George Kelly

The Cognitive Movement

 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
 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
 Personal Construct Theory
 Construct:
 Unique way of looking at life
 Intellectual hypothesis

 Dichotomous

 Constructive alternativism:
 Free to revise/replace constructs
 Corrollaries
 Fundamental principle: Psychological processes
are directed by the ways in which we anticipate
life events
 11 Corrolaries
 Corrolaries
 Construction
 Individuality
 Organization
 Dichotomy
 Choice
 Range
 Range of convenience
 Experience
 Corrollaries
 Modulation
 Permeability
 Fragmentation
 Commonality
 Sociality
 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
 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
 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
 Contributions of Kelly
 Unique theory
 Gaining acceptance
 Criticisms of Kelly
 Exclusion of emotional aspects
 Biased sample
 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
 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.
 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.
 Results
Spontaneity Quotient

300
263
247 248
250 227 229 236 237 239 243 245
215 220
197 201 201 205 207 211
200 180

150 Series1

100

50

0
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