Personal Construct Integrative Complexity and the Credulous Approach

Abstract

Kelly's (1955) theory of personal constructs suggests the therapist is most effective if his orientation to clients is credulous. The credulous approach requires the therapist to seek an understanding of the person's experience, in its complexity and uniqueness. instead of simply evaluating the person along preestablished dimensions of good vs bad. The credulous approach is assumed to lead to the development of myriad dimensional views of people by supporting spontaneous, unguarded exploration. Such understanding is assumed to facilitate the client's transcendence of conflicrs and impoverished perspectives. Chambers (1983) developed a measure of such myriad dimensional construction. The measure, called integrative complexity, correlated with the Cattell 16 PF measures of openmindedness, trust, and spontaneity vs closedmindedness, mistrust, and rigidity. These findings suggest the more credulous person is also more integratively complex. In another study, Chambers (1985) found the integratively complex person is better at resolving inconsistent information about another person. In the present study this line of reasoning is extended by determining whether subjecu asked to behave in a credulous vs incredulous manner tend to be more inregratively complex. Forty-four undergraduates participating for academic credit completed coordinate grids (Chambers, 1983), that is, each ranked a set of people to one another in terms of their general similarity. This produces a square matrix of ranks. Integrative complexiry is determined by subtracting this matrix from its transpose and summing the absolute values of the differences. The lower the sum, the greater the integrative complexity. To inspire a credulous orientation, 22 subjects were asked to complete a grid containing 10 people they understood well. An incredulous orientation was developed by asking the second 22 subjects to complete a grid made of 10 people they mistrusted. Results suggest the credulous orientation led to grids of greater integrative complexity. The mean for the credulous group was 180.36 (SD 24.75, n 22). The mean for the incredulous group was 194.7 (SD 29.08, n 22). Means were significantly different (t4= = 1.72, p < .05). The results were modest but suggest people may be more integratively complex about people they understand than those they mistrust. This is consistent with Kelly's views on the credulous approach. More work is needed and might lead to a betrer understanding of the complexities of therapeutic processes.