Kelly: Psychology of Personal Constructs
Overview of Personal Construct Theory
 George Kelly’s theory of personal constructs is like
no other personality theory. It has been variously
called a cognitive theory, a behavioral theory, an
existential theory, and a phenomenological
theory. Yet it is none of these. Perhaps the most
appropriate term is “metatheory,” or a theory
about theories.
 People exist in a real world, but their behavior is
shaped by their gradually expanding
interpretation or construction of that world.
 People are not victims of circumstances, because
alternative constructions are always available.
Kelly called this philosophical position
constructive alternativism.
 Constructive alternativism is implied by Kelly’s
theory of personal constructs, a theory he
expressed in one basic postulate and 11
supporting corollaries.
 The basic postulate assumes that people are
constantly active and that their activity is guided
by the way they anticipate events.
Biography of George Kelly
 George Alexander Kelly was born April 28, 1905,
on a farm near Perth, Kansas, a tiny, almost
nonexistent town 35 miles south of Wichita.
 George was the only child of Elfleda M. Kelly, a
former schoolteacher, and Theodore V. Kelly, an
ordained Presbyterian minister.
 Kelly was a man of many and diverse interests. His
undergraduate degree was in physics and
mathematics, but he was also a member of the
college debate team and, as such, became
intensely concerned with social problems.
 Then in 1928, he moved to Sheldon, Iowa, where
he taught at a junior college and coached drama.
While there, he met his future wife, Gladys
Thompson, an English teacher at the same school.
After a year and a half, he moved back to
Minnesota, where he taught a summer session at
the University of Minnesota.
 Kelly’s diverse life experiences, from the wheat
fields of Kansas to some of the major universities
of the world, from education to labor relations,
from drama and debate to psychology, are
consistent with his theory of personality, which
emphasizes the possibility of interpreting events
from many possible angles.
KELLY’S PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION
 Is human behavior based on reality or on
people’s perception of reality? George Kelly
would say both.
 He also rejected extreme phenomenology, which
holds that the only reality is what people
perceive.
 Kelly believed that the universe is real, but that
different people construe it in different ways.
 Thus, people’s personal constructs, or ways of
interpreting and explaining events, hold the key
to predicting their behavior.
 Personal construct theory does not try to explain
nature. Rather, it is a theory of people’s
construction of events: that is, their personal
inquiry into their world.
 It is “a psychology of the human quest. It does
not say what has or will be found, but proposes
rather how we might go about looking for it”
Person as Scientist
 Like all other people (including scientists), your
perception of reality is colored by your personal
constructs—your way of looking at, explaining,
and interpreting events in your world.
 In a similar manner, all people, in their quest for
meaning, make observations, construe
relationships among events, formulate theories,
generate hypotheses, test those that are
plausible, and reach conclusions from their
experiments.
 A person’s conclusions, like those of any
scientist, are not fixed or final. They are open to
reconsideration and reformulation.
Scientist as Person
 Every scientific observation can be looked at
from a different perspective. Every theory can be
slightly tilted and viewed from a new angle.
 This approach, of course, means that Kelly’s
theory is not exempt from restructuring.
 Kelly presented his theory as a set of half-truths
and recognized the inaccuracy of its
constructions.
 Kelly hoped that his theory would be overthrown
and replaced by a better one. Indeed, Kelly, more
than any other personality theorist, formulated a
theory that encourages its own demise.
Constructive Alternativism
 Kelly began with the assumption that the universe
really exists and that it functions as an integral
unit, with all its parts interacting precisely with
each other.
 Moreover, the universe is constantly changing, so
something is happening all the time.
 Added to these basic assumptions is the notion
that people’s thoughts also really exist and that
people strive to make sense out of their
continuously changing world
 Kelly assumed “that all of our present
interpretations of the universe are subject to
revision or replacement”
 He referred to this assumption as constructive
alternativism and summed up the notion with
these words: “The events we face today are
subject to as great a variety of constructions as
our wits will enable us to contrive”
 The philosophy of constructive alternativism
assumes that the piece-by-piece accumulation of
facts does not add up to truth; rather, it assumes
that facts can be looked at from different
perspectives.
 Kelly believed that the person, not the facts, holds
the key to an individual’s future. Facts and events
do not dictate conclusions; rather, they carry
meanings for us to discover.
 Like scientists in general and personality theorists
in particular, we often find restructuring
disturbing and thus hold on to ideas that are
comfortable and theories that are well
established.
PERSONAL CONSTRUCTS
 Kelly’s philosophy assumes that people’s
interpretation of a unified, ever-changing world
constitutes their reality.
 All people continually create their own view of the
world.
 Some people are quite inflexible and seldom
change their way of seeing things. They cling to
their view of reality even as the real world
changes.
 Some people construe a world that is substantially
different from the world of other people.
 Kelly would insist that these people, along with
everyone else, are looking at their world through
“transparent patterns or templates” that they
have created in order to cope with the world’s
realities.
 Kelly referred to these patterns as personal
constructs.
 A personal construct is one’s way of seeing how
things (or people) are alike and yet different from
other things (or people).
 Whether they are clearly perceived or dimly felt,
personal constructs shape an individual’s
behavior.
 However, personal improvement is not inevitable,
because the investment people make in their
established constructs blocks the path of forward
development.
 The world is constantly changing, so what is
accurate at one time may not be accurate at
another.
Basic Postulate
 Personal construct theory is expressed in one
fundamental postulate, or assumption, and
elaborated by means of 11 supporting corollaries.
 The basic postulate assumes that “a person’s
processes are psychologically channelized by the
ways in which [that person] anticipates events”
 In other words, people’s behaviors (thoughts and
actions) are directed by the way they see the
future.
 First, the phrase person’s processes refers to a
living, changing, moving human being.
 Kelly chose the term channelized to suggest that
people move with a direction through a network
of pathways or channels. The network, however,
is flexible, both facilitating and restricting people’s
range of action.
 The next key phrase is ways of anticipating
events, which suggests that people guide their
actions according to their predictions of the
future. Our present view of the future shapes our
actions.
Supporting Corollaries
 To elaborate his theory of personal constructs,
Kelly proposed 11 supporting corollaries, all of
which can be inferred from his basic postulate.
Similarities Among Events
 No two events are exactly alike, yet we construe
similar events so that they are perceived as being
the same.
 Kelly referred to this similarity among events as
the construction corollary.
 The construction corollary states that “a person
anticipates events by construing their
replications”
 This corollary again points out that people are
forward looking; their behavior is forged by their
anticipation of future events.
 The construction corollary may seem little more
than common sense: People see similarities
among events and use a single concept to
describe the common properties.
Differences Among People
 “Persons differ from each other in their
construction of events”
 Kelly called this emphasis on individual differences
the individuality corollary.
 Because people have different reservoirs of
experiences, they construe the same event in
different ways. Thus, no two people put an
experience together in exactly the same way.
 Although Kelly emphasized individual differences,
he pointed out that experiences can be shared
and that people can find a common ground for
construing experiences.
 This allows people to communicate both verbally
and nonverbally.
Relationships Among Constructs
 Kelly’s third corollary, the organization corollary,
emphasizes relationships among constructs and
states that people “characteristically evolve, for
[their] convenience in anticipating events, a
construction system embracing ordinal
relationships between constructs.
 The third emphasizes that different people
organize similar events in a manner that
minimizes incompatibilities and inconsistencies.
 The organization corollary also assumes an ordinal
relationship of constructs so that one construct
may be subsumed under another.
Dichotomy of Constructs
 The dichotomy corollary states that “a person’s
construction system is composed of a finite
number of dichotomous constructs”
 Kelly insisted that a construct is an either-or
proposition—black or white, with no shades of
gray.
 In order to form a construct, people must be able
to see similarities between events, but they must
also contrast those events with their opposite
pole.
 “In its minimum context a construct is a way in
which at least two elements are similar and
contrast with a third”
Choice Between Dichotomies
 If people construe events in dichotomized
fashion, then it follows that they have some
choice in following alternative courses of action.
 Kelly’s choice corollary, paraphrased as follows:
People choose for themselves that alternative in a
dichotomized construct through which they
anticipate the greater possibility for extension and
definition of future constructs.
 People make choices on the basis of how they
anticipate events, and those choices are between
dichotomous alternatives.
 In addition, the choice corollary assumes that
people choose those actions that are most likely
to extend their future range of choices.
Range of Convenience
 Kelly’s range corollary assumes that personal
constructs are finite and not relevant to
everything. “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.
 The range corollary allowed Kelly to distinguish
between a concept and a construct.
 A concept includes all elements having a common
property, and it excludes those that do not have
that property.
 The idea of construct contrasts tall with short,
thus limiting its range of convenience. “That
which is outside the range of convenience of the
construct is not considered part of the contrasting
field but simply an area of irrelevancy”
Experience and Learning
 The experience corollary states: “A person’s
construction system varies as he [or she]
successively construes the replications of events”
 Kelly used the word “successively” to point out
that we pay attention to only one thing at a time.
“The events of one’s construing march single file
along the path of time”
 Experience consists of the successive construing
of events. The events themselves do not
constitute experience—it is the meaning we
attach to them that changes our lives.
Adaptation to Experience
 Kelly’s modulation corollary. “The variation in a
person’s construction system is limited by the
permeability of the constructs within whose range
of convenience the variants lie”
 This corollary follows from and expands the
experience corollary.
 It assumes that the extent to which people revise
their constructs is related to the degree of
permeability of their existing constructs.
 A construct is permeable if new elements can be
added to it.
 Impermeable or concrete constructs do not admit
new elements.
Incompatible Constructs
 Although Kelly assumed an overall stability or
consistency of a person’s construction system, his
fragmentation corollary allows for the
incompatibility of specific elements.
 “A person may successively employ a variety of
constructive subsystems which are inferentially
incompatible with each other”
Similarities Among People
 Although Kelly’s second supporting corollary
assumes that people are different from each
other, his commonality corollary assumes
similarities among people.
 His slightly revised commonality corollary reads:
“To the extent that one person employs a
construction of experience which is similar to that
employed by another, [that person’s] processes
are psychologically similar to those of the other
person”
 Two people need not experience the same event
or even similar events for their processes to be
psychologically similar; they must merely construe
their experiences in a similar fashion.
 Because people actively construe events by asking
questions, forming hypotheses, drawing
conclusions, and then asking more questions,
different people with widely different experiences
may construe events in very similar ways.
 Kelly also assumes that no two people ever
interpret experiences exactly the same.
Social Processes
 “People belong to the same cultural group, not
merely because they behave alike, nor because
they expect the same things of others, but
especially because they construe their experience
in the same way”
 The sociality corollary can be paraphrased to read
as follows: To the extent that people accurately
construe the belief system of others, they may
play a role in a social process involving those
other people.
 People do not communicate with one another
simply on the basis of common experiences or
even similar constructions; they communicate
because they construe the constructions of one
another
 In interpersonal relations, they not only observe
the behavior of the other person; they also
interpret what that behavior means to that
person.
 Kelly introduced the notion of role with his
sociality corollary.
 A role refers to a pattern of behavior that results
from a person’s understanding of the constructs
of others with whom that person is engaged in a
task.
 Kelly construed roles from a psychological rather
than a sociological perspective. One’s role does
not depend on one’s place or position in a social
setting but rather on how one interprets that role.
 With our core role, we define ourselves in terms
of who we really are. It gives us a sense of identity
and provides us with guidelines for everyday
living.
APPLICATIONS OF PERSONAL CONSTRUCT THEORY
 Like most personality theorists, Kelly evolved his
theoretical formulations from his practice as a
psychotherapist.
 He spent more than 20 years conducting therapy
before he published The Psychology of Personal
Constructs in 1955.
Abnormal Development
 In Kelly’s view, psychologically healthy people
validate their personal constructs against their
experiences with the real world.
 They are like competent scientists who test
reasonable hypotheses, accept the results without
denial or distortion, and then willingly alter their
theories to match available data.
 Unhealthy people, on the other hand, stubbornly
cling to outdated personal constructs, fearing
 validation of any new constructs that would upset
their present comfortable view of the world.
 Such people are similar to incompetent scientists
who test unreasonable hypotheses, reject or
distort legitimate results, and refuse to amend or
abandon old theories that are no longer useful.
 Kelly (1955) defined a disorder as “any personal
construction which is used repeatedly in spite of
consistent invalidation”
 Psychological disorders, therefore, also exist in
the present; they are caused neither by childhood
experiences nor by future events.
 Because construction systems are personal, Kelly
objected to traditional classifications of
abnormalities. Using the Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-
TR) of the American Psychiatric Association (2002)
to label a person is likely to result in
misconstruing that person’s unique constructions.
 Psychologically unhealthy people, like everyone
else, possess a complex construction system.
 Their personal constructs, however, often fail the
test of permeability in one of two ways: They may
be too impermeable or they may be too flexible.
 In the first instance, new experiences do not
penetrate the construction system, so the person
fails to adjust to the real world.
 On the other hand, a construction system that is
too loose or flexible leads to disorganization, an
inconsistent pattern of behavior, and a transient
set of values. Such an individual is too easily
“shaken by the impact of unexpected minor daily
events”
 Although Kelly did not use traditional labels in
describing psychopathology, he did identify four
common elements in most human disturbance:
threat, fear, anxiety, and guilt.
Threat
 People experience threat when they perceive that
the stability of their basic constructs is likely to be
shaken.
 Kelly defined threat as “the awareness of
imminent comprehensive change in one’s core
structures”
 One can be threatened by either people or
events, and sometimes the two cannot be
separated.
Fear
 Fear, on the other hand, is more specific and
incidental.
 Threat demands a comprehensive restructuring—
fear, an incidental one.
 Psychological disturbance results when either
threat or fear persistently prevents a person from
feeling secure.
Anxiety
 Kelly defined anxiety as “the recognition that the
events with which one is confronted lie outside
the range of convenience of one’s construct
system”
 People are likely to feel anxious when they are
experiencing a new event.
 Pathological anxiety exists when a person’s
incompatible constructs can no longer be
tolerated and the person’s construction system
breaks down.
Guilt
 Kelly defined guilt as “the sense of having lost
one’s core role structure”
 That is, people feel guilty when they behave in
ways that are inconsistent with their sense of who
they are
 People who have never developed a core role do
not feel guilty. They may be anxious or confused,
but without a sense of personal identity, they do
not experience guilt.
PSYCHOTHERAPY
 Psychological distress exists whenever people
have difficulty validating their personal constructs,
anticipating future events, and controlling their
present environment.
 When distress becomes unmanageable, they may
seek outside help in the form of psychotherapy.
 In Kelly’s view, people should be free to choose
those courses of action most consistent with their
prediction of events.
 In therapy, this approach means that clients, not
the therapist, select the goal.
 Clients are active participants in the therapeutic
process, and the therapist’s role is to assist them
to alter their construct systems in order to
improve efficiency in making predictions.
 As a technique for altering the clients’ constructs,
Kelly used a procedure called fixed-role therapy.
 The purpose of fixed-role therapy is to help clients
change their outlook on life (personal constructs)
by acting out a predetermined role, first within
 the relative security of the therapeutic setting and
then in the environment beyond therapy where
they enact the role continuously over a period of
several weeks.
 Together with the therapist, clients work out a
role, one that includes attitudes and behaviors not
currently part of their core role.
 Fixed-role therapy is not aimed at solving specific
problems or repairing obsolete constructs.
 It is a creative process that allows clients to
gradually discover previously hidden aspects of
themselves.
 In the early stages, clients are introduced only to
peripheral roles; but then, after they have had
time to become comfortable with minor changes
in personality structure, they try out new core
roles that permit more profound personality
change.

The Rep Test

 Another procedure used by Kelly, both inside and

outside therapy, was the Role Construct
Repertory (Rep) test.
 The purpose of the Rep test is to discover ways in
which people construe significant people in their
lives.
 With the Rep test, a person is given a Role Title
list and asked to designate people who fit the
role titles by writing their names on a card.
 The number of role titles can vary, but Kelly
(1955) listed 24 on one version.
 The major goal of the test involves developing
the constructs a person has about the important
people in their life by asking the person (rater) to
choose any three people from the list at one
time.
 Then the rater thinks about how two of the three
are alike and how they differ from the third
person.