George Kelly

1. George Kelly The Cognitive Movement

2. History • Formed theory from clinical experience • Clients in counseling centers • Able to discuss concerns rationally • Express problems in intellectual terms • Depends heavily on cognitive information processing abilities

3. Personal Construct Theory • Each person creates a set of cognitive constructs about the environment • Interpret and organize events in a pattern • Use this to guide behavior and make predictions about others’ behavior

4. Personal Construct Theory • Construct: • Unique way of looking at life • Intellectual hypothesis • Dichotomous • Constructive alternativism: • Free to revise/replace constructs

5. Corrollaries • Fundamental principle: Psychological processes are directed by the ways in which we anticipate life events • 11 Corrolaries

6. Corrolaries • Construction • Individuality • Organization • Dichotomy • Choice • Range • Range of convenience • Experience

7. Corrollaries • Modulation • Permeability • Fragmentation • Commonality • Sociality

8. Assessment • Interview • Self-characterization sketches • Used to assess personal construct system • Role Construct Repertory Test • Used to assess constructs we apply to important people in our lives • Fixed Role Therapy • Act out constructs • Abandon old for new, more effective constructs

9. Research • REP test: • Constructs remain stable over time • Pattern becomes more complex across the lifespan • We seek friends with constructs similar to our own • Married couples with more similar constructs report greater happiness

10. Outgrowth of Kelly’s Theory • Cognitive Styles • Differences in how we perceive elements of the environment • Styles: • Cognitive complexity • Better able to make predictions about others’ behavior • Increases with age • Cognitive simplicity

11. Contributions of Kelly • Unique theory • Gaining acceptance

12. Criticisms of Kelly • Exclusion of emotional aspects • Biased sample

13. Spontaneity Survey • Components of spontaneity: • Moreno (1953) characterized spontaneity in terms of the “variable degree of adequate response to a situation of variable degree of novelty” (p. 722). • One component of spontaneity is the absence of both rigidity and impulsiveness. Impulsive individuals, however, act too quickly, and their solutions are not appropriate to the situation. • Howell (1992) suggested that experts often operate at the level of unconscious competence - where one has practiced the skill for so long that one no longer need to think about using them effectively. • Flow

14. Spontaneity Survey • Spontaneity defined: (a) it is novel and creative; (b) it is immediate; (c) it is adequate and appropriate; (d) it occurs easily and effortlessly; (e) the individual acts with total involvement; and (f) the individual is in control of his/her actions. • Former research on the PAS II – R gives us some idea of where you fall on the concept of spontaneity.

15. Results • The PAS II-R has a mean score of 225.24 and a standard deviation of 29.85 (N=544). • Mean score for males was 232.38 and standard deviation 29.50; • Mean score for females was 222.65 and standard deviation 29.55. • High scores on the PAS II-R indicate an aptitude for spontaneity, and a likeliness to be spontaneous often and in across a broad spectrum of situations. • Low scores on the PAS II-R indicate a spontaneity limitation. The person with low spontaneity scores is unlikely to be spontaneous and may only be able to spontaneous under certain circumstances. • Mean score for Psy 257 = 223.73 SD = 21.90. Range of scores = 180 – 263.

16. Results