Theories_of_Personality 7th Ed Feist

Feist−Feist: Theories of

Personality, Seventh

Edition

V. Learning Theories 18. Kelly: Psychology of

Personal Constructs

© The McGraw−Hill^569

Companies, 2009

Anxiety
Kelly (1955) defined anxietyas “the recognition that the events with which one is
confronted lie outside the range of convenience of one’s construct system” (p. 495).
People are likely to feel anxious when they are experiencing a new event. For exam-
ple, when Arlene, the engineering student, was bargaining with the used-car dealer,
she was not sure what to do or say. She had never before negotiated over such a large
amount of money, and therefore this experience was outside the range of her con-
venience. As a consequence, she felt anxiety, but it was a normal level of anxiety and
did not result in incapacitation.
Pathological anxiety exists when a person’s incompatible constructs can no
longer be tolerated and the person’s construction system breaks down. Recall that
Kelly’s fragmentation corollary assumes that people can evolve construction subsys-
tems that are incompatible with one another. For example, when a person who has
erected the rigid construction that all people are trustworthy is blatantly cheated by
a colleague, that person may for a time tolerate the ambiguity of the two incompati-
ble subsystems. However, when evidence of the untrustworthiness of others becomes
overwhelming, the person’s construct system may break down. The result is a rela-
tively permanent and debilitating experience of anxiety.

Guilt
Kelly’s sociality corollary assumes that people construe a core role that gives them
a sense of identity within a social environment. However, if that core role is weak-
ened or dissolved, a person will develop a feeling of guilt. Kelly (1970) defined guilt
as “the sense of having lost one’s core role structure”(p. 27). That is, people
feelguilty when they behave in ways that are inconsistent with their sense of who
they are.
People who have never developed a core role do not feel guilty. They may be
anxious or confused, but without a sense of personal identity, they do not experience
guilt. For example, a person with an underdeveloped conscience has little or no in-
tegral sense of self and a weak or nonexistent core role structure. Such a person has
no stable guidelines to violate and hence will feel little or no guilt even for depraved
and shameful behavior (Kelly, 1970).

Psychotherapy

Psychological distress exists whenever people have difficulty validating their per-
sonal constructs, anticipating future events, and controlling their present environ-
ment. When distress becomes unmanageable, they may seek outside help in the form
of psychotherapy.
In Kelly’s view, people should be free to choose those courses of action most
consistent with their prediction of events. In therapy, this approach means that
clients, not the therapist, select the goal. Clients are active participants in the thera-
peutic process, and the therapist’s role is to assist them to alter their construct sys-
tems in order to improve efficiency in making predictions.
As a technique for altering the clients’ constructs, Kelly used a procedure
called fixed-role therapy. The purpose of fixed-role therapy is to help clients change
their outlook on life (personal constructs) by acting out a predetermined role, first

Chapter 18 Kelly: Psychology of Personal Constructs 563