GEORGE KELLY
 Only child, born in Kansas
 Got attention and affection from his
parents who were fundamentalists
in religious belief, committed in
helping the poor
 Earned bachelor’s degree in physics
and mathematics from Park College
 He originally had no interest in
psychology but developed an
interest after earning a bachelor
degree in education
 Developed clinical psychology
service for the local public school
system to deal with problems and
approaches to treatment
Experimental-based theory
 Kelly concluded that people function
in the same way scientists do
 Like scientists, all of us construct
theories, personal constructs.
 We try to predict and control events
in our lives
 This proposes that a way to
understand someone’s personality is
though examining their personal
constructs
Construct
 intellectual hypothesis that we
devise and use to interpret or
explain life events.
 bipolar, or dichotomous, such as tall
versus short or honest versus
dishonest.
 We behave in accordance with the
expectation that our constructs will
predict and explain the reality of our
world, thus testing these hypotheses
 Ex: students who want to pass will
observed and concluded that their
professor likes to feel important,
therefore the students will form a
construct/hypotheses that acting to
reinforce the professor’s
exaggerated self-image to bring a
favorable response. (flattery may
give the students good grade)
Personal Construct Theory
 Kelly’s description of personality in
terms of cognitive processes
 We are capable of interpreting
behaviors and events and of using
this understanding to guide our
behavior and to predict the behavior
of other people.
 we would not find in his system such
familiar concepts as the
unconscious, the ego, needs, drives,
stimuli and responses, and
reinforcement
 each person creates a set of
cognitive constructs about the
environment. By that he meant that
we interpret and organize the
events and social relationships of
our lives in a system or pattern.
 Basis of pattern: we make
predictions about ourselves and
other people and events. We use
the predictions to formulate our
response and guide our actions
Constructive alternativism
 idea that we are free to revise or
replace our constructs with alter-
natives as needed.
 We are not controlled by our
constructs
WAYS OF ANTICIPATING LIFE EVENTS

1. Construction Corollary: an event can
be repeated, but it will not be
experienced in precisely the same
way
2. Individuality corollary: people differ
from one another in how they
perceive an event because people
construe events differently, thus
forming different constructs
3. Organization corollary: we organize
constructs into a hierarchy.
4. Dichotomy corollary: all constructs
are bipolar and it is necessary that
we note similarities and
dissimilarities among events
5. Choice corollary: people have
freedom of choice and choose what
works best for us that allows us to
anticipate outcome of future events.
6. Range corollary: Few personal
constructs are appropriate or
relevant for all situations.
Range of convenience:
spectrum of events to which
a construct can be applied.
Some constructs are relevant
to a limited number of
people or situations; other
constructs are broader.
7. Experience corollary: since each
construct is a hypothesis created
based on past experiences to predict
the future events, each construct is
tested against reality by determining
how well it predicts a given event
8. Modulation corollary: How much
our construct system can be
modulated, or adjusted, as a
function of new experience and
learning depends on the
permeability of the individual
constructs.
Permeability: idea that
constructs can be revised
and extended in light of new
experiences.
9. Fragmentation corollary: A new
construct may be compatible or
consistent with an old one in a given
situation, but if the situation
changes, these constructs can
become inconsistent.
10. Commonality corollary: Because
people differ in the ways they
construe events, each person
develops unique constructs.
However, people also show
similarities in their ways of
construing events.
11. Sociality corollary: people in the
same culture tend to construe
events similarly. we must
understand how another person
thinks if we are to anticipate how
that person will predict events.
QUESTIONS ABOUT HUMAN NATURE
 We are not prisoners of our past
behaviors. Our direction is towards
the future and not the past holding
us back.
 We are not bound by biological
instincts or unconscious forces
  We are motivated by the fact that
we are alive, we do not need to be
pushed by internal drives or be
motivated
 We are not totally determined by
environmental influences
 Uniqueness = universality
ASSESSMENT IN KELLY’S THEORY
Credulous attitude: accepted client’s word
to determine the person’s constructs. A
person might lie or distort but must be
respected.
Self-characterization sketch: write a sketch
of the client just as if it was written by a
friend who knew them intimately and
sympathetically to learn how clients
perceive themselves in relation to other
people
Role construct repertory test: uncover
constructs we apply to important people in
our lives by being asked to list the people
who have played a significant role in their
life
Repertory grid: diagram where three
people are indicated by circles and
formulates a construct about them
(Emergent ”happy” and implicit ”sad” pole)
Role of Dichotomies: people construe
events in dichotomies. By forcing clients to
make repeated judgments about their social
relationships, Kelly believed he could
uncover their anticipations and
expectations.
Interpretation of the REP Test depends on
the skill and training of the psychologist
who administers it. He designed it as a way
to assess constructs as a necessary stage in
psychotherapy, to induce clients to reveal
the constructs by which they organize their
world.
Fixed role therapy: form of psychotherapy
to help clients formulate new constructs
and discard old ones, he asked them to
write a self-characterization sketch
describing them as the lead character in a
play.
Playing a role: The client is told that the
fixed role sketch is about a ficti- tious
character and is asked to act out that
character in the therapist’s office and later
in everyday life. Through this role-playing,
the client is expected to project personal
needs and values onto the fictitious
character.
Sample Fixed Role Therapy: open and
assertive because in his construct system
assertiveness and extraversion were
negative personality characteristics. Yet, in
dealing with other people, he was
convinced that his opinions were the
correct ones and that everybody else was
wrong. At work, he felt isolated, believing
he belonged to a higher social class than his
colleagues. The therapist’s fixed role sketch
for this client made no mention of the
client’s desire to have an intimate
relationship with a woman. Instead, taking
as a framework the client’s skill at tennis,
the therapist encouraged the client
Role of the therapist: therapist reviewed
the fixed role sketch with the client. He was
asked to try acting, thinking, and talking like
the character for the next two weeks.
Behavioral changes instilled by fixed role
therapy.
Cognitive complexity: cognitive style or way
of construing the environment
characterized by the ability to perceive
differences among people. People high in
cognitive complexity are able to see variety
among people and can easily place a person
in many categories.
Cognitive simplicity: cognitive style or way
of construing the environment
characterized by a relative inability to
perceive differences among people. They
are less capable of perceiving differences
when judging other people. People high in
cognitive simplicity are likely to place others
in only one or two categories, unable to see
much variety.