Personal Constructs. Part 1 of 2 on Personal Construct Psychology

Summary

Viv Burr introduces Personal Construct Psychology (PCP) as an approach to understanding how people make sense of their experiences. Rather than assuming everyone interprets a concept in the same way, PCP explores the meanings and contrasts that matter to each individual.

Main ideas

• People can attach different meanings to the same words. In a classroom exercise, students described “healthy food,” “a good hotel,” and “a bad father.” Their answers overlapped, but the criteria they emphasized varied. For example, a good hotel might mean excellent service, cleanliness, good value, or free alcohol.
• This matters for surveys and research. A rating such as “How good is this hotel?” may not reveal what the respondent is judging. One person might focus on cleanliness, while another considers service or price. Researchers may need to discover what concepts mean to participants before deciding which questions to ask.
• PCP focuses on each person’s own meaning system. It differs from approaches that place people on universal traits or dimensions. Instead, it asks how individuals interpret their own worlds and experiences.
• A construct has two poles. Following George Kelly’s idea, a construct is not merely a label such as “clean” or “responsible.” It is a dimension defined by a meaningful contrast, such as clean versus unhygienic or irresponsible versus responsible.
• Contrasts are personal, not necessarily dictionary opposites. For one person, the contrast to a balanced diet might be an unbalanced diet; for another, it could be a fatty or incomplete diet. Likewise, “clean” might contrast with “dirty,” “unhygienic,” or even “battered.” Asking people for their own contrasts can reveal what they mean.
• Constructs can be partly shared but are rarely identical. People may understand one another and use similar ideas while placing different emphasis on a construct’s poles. They often use these dimensions—sometimes without conscious awareness—to judge people, places, and situations.

Exercise for eliciting personal constructs

1. Choose topics or elements to explore. In the lecture, these were healthy food, a good hotel, and a bad father.
2. Ask participants to reflect individually and write a few ideas about what each topic means to them.
3. Collect and record their descriptions without assuming that a shared phrase means the same thing to everyone.
4. Ask each person for a meaningful contrast to the description they supplied. Rather than settling for a simple dictionary opposite, invite them to explain what the contrast means to them.
5. Compare the contrasts across participants. Differences can show that people understand the same term along different dimensions.
6. Represent each construct as a bipolar dimension consisting of two poles that express the participant’s own distinction.
7. Use those meanings to guide later research questions so that surveys or interviews reflect what matters to the people being studied.

Speakers and sources featured

• Viv Burr — Lecturer who presents the exercise and explains Personal Construct Psychology.
• George Kelly — Identified by Burr as the originator of the ideas about personal constructs and their bipolar structure.
• Students in the audience — Contribute descriptions and personal contrasts during the exercise.