0.18 Cognitive perspectives on personality development  (Page 8/30)

Fragmentation Corollary : A person may successively employ a variety of construction subsystems which are inferentially incompatible with each other . This corollary extends from the previous one, but with a twist. As an individual encounters unexpected events, they modify their constructs to the extent that they are able. Thus, their behavior may change slowly, or more quickly, depending on the nature of the constructs that guide their openness to change. The twist comes into play when individuals are either resisting change, or in the process of change, and it involves the dichotomy corollary. If an individual is failing to predict and control events in their life, they may choose an incompatible construct, essentially reversing the course of their behavior. One of the advantages of Kelly’s personal construct theory is that these dramatic changes in behavior can now be seen as reasonable progressions in one’s ongoing desire for predictability and control.

Commonality Corollary : To the extent that one person employs a construction of experience which is similar to that employed by another, his psychological processes are similar to those of the other person . This corollary is important for interpersonal relations. Even though two people cannot experience the same event in exactly the same way, their ability to share their experiences is facilitated by the similarity of their experiences. This raises important implications for therapists working with clients of different cultures, since they might not share similar constructs based on certain events. It also raises an important distinction between cognitive and behavioral approaches to understanding personality. In behavioral perspectives, simple stimulus-response relationships are the same for everyone who experiences them. However, in the cognitive perspective, each person necessarily experiences any event in a unique way.

Sociality Corollary : To the extent that one person construes the construction processes of another, he may play a role in a social process involving the other person . Humans are social creatures. Our ability to predict and control our lives is largely based on our ability to predict and either control or work with other people. Thus, it is important for individuals to construe to thoughts and behaviors of others, and in so doing we can each play a role in the lives of others. Kelly suggests that this provides a natural connection between personal construct theory and social psychology, as well as a connection between personal construct theory and cross-cultural psychology.

Dimensions of Transition

Since life is an ongoing process, there are regular transitions in one’s personal constructs. According to the organizational and modulation corollaries, individuals have certain preferences amongst their constructs and differences in their ability to reconstruct them. Problems in life arise when individuals find it difficult to transition from an ineffective construct, one that does not allow for predicting or controlling events, to an effective construct. According to Kelly (1955a), the major problems are seen as the psychological phenomena of threat , fear , guilt , and anxiety . Kelly defines these terms as follows: