>she's giving people a camera and telling them to take 12 pictures that
>indicate important features of their identity - who they are as people.
>they are the construct poles - which she may get verbal approximations
>of from the people themselves. we think this may be a way of
>approaching core constructs and want to think of extending this as a
>possible therapeutic tool - eg. looking at changes over time etc.
That's a fascinating approach, but why is she not having them take 12 other
pictures showing who they are *not*? I would guess that in many - but not
all- cases, the pictures can be paired up to form a bipolar construct. I
suspect that 'tight' construing could be reflected in cases where opposites
line up nicely, whereas looser construing would be reflected in cases that
don't match up so tidily. Just ask people to find pairs of photos from the
"me" and the "not me" pile that reflect the most extreme opposition that
the person feels is represented in the lot.
Alternatively, pairwise comparisons could elicit the extent to which the
photos seem "related" to one another, as well, with the 12 "me" construct
photos being compared to the 12 "not me" construct shots. I would expect
core constructs to be important, with linkages to other core constructs
reflecting the personal structure that would be obtained by a regular
repgrid. For example, with appropriate instructions, the ratings could be
done something like this:
Me Not me Rating
same different opposite
my office my lawyer's office 0 1 2 3 4 X
my office my father's 0 X 2 3 4 5
workshop
The extremity of rating would be an index of the centrality of the
construct captured by the picture, would it not?
Just my $.02 !
cheers,
Travis Gee
Lecturer, School of Psychology
University of New England
Armidale NSW 2351
Australia
tgee@metz.une.edu.au
+61 (2) 6773 2410
http://metz.une.edu.au/~tgee
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