspective) definitions of psychological maturity. PCT, in contrast, lacks these features of inevitability and directionality. Kelly intended an introspective view of development based on personal choice, conceived in psychological rather than biological terms. Implications of the Choice, Fragmentation, Commonality, Dichotomy, Modulation, and Experience Corollaries for the concept of stages are discussed. Kelly's PCT is compared with the theories of Piaget, Kegan, and Erikson to illustrate these points.     

Theory-Appropriate Analysis of Repertory Grid Data

Abstract

This paper reviews the relationship between personal construct theory and methods of repertory grid analysis. Traditional methods, such as factor or cluster analysis, are shown to relate to the fundamental postulate or construction corollary, while new hierarchical approaches relate to the structural corollaries of organization and range.     

A Most Complex Paradox: Rethinking the Individual

ABSTRACT

Inspired by the work of Louis Sander (2008), this article explores the paradox of the developing individual who is at once singular and self-regulating, as well as systems-embedded and systems-property organized. Relying on a background of intersubjective systems theory, relational theory, and psychoanalytic complexity theory, examining this paradox reveals a deeper understanding of the evolving person and, indeed, what it means to be an individual. It also posits that a substantial developmental step includes one’s capacity to tolerate two affectively discrepant dimensions of experience—that of being personal, singular, isolated, and agentic, and that of being intensely contextualized and relentlessly embedded in larger complex systems that determine much of one’s life situatedness.     

PRAGMATISM,CONSTRUCTIVISM, AND ETHICS

Stojnov (1996) has argued that personal construct psychology furnishes us with a universalist, as opposed to a relativist, ethics. This is a universalism of form rather than content of construing: we have a "personal responsibility of knowledge". The author critiques Stojnov's view, arguing that the Sociality Corollary does indeed provide an ethical basis for Kelly's thought. However, he contends that the construct universalism/relativism is of limited value, and that the apparent relativism in constructivism provides a valuable guide to moral construing. It is argued that the certainty that comes from moral absolutism readily leads not to moral action, but to moralism. The foundationlessness of constructivism provides a valuable counterbalance to this moralism.     

Editorial

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to address the issue of trust in the therapeutic relationship from the counsellor's perspective, with a particular reference to working with drug addicts. It is a personal reflection on previous work with drug addicts in which a cognitive-behavioural approach was used. The comparison will be made, in a post hoc, reflective manner, on the issue of trust from a very different perspective; namely psychodynamic. It is suggested that the counsellor's trust in their own ability to contain the patient's often projected anxiety, is a central element or variable that can be seriously disrupted by the process of projective identification. And, moreover, it may have some explanatory power for the choice of method of working with this particular client population, that the issue of trust and its containment says as much, if not more, about us as counsellors, as it does about the client. It is argued that our anxieties may lead us to adopt a certain course of action in the therapy, rather than to address the possible meaning of these anxieties in terms of the relationship regarding the clients' needs.     

The Dimensionality and Well-being Related Correlates of Work Locus of Control

Abstract

Theoretical and empirical developments with the locus of control construct demonstrate that it is a context-specific multidimensional construct that has implications for stress and well-being. In this paper, the multidimensionality of work-specific locus of control is explored by subjecting Spector's work locus of control scale to principal components analysis. Using samples of 221 university staff and 399 accountants, a two-dimensional structure was uncovered; external agents control and personal control. Correlations with constructs that have been theoretically and empirically associated with locus of control indicate slightly divergent results for the two dimensions, thus demonstrating the importance of treating locus of control as a domain-specific multidimensional construct. In addition, test-retest data with a subsample of 246 accountants suggested that work locus of control may be thought of as a state rather than trait measure.     

Kelly and issues of power

Abstract

Whether Kelly's personal passion for egalitarianism and democracy is translated into tenets of personal construct theory is addressed. First, Kelly's convictions as they appear in the writings are examined. Then sociological criteria are outlined for assessing the degree to which the theory supports the implementation of those convictions and, in its therapeutic application, facilitates autonomy and empowerment. It is concluded that personal construct theory has potential for encouraging people to realize their full liberated potential. Furthermore, it can be extended to enlarge its scope.     

The Cross

ABSTRACT

My aim is a philosophical understanding of sacrifice, and especially of the Christian conception of sacrifice. Initially distancing myself a little from the strictly ritual notion of sacrifice, I work with a concept of sacrifice as 1) a voluntary choice (2) to forgo or lose or give away (3) something costly, perhaps supremely costly, (4) as an expressive action, where (5) what is so expressed typically is or includes devotion or loyalty to something exalted. I consider three historical examples of political sacrifices, sacrifices made for a cause, and three literary examples of personal sacrifices, sacrifices made by one person for another. I note that in the Christian context it is very common for sacrifices either political or personal to be taken to be imitations of Jesus’ sacrifice as presented in the New Testament, and ask therefore how we are to understand that. My conclusion is that Jesus’ sacrifice can be seen as involving both a political and a personal aspect—but that in fact, it can only be made as intelligible as may be by understanding it, as the Letter to the Hebrews does, in ritual terms.     

It's immoral,but I'd do it! Psychopathy traits affect decision‐making in sacrificial dilemmas and in everyday moral situations

This research investigated whether emotional hyporeactivity affects moral judgements and choices of action in sacrificial moral dilemmas and in everyday moral conflict situations in which harm to other's welfare is differentially involved. Twenty‐six participants with high trait psychopathy (HP) and 25 with low trait psychopathy (LP) were selected based on the primary psychopathy scale of the Levenson Self‐Report Psychopathy Scale. HP participants were more likely to sacrifice one person to save others in sacrificial dilemmas and to pursue a personal advantage in everyday moral situations entailing harm to another's good. While deciding in these situations, HP participants experienced lower unpleasantness as compared to LP participants. Conversely, no group differences emerged in choice of action and unpleasantness ratings for everyday moral situations that did not entail harm to others. Importantly, moral judgements did not differ in the two groups. These results suggest that high psychopathy trait affects choices of action in sacrificial dilemmas because of reduced emotional reactivity to harmful acts. The dissociation between choice of action and moral judgement suggests that the former is more closely related to emotional experience. Also, emotion seems to play a critical role in discriminating harmful from harmless acts and in driving decisions accordingly.     

Ethics,Identity and the Boundaries of the Person

Abstract

Ethical theories and theories of the person constrain each other, in that a proposition about the person may be a reason for or against an ethical proposition, and conversely. An important class of such propositions about the person concern the boundaries of the person. These boundaries enclose a person's defining properties, which constitute his identity. A person's identity may partly determine and partly be determined by his ethical judgments. An equilibrium between one's identity and one's ethical judgments is the counterpart, at the personal level, of the philosophical ideal of reflective equilibrium between a theory of the person and an ethical theory.     

Some principles of an ecological model of the person as a consequence of the therapeutic experience with systems

How do systems therapists' ideas of an individual differ from those of individually oriented therapists? Systems therapists are less interested in stable personality structures than in the contextual variability of a person's behavior. They think that although partnership may restrict, it also triggers the personality's development and shapes and models self-realization. The coevolution of partners can neutralize neurotic dispositions and can have a healing effect. On the other hand, it is the individual who largely decides in what systems he or she will participate, and to what extent and in which manner. In modern, Western society, personal regulations through social systems are becoming increasingly weaker, and the possibility for individuals to realize themselves in interactions is more and more restricted. According to an ecological model of the person, self-realization has to rely on relations to other persons in order to make it more real.     

Jean piaget and george kelly: Toward a stronger constructivism

Among constructivist metatheoretical approaches, a strong version is defined as that which reveals reality to be actively and subjectively constructed rather than passively incorporated as objective environmental or innate “facts” by the subject. Given this definition, however, ambiguities arise concerning the potential and limits of construct integration over the course of development. Piaget's stronger constructivist model is offered as a means of clarifying and broadening the strong constructivist position on knowledge evolution. Piaget's genetic epistemology model places dramatic emphasis on the organizational capacity of the subject, specifying personal development as a strongly continuous and subsuming process. Discussion of commonalities between Piaget's position and Kelly's personal construct theory concludes this article.     

Influence of modeling on self‐set goals: Direct and mediated effects

Research has shown that seeing another person (i.e., a model) perform at a certain level can influence the goal choice and performance of an observer. This study extended these findings by examining the model's effects on two potential explanatory mediators: expectations of reaching different performance levels and valence at those levels. The moderating effects of observer task experience and self‐esteem were also examined. In a repeated measures design, results showed that model performance influenced observers' goals, task performance, expectancies, and valence ratings. Path analyses indicated that expectancies mediated observational effects on goal choice. Results also indicated significant Model x Trial interactions, with a diminishing effect of model influence as personal experience developed. Results are discussed in terms of mediating effects of expectancies and valences on model influences on goal choice as well as the different weights given to social and personal information.     

The relationship between naturally occurring dysphoric moods,elaborative encoding,and recall performance

Abstract

An experiment was conducted to examine the effects of levels of naturally occurring dysphoria and elaborative encoding on recall. Previous research has indicated that the facilitative effects of elaborative encoding on recall are reduced by the induction of negative moods in laboratory settings. However, the effects of endogenous dysphoria on recall are less clear. In the present study, 82 subjects from a college population were categorised as dysphoria or nondysphoric on the basis of two self-report measures. They were then presented with sentences in both elaborated and nonelaborated form, and recall for target words embedded in the sentences was assessed. Results demonstrated that nondysphoric individuals benefited from elaborative encoding in recall performance, whereas dysphoric individuals did not. Results are discussed in terms of Ellis and Ashbrook's (1988) resource allocation model of depression.     

The vicissitudes of affect in Horney's theory

Abstract

Karen Horney, a Neo-Freudian analyst who immigrated from Germany to the USA, undertook the difficult task of developing a theory that remained concrete psychology without resorting to biology or to metapsychological entelechies. Although her basic construct, as in Freud, is a conflict between nature and culture, nature for her is the naturally endowed real self, which the neurotic abandons bowing to cultural pressures. This process of desertion is teleological and based on imagination, and is also creative. It entails the pursuit of a god-like idealized image of the self shaped according to narrow and despoiled values. Being interpersonal, Horney's theory avoids third-person objectification which creates a false distance; it thus remains (inter)subjective. A theory of interpersonal affect, it is dramatic before being dynamic. It also abandons claims to universality as it does to the “objectivity” of the natural sciences. Horney's focus on alienation brings her close to Hegel and Marx, a neglected fact, and she pioneered feminist and self-help theories. The difficulty in reading Horney is not her abstruseness, since her theory refuses technicism. It resides rather in that resistance created by what Althusser called interpellation: one feels her finger pointed at oneself as one reads.