Sex stereotypes and implicit personality theory: Toward a cognitive—Social psychological conceptualization

Progress in understanding sex stereotypes has been impeded by the failure of researchers to address two critical conceptual questions: What is a sex stereotype? How do sex stereotypes function in social cognition and behavior? As a step toward answering the first question, the meaning of the term “sex stereotype” was considered. On the basis of points of agreement among extant conceptual definitions of the construct “stereotype” (in both the female-male and ethnic relations literatures), a generic definition of “sex stereotypes” is proposed: the structured sets of beliefs about the personal attributes of women and of men. In order to relate sex stereotypes more closely to research and theory on “normal” psychological processes, this basic definition is recast in terms of the person perception construct, “implicit personality theory”: the structured sets of inferential relations that link personal attributes to the social categories female and male. Two studies are presented to illustrate the utility of this translation. The remainder of the article addresses the second question. Here we offer preliminary ideas regarding a more general cognitive—social psychological framework for the study of sex stereotypes. Stereotype and stereotyping are distinguished, and each is discussed in light of relevant research in cognitive and social psychology.     

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.     

“Making things better”: Personal construct counselling for young children

A personal construct counselling approach that we are using with young children is presented here, an approach based on the construct of “wellness”, a medium to promote the well-being of troubled children and their families. The case study we share with you shows a counselling intervention based on play, with experiments drawn from self-related construct systems of “making things better” rather than construct systems of “fixing things up”. We present a case study of a young girl grieving over the death of her father. Emphasis is placed on the relationship of trust between the child and the counsellor, to encourage experimentation with relationship experiences to help the child to reconstrue events outside the counselling context. Working hypotheses drawn from cognitive and emotional developmental research into young children are provided, and the subsequent investigations which guide our intervention. Suggestions for process and outcome research in this area are finally made.     

The Inescapability of Ethics and the Impossibility of “Anything Goes”: A Constructivist Model of Ethical Meaning Making

A constructivist model of ethical meaning making is developed. The effort begins by distinguishing three versions of constructivist theory—personal construct psychology, radical constructivism, and social constructionism. Then, the following four premises of an integrated constructivist perspective are presented: (a) People are informationally closed systems, (b) people are active meaning makers, (c) people are social beings, and (d) people construe epistemologically and ontologically. These premises are used to examine and counter criticisms that portray constructivism as endorsing an “anything goes” relativism. This clears a space for the development of a constructivist model of ethical meaning making, outlined in the final section of the article. This model is rooted in personal construct psychology, but is also influenced by radical constructivism and social constructionism.     

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).     

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.     

On ethics in personal construct theory

Abstract

In personal construct theory, people interpret the world in unique ways. Constructions are subjective representations rather than objective truths. This means that our ethical constructions are (a) potentially wrong, if there is an external moral reality we cannot access, or (b) no more inherently defensible than others’ ethical constructions, if all notions of “right” and “wrong” are personally constructed. Constructions promoting violence, hatred, and intolerance are as viable as those promoting peace, love, and acceptance. To overcome this ethical quandary individuals must create meaningful ethical constructions and have faith in them. This is difficult because, as constructivists, we see each person's constructions as legitimate and our own world views as merely constructions, themselves. Implications for moral righteousness are discussed.     

Anticipating the Self: Toward a Personal Construct Model of Emotion

Previous accounts of the role of emotion in construct theory place insufficient emphasis on the constructive role of emotion as a “feeling toward.” Emotion is regarded either as an epiphenomenon of acts of construal or as an outcome of prior cognitive processes. It is argued in this paper that emotion performs an anticipatory role in pursuit of the current concerns of the self, a view that follows from a closer analysis of the function of anticipation. A revision of the control systems theory of Carver and Scheier (1981) is proposed, in which emotional anticipation at the level of the self is distinguished from schema-based anticipation at the level of behavior. Given the framework of personal construct theory as a method of analysis, this revised view of emotion enables a range of self-concept processes to be better understood.     

“自爱”指标与维度的初探——《四库全书》中“自爱”的心理学研究

从《四库全书》中检索到1700部涉及“自爱”的古籍,形成包含2370条句段的语料库并逐条进行内容分析。结果发现,自爱包含自我珍重、自我接纳与自我约束三个主要指标以及个我自爱、小我自爱与大我自爱三个主要维度。未来研究将依据我国社会文化和历史的脉络,结合新时代人们对自爱的理解,编制相应的测量工具,从而为健全人格养成服务。     

Causality and the Proper Image of Man in Scientific Psychology

After reviewing the evolution of causation theory in the history of science it is argued that a proper image of man demands a reintroduction of teleological constructions. To test the utility of this view the construction of a causal construct scale (CCS) is then presented, which has been designed to tap the neo-Aristotelian concepts of substance, impetus, pattern, and intentional “causal constructs.” A factor analysis of the CCS against several well-known tests of personality and personal adjustment is then presented. Findings are in line with expectations, and the concluding point is made that psychology is now sufficiently mature to readmit theories which rely upon a human teleology.     

Dewey Between the Lines: George Kelly and the Pragmatist Tradition

In his own somewhat sly and sardonic way, George Kelly always insisted that personal construct theory could not be assimilated into any other kind of psychology. We believe this was not an example of Kelly being difficult or protecting his turf, but that he resisted such efforts at categorization because he formulated personal construct psychology from an entirely different set of assumptions than those which have traditionally guided the construction of psychological theories. We begin by looking at the unusual life path Kelly took in order to enter the field of psychology and what it reveals about the independent turn of mind he brought to creating his own theory of personality. We then examine what we believe is the single most important influence on Kelly's thinking—the tradition of American pragmatism, in general, and the philosophy and psychology of John Dewey, in particular. We argue that Kelly embraced the pragmatic epistemological assumptions that guided Dewey's work, and that he used these assumptions to develop the only pragmatic theory of personality and psychotherapy. It is, in fact, the influence of Dewey and the pragmatists that makes personal construct psychology so different from and, at times, more difficult to understand than other, more traditional, “realist” theories, but it is also this pragmatic orientation that makes Kelly's theory such an important contribution.     

Engaging the consumer: The science and art of the value creation process

Regulatory engagement theory [Higgins, E. T. (2006). Value from hedonic experience and engagement. Psychological Review, 113, 439–460.] proposes that value is a motivational force of attraction to or repulsion from something, and that strength of engagement contributes to value intensity independent of hedonic and other sources of value direction. This paper reviews different sources of engagement strength, including dealing with challenges by opposing interfering forces and overcoming personal resistance, preparing for something that is likely to happen, and using “fit” or “proper” means of goal pursuit. We present evidence that each of these sources of engagement strength can intensify the value of something, and we show how stronger engagement can not only make something positive more positive but also make something negative more negative. We also discuss how these effects of stronger engagement on the value of something else are independent of actors' own personal experiences during goal pursuit. We then broaden regulatory engagement theory by describing the nature of these personal experiences from different sources of engagement strength—distinct positive experiences (e.g., feeling “pleasure” vs. feeling “right”) and distinct negative experiences (e.g., feeling “tension” vs. feeling “defiance”)—and consider the science and art of combining them with engagement strength for maximal persuasion and influence.     

The construct and measurement of spontaneous attention to a number

The Spontaneous Attention to a Number (SAN) construct serves a different purpose than Hannula-Sormunen and colleagues’ Spontaneous Focus on Number (SFON) construct. As an extension of Eleanor J. Gibson’s differentiation theory, the premise of SAN is that children’s step-wise construction of small number concepts enables them to perceptually differentiate among increasingly larger numbers—to distinguish reliably between “oneness” or “twoness” and larger numbers, then between “threeness” and “larger numbers,” and eventually between “fourness” and larger numbers. In contrast, SFON refers to the tendency to attend to numbers in general—an attentional process that, unlike SAN, is separate from enumeration skill. Not surprisingly, then, although the prototype for both the SAN and SFON tasks is Nancy C. Jordan and colleagues’ non-directive nonverbal number task, the independent development of the SAN and SFON tasks resulted in key differences in how they are administered and scored and to whom they are administered.     

The deep student: A thematic analysis of counsellor educators' perceptions and experiences

What does it mean when we say a person is “deep” or has a lot of “depth?” We asked counsellor educators to describe the concept of personal depth, how it manifests in counsellors' work, and whether or not it could be trained. Twenty counsellor educators responded, and we analysed their responses using thematic analysis. We unearthed seven major themes of the construct: nondual consciousness, emotions, cognitions, interpersonal attributes, self-awareness, attitude and life experiences. Participants also provided suggestions for training students to cultivate personal depth. Finally, we introduce a depth wheel to conceptualise our results and provide implications for counselling and training.     

Meanings of “the existential” in a Secular Country: A Survey Study

“The existential” is a concept that many people use albeit associated with different meanings. In order to increase research-based insight into the meaning of “the existential,” we conducted a questionnaire study in Denmark in 2018 in which we asked 1.106 Danes of various age, gender, educational and geographical background about personal associations linked to “the existential.” Factor analysis of the answers resulted in three different groups of meaning: (1) essential meanings of life, (2) spirituality/religiosity and (3) existential thinking. The findings show that “the existential” serves well as an overarching construct potentially including secular, spiritual and religious meaning domains, at least within the European context.

     

Stay/leave decision-making processes in abusive dating relationships

A multivariate causal model was tested to determine the extent to which two central questions, “Will I be better off” and “Can I do it?”, contribute to abused daters' stay/leave decision-making processes. Participants completed questionnaires consisting of multiple measures of relationship satisfaction, alternatives, investments, subjective norm, personal resources and barriers, and structural resources and barriers. The first question and its indicators accounted for over 87% of the variance in participants’intention to stay in or leave their relationships. Results highlight three important avenues for future research: identifying both positive and negative aspects of abusive relationships, increased clarification of the commitment construct, and emphasis on further operationalizing the construct “Can 1 do it?”     

个人奋斗及其相关研究

个人奋斗作为个人目标概念中最有代表性的一种,是一种特定的、与情境目标有关的人格意向结构,指的是个体通过日常行为所努力达成的特性生活目标。根据目标理论的层次结构,个人奋斗及类似概念被统称为人格中的“中层”目标单元。文章选取Emmons的个人奋斗理论,从个人奋斗的基本概念及其测评开始,论述其与幸福感、人格特质的相关关系,并简要评述了几种不同的个人目标理论,呈现了一种与传统特质理论不同的人格研究方法     

Identity and sociocultural change: Comparing young indigenous people in Chiapas who have different sociodemographic trajectories

One of the most commonly used distinctions in cross‐cultural studies is the one between individualism and collectivism. One of the criticisms levelled at this distinction is that it fails to incorporate the differences that may exist when comparing people from a rural context with little formal education to people from the same group who live in an urban context where formal education is the norm. Bearing in mind these sociodemographic factors, we have compared the self‐concepts among 104 young indigenous people in Chiapas (Mexico), having divided them into three groups: “rural‐traditional,” “rural–urban” and “urban.” These people's self‐concepts were analysed using a task that contrasts personal self‐concept with social self‐concept and a technique in which participants draw themselves along with the things and people they consider most important to them. The results reveal significant differences between the three groups. The personal categories are given a higher value in the “urban” group while the social categories score higher in the “rural‐traditional” group. Regarding the results of the indigenous self‐portraits, from the content analysis of the drawings, 16 categories emerged. These findings are discussed in the light of Greenfield's theory of social change and human development.