fei75766_ch19_610-639.indd 633  02/06/20 01:53 PM
Chapter 19     Kelly: Psychology of Personal Constructs633
counting thenumber oftimes astudent’s actual-self matched theirideal-self butdiffered 
from theirfeminist-self. Theresults showed, ashypothesized, thatgreater discrepancy 
between actual-self, ideal-self, andfeminist-self (greater “threat” totheself-construct), 
resulted inlower feminist identification. Inother words, themore someone’s actual and
idealselves areremoved from theirviewofafeminist self,thelower thelikelihood of
identifying asafeminist. 
Next, Moradi andcolleagues intervened toreduce threat bychanging students’ 
construals ofthethreatening construct of“feminist.” InKelly’s terms, theysought to
increase therange ofconvenience andpermeability ofthethreatening construct. To
doso,115college students received either anintervention ornot(acontrol). Both 
groups received pre-andpost-measures offeminist threat andfeminist identification. 
Theintervention wasaninteraction, inthecontext ofaclass period, withagroup 
ofself-identified feminists whowerediverse inage,gender, race/ethnicity, religious 
affiliation, sexual orientation, andlifeexperiences. Participants intheintervention 
group alsoparticipated inanactivity thatencouraged learning about thisdiversity 
(they played 20questions tofindoutwhowasafeminist onthepanel, toeventually 
discover thatallpanelists were). Results showed theintervention waseffective, with
students intheintervention group showing areduced levelofthreat andanincreased 
degree offeminist identification afterwards compared tothecontrol group. Moradi 
andcolleagues’ work represents exciting ways thatKelly’s personality theory maybe
applied tochange internalized culturally prejudiced construals, andtoencourage iden-
tification withsocial justice frameworks thatmove toward amore equitable society. 
Personal Constructs and the Big Five
Researchers haveinvestigated theconnections between Kelly’s personal constructs 
andtheBigFivetraits (Chapter 13).TheBigFivetraits (neuroticism, extraversion, 
openness, agreeableness, andconscientiousness) havereceived agreat dealofatten -
tioninmodern personality research. Kelly’s personal constructs haveamoderate 
amount ofattention, butnottothesame extent astheBigFivemodel. Notallper-
sonality psychologists agree withthisdisproportionate allocation ofresearch and
thevalue ofeachapproach. James Grice andcolleagues, forexample, havedirectly 
compared Kelly’s personal construct theory withtheBigFive(Grice, 2004; Grice, 
Jackson, &McDaniel, 2006).
These twoapproaches topersonality arequite different, anditisworth high-
lighting theimportance ofthiscomparison. ThelistoftheBigFivetraits wascreated 
byessentially boiling down allthethousands ofways people describe oneanother 
intoashorter more manageable listthatcaptured themost common themes. Itseeks 
todescribe everyone along thesame continuum. Kelly’s repertory gridapproach, con-
versely, seeks tocapture theuniqueness ofindividuals. Uniqueness ishardtocapture 
intheBigFivebecause everybody isdescribed along justfivedimensions, butinthe
repertory gridtherateressentially creates hisorherowncontinuum onwhich to
describe people. Forexample, asdiscussed earlier inthischapter, thefirstcontin -
uumdescribed onthesample repertory gridinFigure 19.2isshyness-confidence, so
clearly fortheperson completing therepertory gridshyness-confidence isanimpor -
tantdescriptor, butitisnotadescriptor thatisdirectly captured bymany measures 
oftheBigFive.Final PDF to printer