Kelly

Personal Construct Theory

Personal Construct Theory

George Kelly’s theory

George Kelly

• was born in a farm

• his parents were fundamentalists in their religious belief

• was tutored by his parents; his early education was in one-room school house

• received his college degree in physics and math

Presbyterian minister

George Kelly’s father was a —

School teacher

George Kelly’s mother was a —

Gladys Thompson

George Kelly’s wife

Julian Rotter

George Kelly and —- developed a clinical psychology program that many
considered to be the best in the country then

constructive Alternativism

There are various ways in which the world that surrounds us can be
understood; there always exist alternative perspectives for us to choose
from

Hans Vaihinger

Just like Alfred Adler, Constructive Alternativism was influenced by —’s
“philosophy of ‘as if

man-the-scientist

• People develop hypotheses about the consequence of their behavior, and
  they evaluate the validity of those hypotheses in terms of the accuracy of
  their predictions.

• Scientists construct theories that lead to better and better predictions, and
  individuals try to construct anticipatory systems that give them better and
  better sense of what is going to happen if they act in a certain way

good scientist

A healthy person is like a —, adjusting constructs according to
new data

bad scientist

The unhealthy person is like a —, not changing his constructs even if it does not work

focus on the construer

• When a person makes a statement about the world, we should understand
  that the statement reveals more about the person than about the world.

• Statements about people and the world are best considered as proposals
  or hypotheses, but many treat them as factual claims

motivation

• this is an unnecessary and redundant construct, because people are
  active by definition since we are alive!

• People act as they do, not because of forces that act on them or in them,
  but because of the alternatives they perceive as a function of their construal of the world

1. push theories

2. pull theories

2 types of motivational forces

drive, motive, stimulus

push theories

purpose, value, need

pull theories

being oneself

There is no internal agent

Self

• The — often serves as a mask behind which we hide the real self.

• To think of oneself as an introvert is to impose a label that sets up expectations for behavior

fluid

Kelly thought of one’s self-image as—, not a predetermined reality.

personal construct

This is a way in which some things are construed as being alike yet different from
others.

1. bipolar

2. range of convenience

3. locus of convenience

4. permeability

5. preemptive

6. constellatory

7. propositional

8. core

9. peripheral

features of constructs

bipolar

constructs are dichotomous

range of convenience

certain constructs have certain range of applications only

locus of convenience

the class of objects to which it is most relevant

permeability

the ease with which they can be extended to new objects/events

preemptive

this makes nothing else about the objects matters

constellatory

triggers other constructs without additional information

propositional

designating an object would not lead to other judgements about the object

core

central to a person’s sense of who he is

peripheral

less fundamental and more amenable to change

fundamentals postulate

• a person’s processes are psychologically channelized by the ways in which he or she anticipates events.

• This is the core of Kelly’s position.

• A person’s understanding of the world and behavior in that world are directed by his expectations and anticipations about what will happen if he/she acts in a certain way

anticipation

— is both the push and pull of the psychology of personal constructs

construction corollary

• a person anticipates events by constructing their replications

• No two events are exactly alike, but people see enough similarities among some
  events to create a construct to represent them

• This is like a cognitive version of Skinner’s reinforcement theory

individuality corollary

• Persons differ from each other in their construction of events.

• People differ not only because they have been exposed to different events, but
  because they have developed different approaches to anticipation of the same
  events.

• No two people interpret an event in exactly the same way

organization corollary

• Each person characteristically evolves, for convenience in anticipating
  events, a construction system embracing ordinal relationships between
  constructs.

• Each person arranges his/her constructs into a hierarchical system that characterizes that personality.

• This helps minimize incompatibilities and inconsistencies.

• Such a system continuously evolves with experience

dichotomy corollary

• A person’s construction system is composed of a finite number
  dichotomous constructs.”

• Dichotomous constructs are constructs that are opposite to each other.

• In nature, things may not always opposite, or either-or.

peace

can only be understood in comparison to war orchaos and vice-versa

comfort

can be understood in contrast to discomfort or suffering

choice corollary

• A person chooses that alternative in a dichotomized construct through which he/she anticipates the greater possibility for extension and definition of his/her system.

• A behavior reduces to a choice between 1. further defining the existing
  construct system, or acting in a manner that 2. extends the range of convenience of the construct system.

• Choices will be made in favor of whatever it i

range corollary

• A construct is convenient for the anticipation of a finite range of events only.

• In other words, a construct is limited to a particular range of convenience or
  range of events only.

• Brightness and darkness are applicable to the color of a computer monitor, but
  not to the taste of coffee

experience corollary

• A person’s construction system varies as he/she successively constructs the replications of events.

• The constructions we place on events represent hypotheses about the
  consequences of behavior, and we use the actual outcomes to validate the
  construct system, just as a scientist uses data to validate a theory.

• It is not what happens around him/her that makes a person experienced, but the
  successive construing and reconstruing of what happens that enriches the
  experience of life

modulation corollary

• The variation in a person’s construction system is limited by the permeability of the construct within whose range of convenience the variants lie.

• The extent to which people revise their constructs is related to the degree of
  permeability of their existing constructs

• Goodness can be applied to persons with tattoos.... But not to things with
  “tattoos”.

• This is similar to range corollary

fragmentation corollary

• A person may successfully employ a variety of construction subsystems
  that are inferentially incompatible with each other.

• For example, a man might be protective of his wife, yet encourage her to be
  more independent.

• Protection and independence may be incompatible with each other on one level, but on a larger level, both are subsumed under the construct love.

sociality corollary

• To the extent that one person construes the construction process of another, he/she may play a role in a social process involving the other person.

• Kelly believed that people can engage in meaningful relationships only if they
  understand each other’s construal process

commonality corollary

• To the extent that one person employs a construction of experience that is
  similar to that employed by another, his/her psychological processes are
  similar to those of the other person.

• Just as dissimilar construction of events lead to individual differences, similar
  construction of events leads people to behave in similar ways.

• This accounts for within-cultural similarities.

preverbal constructs

These are constructs not coded in linguistic form, they cannot be articulated but continue to influence our behavior.

submerged constructs

This is when one pole of a dichotomous construct is less available than the other.

suspended constructs

• Ideas and memories are only available if constructs that can represent them exist.

• If a dichotomous construct disappears from the construct system, this may result into temporary forgetting of a memory until a new construct can represent them again