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Personal Construct Theory : George Kelly
Introduction
George Kelly’s theoretical approach to personality that tries to see how the person sees or aligns events on his or her own dimensions. Kelly believed people perceive and organize their world of experiences by formulating hypotheses about the environment and testing them against the reality of daily life. We observe the events of our life and interpret them in our own way. This special view, the unique pattern created by each individual, is what Kelly called our construct system.A construct is a person’s unique way of looking at life, an intellectual hypothesis devised to explain or interpret events. Over the course of our lives we develop many constructs, one for almost every type of person or situation we encounter. We expand and alter, and discard these constructs periodically as situations change. Kelly’s personal construct theory contains the fundamental postulate, which states that our psychological processes are directed by the ways in which we anticipate events. By using the word, processes, Kelly believed that personality was a flowing, moving process where we anticipate or predict the future by use of these constructs. Kelly rejected the need for motivational concepts to explain human behavior.He argued we are not pushed into action by environmental or unconscious forces. We use past experience to determine what is important to attend to & what we can ignore.Kelly thought that people have psychological problems because their construct systems are faulty, not because of the residue of past traumatic experiences.Past experiences with an unloving parent or a tragic incident may help explain why people construe the world the way they do, but they are not the cause of the problems. According to Kelly, personal constructs are bipolar.That is, we classify relevant objects in an either/or fashion with each construct.E.g., friendly-unfriendly, tall-short, intelligent-stupid, masculine-feminine, etc.
Eleven Corollaries
Construction Corollary: In Kelly’s viewpoint, no two life events can be reproduced exactly as they occur the first time. Events can be repeated, but not exactly the same way. This is called the Construction Corollary. Individual Corollary: Kelly pointed out we are different from one another. Our constructs constitute the unique interpretation each of us places on it. Organizational Corollary: According to Kelly, we organize our individual constructs into a pattern according to our view of their interrelationships, that is, their similarities and differences. Kelly called this the Organizational Corollary, where we organize our constructs into a hierarchy, with some constructs subordinate to others. Dichotomy Corollary: The Dichotomy Corollary states that all constructs are bipolar or dichotomous and our two mutually exclusive alternatives. Choice Corollary: With the Choice Corollary, for every situation we must choose the alternative that works best for us, the one that allows us to anticipate or predict the outcome of future events. Kelly believed that our choices are made in terms of how well they allow us to anticipate or predict events, not necessarily in terms of what is best for us. Range Corollary : The Range Corollary is a range of convenience or applicability to situations or people. This range of convenience or relevance for a construct is a matter of personal choice. Modulation Corollary : Kelly believed constructs differ in their permeability, which means to penetrate or pass through something. The Modulation Corollary measures how much we adapt or adjust to new experiences. If we are too rigid or too impermeable, then we are not capable of being changed, no matter what our experiences tell us. Fragmentation Corollary : Kelly believed that within our construct system some individual constructs might be incompatible, even though they coexist within the overall pattern. This competition among constructs is called the Fragmentation Corollary. We use these kinds of constructs so we can tolerate subordinate inconsistencies without damaging our overall construct system. Commonality Corollary : The Commonality Corollary describes similarities among people in interpreting events. People from the same culture may show a resemblance in their behaviors and characteristics even though they are exposed to different life events. Sociality Corollary : Kelly’s final construct, the Sociality Corollary defines our interpersonal relationships. According to Kelly, we must understand how another person thinks if we are to anticipate how that person will predict events. Construing another person’s constructs is something we do routinely