Aims and Methods of Trait Theory - Essay Example

Compare and Contrast the Aims and Methods of Trait Theory with Those of Personal Construct Theory Module Supervisor Personal construct theory and trait theory have remarkably different approaches, aims, and methods of understanding individual differences. 1The psychological research of individual differences since time immemorial has its roots in psychometric, clinical, and experimental traditions (Butt, 2007). Personal construct theory (PCT) is based on a phenomenological perspective while the trait theory relies on experimental approaches in explaining individual differences. This essay explores and tries to compare and contrast the aims and methods between the personal construct theory and the theory of traits Eysenck and Rachman developed the trait theory in the year 1965. The theory is based on experimental approach in explaining individual differences (Butt, 2007). The aim of this theory is to bring forth general principles explaining why individuals behave differently depending on different situations or environments. For instance, Eysenck’s Personality Inventory are used to develop psychometric inventories, that are measures and determinants of personality traits. Thus, this can be regarded as a scientific approach, enabling prediction of how individuals will react in particular situations. Other theorist of trait theory like, Kant regarded traits as categorical. They reasoned that individuals could be grouped to a single particular category and no individual could be belonging to a mixture of more than two categories. Nevertheless, Eysenck used criterion analysis and discredited this belief of Kant’s categorization suggesting a continuum of traits. He based his understanding that individuals would be measured on two continuums, neuroticism-stability, and extraversion-introversion. He ended to conclude that, an individual’s score on these two continuums would allow for prediction hence there reaction in particular situations. Trait theorists believe a person’s traits are relatively enduring and stable and differ among persons, and in most times influence behavior (Kassin, 2003). They also believe that, traits are determined biologically hence are genetically inherited. Thus, they conclude that there are stable differences between persons, which are unlikely to change over a situation or time (Butt, 2007). Personal construct theory (PCT) on the other hand represents a comprehensive, coherent psychology of personality having unique relevance for psychotherapy. Personal construct theory was developed and advanced in the year 1955 by George Kelly an American psychologist. The theory has been advance to include a variety of domains that comprise of education, business, organizational development, marketing, and cognitive science. Nevertheless, the theory still has focused predominantly on studying families, social groups, and individuals with particular stress on how people change and organize their opinions on self and the world in the field of counseling. The aim of PCT is gaining a comprehensive understanding of personal meaning, and lived experience by considering the different opinions of people. PCT considers people making sense and gaining understanding of the world through creation of as set of individual constructions based on personal experience (Butt, 2007). The trait theory has existed for over a century and has been subjected to critique and scrutiny while the PCT has not received criticism or been subjected to a great deal of scrutiny an implication that the theory is yet to be explored for validity. Trait theory on a broad sense is widely understood because of its relevance to how individuals assess their fellow human beings every day. Either the trait theory uses tools of measurements like objective personality measures and EPI, which allows comparisons to be made for large samples of persons. The findings of the trait theory can very useful to campaign organizations and the government for identifying general trends. However, because of categorization of individuals, the trait theory faces high criticism. Trait theory fails accounting for personality richness like the one PCT does (Butt, 2007). By employing phenomenological principles, focusing on individual uniqueness PCT is able to describe the subtle differences of individuals. PCT recognizes the capability of individuals to be changed by society hence fostering the understanding of why and how people change over situation and time. In addition, this approach not only recognizes that changing individuals is possible, but also provides a platform for further change. Either the qualitative interviewing techniques employed by this theory helps researchers avoid interfering with the findings of this theory. reseachers using this method do not make assumptions about individual constructs but rather they use the repertory grid to assess and convey their individual meanings. The trait theory places emphasis on biological occurrences going beyond description to causal effect while the theory of personal constructs places more emphasis on emotional occurrences that are understood as signs of impending or actual transitions in a person’s fundamental constructs for expecting the world. For instance, individuals may experience threat when they are faced with comprehensive and eminent change in own core structures of identities like when facing threats of being fired from a valued lifetime career, or breaking of a valued relationship between partners. Alternatively, individuals might experience anxiety when they are confronted with events seeming unpredictable and alien within their past construct system. Thus, unlike personal trait theory, which stresses on biological characteristics e.g. shyness based on individuals genetic make-up, PCT has gained attractiveness by contemporary clinicians and researchers concerned with themes such as loss and trauma that can influence one’s assumptive world causing a host of significant behavioral and emotional responses. Personal construct theorists believe that traits are flexible while trait theorists believe traits are fixed and cannot change (Butt, 2007). However, this does not imply that constructs can be changed easily. Kelly attested to this by saying that, because individuals invest in constructions, they could thus resist change hence resulting into difficult in adjusting constructions. Kelly thus because of this uncertainty created a grid to aid in assessing personal constructions by allowing individuals convey and assess their personal meanings that could possibly be out of their reach. For instance, Salmon applied Kelly’s principles of PCT to learning and teaching with the belief that schools needed to recognize kid’s constructs and hence use them to encourage individual development. However, for this to be realistic the kids needed to be aware of their own constructs to allow Kelly’s grid to be used. She this went ahead and built a Salmon Line that provided an effective technique for the kids to assess their own meanings and progress. Agency-structure dualism can be a pertinent consideration in all social psychological perspectives. Agency relates to degree to which people are able of exerting individual choice to make or cause changes to happen in their lives. On the other hand, structure refers to degree to which social or biological factors determine a person’s life-world. Biological structure proposes innate and genes physiological characteristics control our lives while social structure proposes social factors like social or gender class control our world. 2This dualism is relevant to the degree to which individual personality is considered fixed (Butt, 2007). On the other hand, if personality is biological controlled then fixed, and so agency is unrecognized. However, some theorists suppose that an interaction of structure and agency determine a person’s life-world. For instance, individuals are granted freedom to make choice when making change about their bodies with diet. On the other hand, social structures like financial circumstances of individuals limit these choices. Just like the personal trait theory, the theory of personal construct has an element of science. The theory at its base portrays an image of a person as a scientist a view emphasizing the human ability of meaning, agency, making and ongoing correction, or revision of individual systems of know how across time. Therefore, persons such as incipient scientists are portrayed as creatively formulating hypotheses or constructs about apparent occurrences of their lives, with the aim of making them undesirable and predictable to some extent. However, this element of predictability is pursued for the sake of guidance rather than for the sake of its own. Thus, this implies that, individuals engage in refinement, revision, and extension of their own systems as they encounter events challenging or invalidating their assumptions hence prompting their own theories toward high adequacy. The trait theory as emphasized by Eysenk relies on experimental judgement while the theory of personal constructs relies heavily on empirical research programs conducted by a number of social scientists all over the world. Most of these researches have drawn a repertory gird methods that are a set of flexible tools used for assessing systems of individual meanings used in literally hundreds of researches since Kelly’s first proposition. Thus, it is by provision of semantic and visual maps of a person’s construct system and its application to pertinent facets of an individual’s life like relationships with peers, family members, and partners that grids can prove useful to both research and applied settings to make the theory of personal constructs relevant. Some of the topics that have been investigate by this method, are body pictures of anorexic clients, kid’s reliance on abstract vs. concrete construing of people, ability of a family member to understand another’s outlook, and degree of commonality of team members in construing common projects. The trait theory relies on experimental approaches in explaining individual differences while Personal construct theory (PCT) is based on a phenomenological perspective. For instance, as an approach personal construct theory stresses on the importance of therapists making concerted effort in entering a patient’s world of meaning to understand it, inside out, as a pre-requisite to help with its correction. This way, the therapist does not undertake the role of an expert in guiding the client towards a more objectively true or rational way of reasoning. Instead, he works helping the client recognize the coherence from her or his own construing experience and their personal agency to make modifications if necessary to these constrictions. In addition, therapists can prompt a client’s self-reflection using various interviewing strategies like laddering method in articulating core constructs exercises like self-characterization techniques as precursors to carry out experiments on new construing ways for others and self. Personal construct theory relied formally on corollaries for development, which can be categorized into those interested in structure of individual knowledge, social embedded of construing efforts and process of construing. The theory envisions people at the process level as active and concerned with their perceptions of occurrences on recurring themes basis, an implication attributed to buzzing confusion, booming of life in attempting to render it predictable. By organizing and grouping the unending life experiences into compatible units, individuals are able to recognize differences and similarities of occurrences in terms, which are personally significant and relevant to others. Ultimately, PCT has roots embedded in phenomenological approach and only is concerned with unfolding, detailed accounts of individual’s personalities (Butt, 2007)3. On the other hand, trait theory recognizes ability to change all through life. It suggests that these changes take place through interaction of individual agency & social structures. Bibliography Butt, T. 2007. ‘Individual differences’ in Langdridge, D. and Taylor, S. (eds) Critical Readings in Social Psychology. Milton Keynes: Maidenhead, Open University Press. Read More