Personal Construct Theory and Cognitive Science

Abstract

Warren (1990) claims to have formulated an argument “that personal construct psychology is not a cognitive psychology” (p. 379). Nonetheless, he presents very little in the way of logical demonstration or empirical evidence to support this conclusion. Moreover, the theoretical significance of the question posed in the title of his essay (“Is Personal Construct Psychology a Cognitive Psychology?”) is far from obvious. He asserts that “what is at dispute here is the proper characterization of a position” however, his listing several textbooks that refer to Kelly's theory as a “cognitive” approach to the study of personality does nothing at all to either clarify the specific implications of this question or explain its importance. Interestingly, in a recent introductory personality text by one of Kelly's former students (Phares, 1988), this theory is designated as a “phenomenological approach,” which is consistent with Warren's own notion that “he [Kelly] was more phenomenological than he himself believed” Kelly vigorously resisted all such attempts to classify his model in terms of the usual textbook categories (cf. Adams-Webber & Mancuso, 1983).     

Rising Up From Down Under: A Response To Adams-Webber On Cognitive Psychology And Personal Construct Theory

This article is a response to Adams-Webber's (1990) critique of my discussion of the relation between personal construct theory and cognitive psychology (Warren, 7990). Several points of specific disagreement are raised in an effort to clarify my own position. Furthermore, this clarification highlights the need for “integrationist” perspectives to clearly and directly address the problems, as well as the prospects, of relating personal construct theory to other perspectives in psychology.     

Contributions of the Cognitive Approach to Political Psychology

The social cognition tradition has had a strong impact on political psychology scholarship in the last part of the 20th century. The purpose of this essay is to review the contributions of the cognitive approach in helping political psychologists to better understand how citizens think about the world of politics. I consider research concerned with both the mental structure or representation of information about the political world and research concerned with specifying the cognitive processes that produce political judgments and opinion, and conclude that political cognition scholarship has begun to live up to its promise. In the second part of the essay, I suggest a research agenda for the future, pointing to ten directions for extending the political cognition paradigm.     

Math Anxiety: Personal, Educational, and Cognitive Consequences

Highly math-anxious individuals are characterized by a strong tendency to avoid math, which ultimately undercuts their math competence and forecloses important career paths. But timed, on-line tests reveal math-anxiety effects on whole-number arithmetic problems (e.g., 46 + 27), whereas achievement tests show no competence differences. Math anxiety disrupts cognitive processing by compromising ongoing activity in working memory. Although the causes of math anxiety are undetermined, some teaching styles are implicated as risk factors. We need research on the origins of math anxiety and on its "signature" in brain activity, to examine both its emotional and its cognitive components.     

Integration and segregation of prior outcomes in risky decisions

Two experiments were conducted to test if a prior outcome influences the likelihood to accept a current gamble. Undergraduate students participating as subjects imagined that they on a fictitious betting day at a horse-race track did not gamble in the prior race, that they gambled and won, or that they gambled and lost. Subjects rated in one session the likelihood of gambling in the current race. In another session they rated how satisfied they would be with not gambling, with winning, and with losing, respectively. The results of Experiment 1 showed that as compared to no prior outcome the ratings of likelihood of gambling increased after a gain and decreased after a loss. This was explained by the assumption, supported by the ratings of satisfaction, that the prior outcome only affected the satisfaction with the expected loss of the current choice, making it less negative after a gain and more negative after a loss. These results were replicated in Experiment 2. In addition, if subjects did not know with certainty the outcome of a previous choice to gamble, the likelihood to accept the current gamble and the ratings of the satisfaction with its expected outcomes were largely unaffected.     

Psychoanalysis and Personal Construct Theory: An Exploration

The similarities between two broadscale theoretical positions in psychology are discussed. Psychoanalysis is considered in terms of the new interpretation offered in the French rereading of Freud, and this reinterpretation is shown to be particularly relevant to the alignment of psychoanalysis with an already not too significantly different personal construct psychology.     

Teaching Ethical Decision Making: Designing a Personal Value Portrait to Ignite Creativity and Promote Personal Engagement in Case Method Analysis

The case method approach to introducing ethical issues is a traditional tool for applying critical thinking skills to a specific dilemma (Beauchamp &; Childress, 2001 Beauchamp, T. L. and Childress, J. F. 2001. Principles of biomedical ethics, 5th, New York: Oxford University Press.  [Google Scholar]). It allows for personal reflection and clarification of an individual's conceptual framework for deciding what is and is not ethical behavior. However, it also affords the student distance from the story line and may, through providing a retrospective critique, prevent sufficient challenge to the student to articulate and defend personal value assessments in addressing the ethical dynamics reflected in the case. Providing teaching exercises that encourage the creation of language to form that conceptual framework and a comfort in using that language allows the student to not only identify ethical issues but also recognize and more effectively communicate the struggles with molding a personal values portrait to apply to such cases.     

Problem Representation,Option Generation,and Poliheuristic Theory: An Experimental Analysis

Poliheuristic (PH) theory has received strong empirical support for its depiction of the option selection process: it explains how leaders evaluate, weigh, and ultimately choose among a set of policy options. But PH theory does not explain how this initial set of options is generated. Foreign policy problem representation (PR) research has shown that the way in which leaders mentally represent decision problems determines which options are generated for consideration. In this article, we develop a hybrid PR‐PH framework in which leaders’ problem representations drive an unconscious screening process that occurs prior to the conscious screening of PH stage 1. We test hypotheses drawn from this framework experimentally and find that key elements of PR (most notably, perceived threat) determine which options consciously occur to decision makers and which options are not generated during a simulated foreign policy crisis.     

The Theory and Practice of Foreign Policy Decision Making

Central to Alex George's work was a concern with the psychology of presidential decision making. Our analysis focuses on George's work at the intersection of leadership psychology and the psychology of judgment in the making of consequential foreign policy decisions, specifically those dealing with issues of war and peace. We begin with a review of the fundamental dilemmas of political decision making, focusing on the various factors that present challenges to leaders seeking to make high-quality decisions. We then move to an analysis of the nature of judgment and the ways in which it both shapes and is shaped by cognitive dynamics and conclude by examining a number of steps designed to help leaders avoid the most damaging blind spots of their own psychologies and cognitive biases.     

Should you Sleep on it? The Effects of Overnight Sleep on Subjective Preference‐based Choice

Conventional wisdom and studies of unconscious processing suggest that sleeping on a choice may improve decision making. Although sleep has been shown to benefit several cognitive tasks, including problem solving, its impact on everyday choices remains unclear. Here we explore the effects of ‘sleeping on it’ on preference‐based decisions among multiple options. In two studies, individuals viewed several attributes describing a set of items and were asked to select their preferred item after a 12‐hour interval that either contained sleep or was spent fully awake. After an overnight period including sleep, individuals showed increases in positive perceptions of the choice set. This finding contrasts with previous research showing that sleep selectively enhances recall for negative information. In addition, this increase in positive recall did not translate into a greater desire to purchase their preferred item or into an overall benefit for choice satisfaction. Time‐of‐day controls were used to confirm that the observed effects could not be explained by circadian influences. Thus, we show that people may feel more positive about the choice options but not more confident about the choice after ‘sleeping on’ a subjective decision. We discuss how the valence of recalled choice set information may be important in understanding the effects of sleep on multi‐attribute decision making and suggest several avenues for future research. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

凯利的个人建构理论:在香港与中国大陆教学中的问题

本文讨论了在香港和内地文化背景下 ,进行凯利的个人建构理论教学中发现的一些问题。在介绍凯利的思想时 ,中国学生通常倾向于借助具体的术语来理解理论 ,用定量化的方法来看待数据。这种情况似乎与建构主义心理学的精神相背离。但是 ,这种情况也表现出一些改变的迹象 ,更广义地讲 ,这是普通心理学主流的一部分 ,即定性的方法是富有吸引力的。作者认为 ,更多地考虑凯利理论的哲学假设和定性思想的价值 ,将能赢得更多的学生热衷于该理论在广为不同的实际情景中的应用前景。当然 ,凯利的理论中有一些术语还存在着翻译的问题 ,但这是可以解决的。     

Selection of Decision Strategies After Conscious and Unconscious Thought

It is commonly assumed that the use of simple, non‐compensatory strategies is especially pronounced in memory‐based decisions, where information costs are high. At the same time, there is evidence that in memory‐based decisions, a compensatory processing of attributes is facilitated when the processing occurs unconsciously rather than consciously. We applied a strategy classification approach—developed in research on non‐compensatory heuristics—to test two key tenets of unconscious thought theory: the capacity principle and the weighting principle. Participants memorized attribute information about cars and were subsequently either directed to or diverted from thinking consciously about their preferences between the cars (conscious versus unconscious thought). Then, participants indicated in pair‐wise choices which car they would prefer and were classified (based on their choices) as using either one of two compensatory strategies (equal weight or weighted additive) or a non‐compensatory strategy (lexicographic heuristic). In line with the capacity principle, the number of participants best described by a compensatory strategy (the equal‐weight strategy) tended to be higher after unconscious thought than after conscious thought, whereas the number of participants best described by the lexicographic heuristic tended to be lower. Inconsistent with the weighting principle, participants in the unconscious thought condition were better described by the equal‐weight strategy than by the weighted‐additive strategy. In Experiment 2, in which participants were not instructed to form an impression while learning the attribute information, the use of the equal‐weight strategy was not more prevalent after unconscious thought. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Valuing the future: a MADA example involving nuclear waste storage

Intertemporal decision making involves decisions that have consequences that span several periods of time and often extend far into the future. The purpose of this paper is to discuss and highlight the differences associated with different evaluation methods designed to cope with the long-term impacts of a decision including discounting. The concepts and ideas are illustrated in the context of a decision about a nuclear waste facility. We show how applying different discounting methodologies can greatly affect the decision made, especially over long time periods. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Order effects and memory for evidence in individual versus group decision making in auditing

Sequential processing of evidence may lead to recency effect, a potential bias in judgment. The present research seeks to extend the literature on recency effects by assessing the potential moderating influence of team work: whether group decision making moderates the severity of recency effects predicted by Hogarth and Einhorn (1992), and whether group processing influences the accuracy of, and confidence in memory for evidence. Experienced auditors from a Big‐6 accounting firm made audit judgments, either individually or as groups. They were randomly assigned to one of two levels of evidence presentation order. After performing the judgment task, participants completed two evidence recognition tests. Consistent with prior findings, recency effects on judgments were observed, but only for individuals. Group judgments or audit reports were not affected by recency. Order effects, however, did not translate into different choices of audit reports, and did not persist in memories of either individuals or groups. As expected, group memory was more accurate than individual memory and groups were more confident than individuals. Overall, confidence in accurate memories was greater than in inaccurate ones. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Teaching Ethical Decision Making: Helping Students Reconcile Personal and Professional Values

Because conflicts between personal and professional values can interfere with ethical decision making, a goal of counselor education must be helping students reconcile such conflicts. This article describes one counselor educator's experience teaching ethical decision making and the effects on student learning. Growth was observed in increased tolerance for ambiguity, awareness of how values influenced decision making, use of multiple factors in decision making, and emphasis on the welfare of clients. Implications for teaching and future research directions are discussed.     

内隐记忆研究的新进展:概念、实验和模型

本文回顾了近年来内隐记忆研究的新进展。内隐记忆概念的描述性和模糊性正受到研究者的批评。对此概念进行更准确地把握在当前愈显紧迫和必要。多数研究者仍继续沿用这一术语．最近的实验研究修改了部分早期结论．并开始与学习和记忆研究的其他领域,尤其是涉及无意识过程的领域互相结合。内隐记忆的解释和建模呈现出从定性到定量的发展趋势。