RESEARCH METHOD COHEN ok

20
Personal constructs
Introduction
Personal constructs are the basic units of analysis
in a complete and formally stated theory of
personality proposed by George Kelly in his
book The Psychology of Personal Constructs (1955).
Kelly’s own clinical experiences led him to the
view that there is no objective, absolute truth
and that events are meaningful only in relation to
the ways that are construed by individuals. Kelly’s
primary focus is on the way individuals perceive
their environment, the way they interpret what
they perceive in terms of their existing mental
structure, and the way in which, as a consequence,
they behave towards it. In The Psychology of
Personal Constructs, Kelly proposes a view of people
actively engaged in making sense of and extending
their experience of the world. Personal constructs
are the dimensions that we use to conceptualize
aspects of our day-to-day world, and, as Kelly
writes, people differ from each other in their
construction of events. The constructs that we
create are used by us to forecast events and rehearse
situations before their actual occurrence, and are
sometimes organized into groups which embody
subordinate and superordinate relationships.
According to Kelly, we take on the role of
scientist seeking to predict and control the course
of events in which we are caught up. For Kelly, the
ultimate explanation of human behaviour ‘lies in
scanning man’s [sic.] undertakings,thequestions
he asks, the lines of inquiry he initiates and the
strategies he employs’ (Kelly 1969). Education,
in Kelly’s view, is necessarily experimental. Its
ultimate goal is individual fulfilment and the
maximizing of individual potential, capitalizing
on the need of each individual to question and
explore.
The central tenets of Kelly’s theory are set
out in terms of a fundamental postulate and
a number of corollaries. It is not proposed
here to undertake a detailed discussion of his
theoretical propositions. Useful commentaries are
available in Bannister (1970) and Ryle (1975)
(see also http://www.brint.com/PCT.htm), while
a thorough overview is provided by Fay Fransella’s
(2004) International Handbook of Personal Construct
Psychology (see also Fransella 2005). Here we
look at the method suggested by Kelly of
eliciting constructs and assessing the mathematical
relationships between them, that is, repertory grid
technique.
Characteristics of the method
Kelly (1955) proposes that each person has access
to a limited number of ‘constructs’ by means of
which he or she evaluates the phenomena that
constitute her world. These phenomena – people,
events, objects, ideas, institutions and so on – are
known as ‘elements’. Kelly further suggests that
the constructs that each of us employs may be
thought of as bipolar, that is, capable of being
defined in terms of polar adjectives (good–bad)
or polar phrases (makes me feel happy–makes me
feel sad).
Anumberofdifferentformsofrepertorygrid
technique have been developed since Kelly’s
first formulation. All have the two essential
characteristics in common that we have already
identified, that is, constructs –the dimensions
used by a person in conceptualizing aspects of
his or her world – and elements –the stimulus
objects that a person evaluates in terms of
the constructs she employs. In Box 20.1, we
illustrate the empirical technique suggested by