Testing a Personal Construct Theory Model of the Experiential Learning Process

Abstract

This article presents results of a research project to test the validity of a model of the experiential learning process, based on personal construct theory, proposed in earlier work (Beck, 1980a, 1980b). The work reported here is concerned with participants' feelings of acceptance by other training group members, feelings of aggressiveness in testing out the validity of construing, and subsequent changes in participants' construing processes. There are some unpredicted results that seem to indicate that participants who feel accepted become more open in their experience and perhaps become more propositional in the way in which they construe others.