Off-campus UNL users: To download campus access dissertations, please use the following link to log into our proxy server with your NU ID and password. When you are done browsing please remember to return to this page and log out.
Non-UNL users: Please talk to your librarian about requesting this dissertation through interlibrary loan.
THE ANTICIPATION OF CHANGE AND ADJUSTMENT TO LIFE TRANSITIONS: SELF CONCEPT AND INTERPERSONAL ROLE CHANGES IN PRIMIPAROUS WOMEN
Abstract
George Kelly's theory of Personal Construct Psychology posits that "A person's processes are psychologically channelized by the ways in which he anticipates events", (Kelly, 1955). During the course of major life transition events, the individual is not only adjusting to those changes characteristic of that particular transition s/he is experiencing, but also anticipating changes which will continue to occur in connection with that transition. Those transitions which the individual has never personally experienced before require anticipations which have a greater probability of invalidation than expectations of repeated events, and will therefore demand more construct system reconstruction. In order to examine the quality of changes in self concept and interpersonal construct systems during a novel transition, the Self Repertory Grid and the Interpersonal Repertory Grid were administered to 14 women who were pregnant with their first child, at four intervals during the course of their maternity. The participants in the study are presented as clinical case histories and the modifications in their repertory grid measures are noted in each case. Similarities among the cases in the patterns of construct system shifts are discussed. On this basis, an extension of Kelly's theory of the development of anxiety disorders is proposed. This extension describes a "normal" transitional coping process for controlling the threat of major cognitive reconstruction. Simplification of the personal construct system and the use of range-limited hypothetical constructs facilitate reconstruction. A controlled pattern of construct system elaboration can evolve if the individual also values "change" and is predominantly present oriented in personal roles and relationships. This process of constriction, reconstrual, and controlled elaboration seems to correspond to a better subjective adjustment to life events, regardless of the objective difficulty those events might pose. Recommendations for further investigation of this adaptive pattern are made.
Subject Area
Psychotherapy
Recommended Citation
ALDEN, ELIZABETH SCOTT, "THE ANTICIPATION OF CHANGE AND ADJUSTMENT TO LIFE TRANSITIONS: SELF CONCEPT AND INTERPERSONAL ROLE CHANGES IN PRIMIPAROUS WOMEN" (1984). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI8423755.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI8423755