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REFLECTION PAPER

Name: Joe Aris S. Evangelista Subject: Theories of Personality Chapter: 11

George Kelly: Personal Construct Theory

Kelly, just like other psychologist, is not originally a psychology major. He worked

temporarily as an engineer and an educator and then joined graduate school where he obtained

a master's degree in pedagogical sociology. Kelly also holds a bachelor's degree in education.

In the midst of the 1930s economic downturn, Kelly started his teaching career at Fort Hays

Kansas State College. He built a clinical psychology service for the community public school

system as well as for students at his college. He developed mobile clinics and traveled from

school to school, which allowed him to address a range of issues and test out various therapy

modalities. Kelly used both conventional and original methods for diagnosis and therapy. The

emotionally disturbed patients in a psychiatric unit or a psychoanalyst's office are not the same

as these individuals. The degree of functioning needed in an academic atmosphere was

significantly higher for Kelly's clients, who were much better capable of talking about issues

logically and expressing their issues in intellectual terms. Kelly stated that by creating

hypotheses about the surroundings and comparing them to the realities of daily life, humans

may organize and perceive their world of experiences. One examines the events of one's life

and evaluates them in one's own way. One's individual perspective on events is expressed in

this particular reading, explication, or interpretation of experience. This special perspective,

the unique pattern formed by each person, is what Kelly dubbed the construct system. The

narrative that follow should explain how George Kelly theorized the Personal Construct, and

the Ways of Anticipating Life Events.

 On this narrative, we will learn how Kelly develop the Personal Construct Theory, and

how he presented it in a scientific format. Learn what construct means and constructive

alternativism. Acquire information about ways of anticipating life events and its 11 corollaries

of personal construct theory. On my opinion, Kelly contributed significantly to the

advancement of clinical psychology through his leadership positions with the American

Psychological Association and his tenure at Ohio State University.

Kelly believed that a subjective person lives in an objective world. At the same time,

we have subjective interpretation regarding this objective reality. Following that, according to

Kelley, we have our own explanations and interpretations about what is happening in our

external world. We have different ways of interpreting life events, Kelly said. He call this

Constructive Alternativism, the way we interpret that reality can have multiple angles and

multiple perspective depending on the individuals experiences and his position in life. These

explanations and interpretations of our objective reality is called Personal Construct. It is a

notion that we have the flexibility to change or switch out our constructions as necessary.

Subjective explanation, and prediction on how reality works. Kelly proposed that individuals

organize and understand their world of events in the same way similar to how scientists do it:

by forming and testing theories about the environment in contrast to day-to-day reality. And

those theories help us to anticipate what might happen in the future. We create a variety of

constructs throughout our life, one for practically every type of individual or circumstance we

come across. As we interact with new individuals and experience new situations, we broaden

our repertoire of constructs. Additionally, we occasionally add or remove constructions as

circumstances change. We must constantly have an alternate construct to use in a given

situation, so revising the constructs is an essential and ongoing activity. We wouldn't be able

to handle new circumstances if our constructs were rigid and unable to be altered (which is

exactly what would arise if personality was entirely influenced by childhood experiences). In
order to emphasize the idea that our constructs do not govern us but rather provide us freedom

to change or replace them with different options, Kelly coined the term "constructive

alternativism." The scientific presentation of Kelly's personal construct theory is broken down

into an underlying postulate and eleven corollaries. The underlying premise asserts that the

ways in which we predict events influence our psychological processes. Kelly was implying,

by using the phrase processes, that individuality was a constantly changing, a fluid, active

process. Our conceptions, by which we direct our psychological processes, by how each of us

interprets the world. Another crucial term from the fundamental premise is expected.

Constructs are seen as anticipatory in Kelly's theory. In order to anticipate the So that we can

have a general understanding of the effects of our decisions and what is most likely to occur if

we act in a particular way.

Corollaries of personal construct theory; Construction Since repeated occurrences

share certain characteristics, we can anticipate or foresee how we will react to a similar incident

in the future. Individuality Everybody views situations differently. Organization Based on

our perception of their similarities, we organize our constructs in patterns and distinctions.

Dichotomy constructs are ambivalent; for instance, if we hold a belief that honesty is

important, Dishonesty is a necessary component of any notion. Choice For each construct, we

select the alternative that best suits our needs, the one that permits us to forecast how predicted

occurrences will turn out. Range Our structures may be limited to certain situations or persons,

or they may apply to a wide range of an individual or scenario. Experiences serve as a constant

check against which we compare our constructions to make sure they stay helpful.

Modification Our structures might change in response to fresh encounters. Fragmentation

Occasionally, we may have subordinate constructions that are inconsistent or in conflict

throughout our entire construct system. Commonality Despite the fact that everyone of us has

a unique set of structures, members of compatible groups similar concepts may exist across
civilizations. Sociality We attempt to comprehend the thoughts of others and forecast their

behavior, and we adjust our actions accordingly.

Kelly contributed significantly to the advancement of clinical psychology through his

leadership positions also with American Psychological Association and his tenure at Ohio State

University. He is frequently referred to as one of the pioneering cognitive theorists because of

his contributions to the early stages of the cognitive revolution in psychology. Others classify

him as a humanist philosopher because his theory placed an emphasis on aspects of personal

growth and human potential, much like Abraham Maslow's idea of the hierarchy of needs.

However, Kelly considered that his own construct theory was independent to other humanistic

or cognitive theories, despite the fact that his theory had some components in common with

their work.

Kelly created a novel and original personality theory that was independent of and

unrelated to other ideas. It arose from his interpretation of the data produced by his clinical

practice, his own construct system. It expresses a personal viewpoint with an original message

that we are all capable of creating the structure for our own life. Kelly's system has drawn

criticism for a number of reasons. It ignores emotional components of human functioning in

favor of the intellectual and logical aspects. Clinical psychologists frequently observe more

extreme examples of human conduct, which differs from Kelly's picture of a person who bases

behavior on logically assembling the past, present, and future, formulating and testing the

hypotheses, and making predictions. They perceive Kelly's rational being as an ideal that only

exists in theory and not in actuality. Even while Kelly didn't deal with emotions directly, he

acknowledged that they were personal constructs that formed similarly to other constructs.

In conclusion, in both personality psychology and cognitive psychology, the personal

construct theory is crucial. Although it did so by introducing numerous new ideas and phrases,

it has also drawn criticism. Despite criticism, the hypothesis made an impact not long after it
was developed. Kelly painted a positive picture of human nature, showing us as logical beings

with creative will who can control our course in life. We are not constrained by ideas formed

at a certain period of life or by earlier encounters, unresolved conflicts, or biological urges. In

order to forecast occurrences, we must specify a collection of constructs.

Reference

SCHULTZ, D. P., & SCHULTZ, S. E. (2016). THEORIES OF PERSONALITY (11th ed.).

CENGAGE LEARNING.

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ALITY/Theories%20of%20Personality.pdf