George Kelly’s Role Construct Repertory Test A Demonstration

George Kelly’s Role Construct Repertory Test: A Demonstration As an example of how to assess personality from a social cognitive point of view, consider the Role Construct Repertory Test, devised by George Kelly on the basis of his Personal Construct Theory of personality. The “Rep Test” proceeds in four (4) phases. Now, this is an academic exercise only. Nobody in the class will see this unless you expressly show it to them. At the end, though, we’ll give you some ideas as to how you might analyze this data the way Kelly would to analyze an individual’s personal construct system. In Phase 1, you see a set of abstract person categories, which Kelly labeled as roles. These include your mother and father (or the people who played this part in the person's life), your spouse or romantic partner, and lots of other familiar social roles. Please fill in each role with the name of an actual person who exemplifies this role in your life. If you haven’t had any experience with such a role (for example, you haven’t had a work supervisor), select someone who comes close to exemplifying that role (for example, an athletic coach or a band conductor). Don’t repeat any names. There are 25 roles, numbered 0-24. For Role #0, just write “Myself”. In Phase 2, you see sets of three roles, indicated by circles. Think of an important way in which two of those people are alike, and different from the third. Write this characteristic in the column marked “Emergent”. So, for example, for Sort 1, think of Yourself, a Teacher You Liked, and a Teacher You Disliked. Then, think of the opposite of that characteristic, and write that in the column marked “Implicit”. The opposite of the emergent might not be what you would find in a dictionary. For example, you might say that you and the teacher you liked were both “Female”, and the teacher you disliked was a “Male”. Whatever you think: That’s the point of the exercise. Repeat this process, for a total of 25 “Sorts” In any particular application of the Rep Test, there could be more than 25 sorts, but there are usually at least 15. You can use the same constructs twice, if that seems appropriate to you. Or, you can pair the same emergent construct with two or more different implicit constructs. For example, if you were comparing Your Mother, Your Brother, and Your Sister, you might choose “Women” as the emergent construct and “Younger” as the implicit construct. Whatever seems most appropriate. The important thing is that your entries reflect the way you really think about the people involved: how two of them are similar, but different from the third. In the interests of time, skip Phase 3, and go straight to Phase 4. But for the record, Kelly would ask the subject to review the grid and place a checkmark to indicate every role to which each construct applies. For the construct in Sort 1, for example, there are already checkmarks for ‘Yourself” (Role #0), “Liked Teacher” (Role #1), and “Disliked Teacher” (Role #2), because those were the comparisons you made in Phase 2. But the same construct might also apply to your “Father” ((Role #7), or to an “Unlikable Companion” (Role #19). If so, so just make additional checkmarks as appropriate. If it helps to keep things straight, you can copy the Emergent and Implicit poles of the constructs from the corresponding “Sorts” in Phase 2. But don’t do this now. Proceed straight to Phase 4. Finally, for Phase 4, please rate each of the 25 roles (0-24), or rather the person who exemplified each role, on each of the 25 constructs. In other words, rate the degree to which each of the 25 constructs elicited in Phase 2 describes each of the 25 role-exemplar elicited in Phase 1. To keep things simple, if you think about a person in terms of the Emergent Pole of a construct, give that person a rating of 3. If you think about the person in terms of the Implicit Pole, give that person a rating of 1. If the construct does not apply, or the person really falls in the middle of the dimension represented by those polar terms, give that person a rating of 2. Again, if it helps to keep things straight, you can copy the Emergent and Implicit poles of the constructs from the corresponding “Sorts” in Phase 2. The format here is a little tricky, because in the previous phases, the columns represented Roles. In Phase 4, the columns represent Constructs. In Column 1, rate each of the Roles, #0-24, on the first construct, whatever it was (e.g., male-female). In Column 2, rate each of the roles on the second construct, whatever it was (e.g., young-old). And proceed down the list of constructs. If you repeated a construct (e.g., young-old), you don’t have to repeat the rating: you’ve already done it. But if you have two similar but not identical constructs (e.g., young-old and young-wise), then rate each role on both constructs. Actually, again for the record, Kelly’s procedure would differ from what we’re doing here. He’d ask subjects to rate the relevance of each construct to each role, not the descriptiveness of the construct. But, frankly, that would already have been done in Phase 3.In this exercise, I’ve modified Phase 4 so that it looks more like a traditional impression-formation exercise. Analysis. OK, that’s it so far as the section exercise is concerned. But if you have access to statistical software such as SPSS or MatLab, you can subject the ratings you made in Phase 4 to a procedure known as factor analysis. • • • Enter the different roles as if they were different “Subjects”, and the different constructs as “Variables”. Factor analysis computes the correlations among the Variables, and will extract the basic dimensions underlying your ratings. • If, to take an extreme example, you used only one construct in Phase 2, like “like-dislike” or “male-female”, only one dimension will emerge. Kelly would call this a “monolithic” personal construct system. • If you used both of these constructs, but it turned out that you “liked” every female and “disliked” every male, you’d still get only one monolithic construct. • But if you used both of these constructs, and you “liked” males and females in roughly equal proportions, then these would emerge as two separate constructs. The number of dimensions revealed by the factor analysis gives a measure of the complexity of your personal construct system. Phase 1: List Exemplars, People Known to You Personally, of Each of the Following Roles Role 0. Yourself 1. A teacher you liked 2. A teacher you disliked 3. Your wife (husband) or present girlfriend (boyfriend) 4. An employer, supervisor, or officer under whom you worked or served and whom you found it had to get along with 5. An employer, supervisor, or officer under whom you worked or served and whom you liked 6. Your mother, or the person who has played the part of a mother in your life 7. Your father, or the person who has played the part of a father in your life 8. Your brother nearest your age, or the person who has been most like a brother 7. Your sister nearest your age, or the person who has been most like a sister 10. A person with whom you have worked who was easy to get along with 11. A person with whom you have worked who was hard to understand 12. A neighbor with whom you get along well 13. A neighbor whom you find hard to understand 14. A boy you got along well with when you were in high school 15. A girl you got along well with when you were in high school 16. A boy you did not like when you were in high school 17. A girl you did not like when you were in high school 18. A person of your own sex whom you would enjoy having as a companion on a trip 19. A person of your own sex whom you would dislike having as a companion on a trip 20. A person with whom you have been closely associated recently who appears to dislike you 21. The person whom you would most like to be of help to 22. The most intelligent person whom you know personally 23. The most successful person whom you know personally 24. The most interesting person whom you know personally Exemplar Phase 2: Compare Roles Role 0. Yourself 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 Sort O O O 1 O 1. Teacher -- liked O O O 2. Teacher -- disliked 2 O O O 3. Paramour 3 O O O 4. Employer -- hard to get along with O 5. Employer -- liked. O O O O O O O 14 O O O O O O O 22 O O O O 19 21 O O O O O 18 3O O O O O O O 20. Person who dislikes you 22. Most intelligent person 17 O O 21. Person whom you'd like to help 16 O O O 15 O O 18. Enjoyable companion 13 O O O 11 12 O O 17. Girl -- did not like 1O O O 16. Boy -- did not like 24. Most interesting person O O O 15. Boy -- got along well 23. Most successful person 8 9 O 14. Boy -- got along well 7 O O 13. Neighbor -- hard to understand 19. Unlikable companion O O 5 6 O 11. Co-worker -- hard to understand 12. Neighbor -- get along well O O 10. Co-worker -- easy to get along with O O O 8. Brother 9. Sister O O O 6. Mother 7. Father 4 23 24 O 25 Emergent Implicit Phase 3: Apply Constructs to Roles Role 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 Sort 0. Yourself √ √ √ 1 √ 1. Teacher -- liked √ √ √ 2. Teacher -- disliked 2 √ √ √ 3. Paramour 3 √ √ √ 4. Employer -- hard to get along with √ 5. Employer -- liked. √ √ √ √ √ √ √ 14 √ √ √ √ √ √ √ 22 √ √ √ √ 19 21 √ √ √ √ √ 18 3O √ √ √ √ √ √ 20. Person who dislikes you 22. Most intelligent person 17 √ √ 21. Person whom you'd like to help 16 √ √ √ 15 √ √ 18. Enjoyable companion 13 √ √ √ 11 12 √ √ 17. Girl -- did not like 1O √ √ 16. Boy -- did not like 24. Most interesting person √ √ √ 15. Boy -- got along well 23. Most successful person 8 9 √ 14. Boy -- got along well 7 √ √ 13. Neighbor -- hard to understand 19. Unlikable companion √ √ 5 6 √ 11. Co-worker -- hard to understand 12. Neighbor -- get along well √ √ 10. Co-worker -- easy to get along with √ √ √ 8. Brother 9. Sister √ √ √ 6. Mother 7. Father 4 23 24 √ 25 Emergent Implicit Phase 4: Rate Each Role on Each Construct Role 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Construct 0. Yourself 1 1. Teacher -- liked 2 2. Teacher -- disliked 3 3. Paramour 4 4. Employer -- hard to get along with 5 5. Employer -- liked. 6 6. Mother 7 7. Father 8 8. Brother 9 9. Sister 1O 10. Co-worker -- easy to get along with 11 11. Co-worker -- hard to understand 12 12. Neighbor -- get along well 13 13. Neighbor -- hard to understand 14 14. Boy -- got along well 15 15. Boy -- got along well 16 16. Boy -- did not like 17 17. Girl -- did not like 18 18. Enjoyable companion 19 19. Unlikable companion 20 20. Person who dislikes you 21 21. Person whom you'd like to help 22 22. Most intelligent person 23 23. Most successful person 24 24. Most interesting person 25 Emergent = 3 Implicit = 1