George Kelly

 born on a farm in Perth, Kansas in 1905

 His father was a Presbyterian minister, but ill health prevented
him from actively leading a church congregation.
 Kelly’s parents were devout fundamentalists who practiced
their faith, prescribed hard work and rigorously shunned the
evils of dancing, drinking and card-playing.
 as an only child, Kelly received extensive attention and love
 His mother was devoted to him
 George Kelly
 Kelly’s early education was sporadic.
He attended a one-room country school and was taught by his
parents at home.
 he was sent to Wichita Kansas for high school, where he attended 4
different schools.
 He studied 3 years at Friends University
He received a B.A degree (1926) from Park College
 Kelly majored in Physics & Mathematics and planned a career on
mechanical engineering. He pursued the M.A degree in educational
sociology at the University of Kansas
 The Person as Scientist
In our efforts to understand the world, we develop PERSONAL
CONSTRUCTS - that serve as the hypothesis that make the world
meaningful to us. This is the core of Kelly’s personal construct theory.

Kelly is often perceived as a cognitive theorist who stressed the process

of knowing as the primary factor in personality development.

Kelly protested that his was not a cognitive theory.

Kelly’s theory is cognitive because he stressed that an individual

behaviour is determined not simply by the environment or heredity but
also and primarily, by attitudes, expectations and beliefs.
 Constructive Alternativism
 It is the assumption that any one event is open to a variety of
interpretations.
No one construct or pattern is final and a perfect reflection to
the world. There is always an alternative construct that might do
a better job of accounting for the facts that we perceive.
 Fundamental Postulate
and Corollaries
To further explain his theory, Kelly set forth 1 basic assumption or
fundamental postulate, and then elaborated it with 11 corrolaries.

FUNDAMENTAL POSTULATE: “ A person’s process are psychologically

channelized by the ways in which he anticipates the event”

Probably, the most important word in Kelly’s primary assumption is

anticipates.
 Corrolaries
1. Construction – People anticipates events by interpreting them.

2. Individuality – Each person construes events differently.

3. Organization – People develop an organized system of

constructs.

4. Dichotomy – Constructs are a bipolar of nature.

5. Choice – People choose from among alternatives the most

useful construct.
 Corrolaries
6. Range – Each constructs has a limited range or focus.

7. Experience – Constructs are changed in the light of experience.

8. Modulation – Constructs are open to change and alteration.

9. Fragmentation – People may use constructs that seem to be

incompatible.

10.Communality – Communication is based on similar personal

constructs.

11. Sociability – Social interaction entails understanding constructs.

 The Reconstruction of Old Concepts
Self construct – is based primarily on what we perceive as consistencies in
our own behaviour.

Our self - interpretation is linked to our role relationships with other

people.
Role – is a process or behaviour that people engage in based on their
understanding of the behaviour and constructs of others.
 Role (social psychology) – usually refers to a set of behavioural
expectations – mother, teacher, physician, ruler, and so on set forth by a
particular society and fulfilled by its members.
 Role (in Kelly’s theory) – is defined by the individual in an effort to
understand the behaviour of other people and relate to them.
 Development – is based on one’s choice of constructs and viewed in
psychological rather than biological terms.

 Learning and Motivation - are built into the very structure of the system.
Kelly believed that no special inner forces – such as drives, needs, instincts
or motives are needed to account for human motivation.

 Learning – is synonymous with all of the psychological processes

 Emotions – are also subsumed under the general framework of personal
constructs

Kelly refused to divide the person into cognitive and emotional states.

Feelings and Emotions – refer to inner stated that need to be construed.

 Traditional Psychological Concepts such as Anxiety, Guilt and
Aggression were also reconceived by Kelly in accordance with his personal
construct theory.

 Anxiety – is the recognition that the events with which one is confronted
lie outside the range of one’s construct theory.
Guilt – is a perception of one’s apparent dislodgement from his core role
structure
Aggression – entails the active elaboration of one’s perceptual field.
Such aggression is distinguished from hostility, in which an individual forces
other people or events to fit into the current personal construct system.
Hostility in Kelly’s theory - the conflicted effort to extort validational
evidence in favour of a type of social prediction which has already proven
itself a failure or the opposite of aggression.
 Assessment and Research
in Kelly’s Theory
 Clinical experiences with public school and college students
- provided the basis for Kelly’s theory of personal constructs.
In order to understand further how a person interprets the world. Kelly
developed the Role Construct Repertory Test or Rep Test.
 Rep Test - permits a person to reveal constructs by comparing and contrasting
a number of significant persons in her or his life.. It has also been used to
explore the complexity of an individual’s construct system and changes in the
construct system throughout the lifespan.
 Cognitive Complexity - the ability to perceive differences in the way in which
one construes other people.
 Websites and Software Programs - have been developed to facilitate working
with the Rep Test.
 Psychotherapy
Kelly conceived of his therapeutic methods as “ reconstruction “
rather than psychotherapy. He sought to help his patient re-construe
the world in a manner that would foster better predictions and
control.

1st step of his therapy – is usually that of “elaborating the complaint”.

2nd step of his therapy – Elaborating the construct system itself.

Role-Playing – Kelly’s contribution to therapeutic methodology.

Perspectivism – conceives of other people as equal partners and
promotes tolerance of multiple perspectives.
 Kelly’s Theory
 Kelly’s theory suggest that a construct is validated if the
anticipations it gives rise to occur.

Validation – refers to the compatibility between one’s

predictions and one’s observation of the outcome, both of
which are subjectively construed.

Kelly’s theory is best known in England and Europe than in

the United States.