George Kelly

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George Kelly

• Personal Construct Theory

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I. Biography 1905-1967

• George Kelly was born in a farming community near
  Wichita, Kansas.
• He graduated with a degree in physics and
  mathematics from Park College in Missouri in
  1926.
• Kelly didnt care for psychology. He was
  incredulous of Freuds theory unimpressed with
  learning theory as well.

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Biography contd.

• Kelly attended a learning class in college was
  bored stiff. This is what he said of his
  experience
• The most I could make of it was the S was what
  you had to have in order to account for the R,
  and the R was put there so the S would have
  something to account for, he wrote.

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Biography contd.

• Kelly went to the University of Edinburgh to
  study education in 1929. While there he
  developed a growing interest in psychology.
• In 1931 he received his Ph.D. from the University
  of Iowa. For 10 years he worked at Fort Hays
  Kansas State College, setting up clinics for
  dustbowl victims in the 1930s.
• After WWII (He served in the Navy), Kelly spent a
  year at the University of Maryland the next 20
  years at Ohio State University.

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George Kellys Personal Construct Theory

• Kelly rejected the need for motivational concepts
  to explain human behavior.
• He argued we are not pushed into action by
  environmental or unconscious forces. Kelly saw us
  as our own personal scientists.
• People like scientists, generate test
  hypotheses about the way the world works.
• Because no 2 people see the world the same, no 2
  people behave the same or have the same
  personality.

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Personal Constructs

• Man looks at his world through transparent
  patterns of templates which he creates and then
  attempts to fit over the realities of which the
  world is composed. The fit is not always good.
  Yet without such patterns, the world appears to
  be such an undifferentiated homogeneity that man
  is unable to make any sense of it.
• George Kelly (1955)

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Personal Constructs

• Are cognitive structures we use to interpret
  predict events.
• No 2 people use identical personal constructs,
  no 2 people organize their constructs in an
  identical manner.

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Personal constructs

• 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.
• After applying the original black-and-white
  construct we can use other bipolar constructs to
  determine the extent of blackness or whiteness.
• E.g., If you think a person is intelligent, you
  may then apply the construct, academically
  intelligent or commonsense intelligent.
  --provides a clearer picture!

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Types of Constructs

• Preemptive Construct freezes its elements for
  membership exclusively in its own realm this
  is what it isit cannot be anything else
• Constellatory Construct permits its elements to
  belong to other realms concurrently, but fixes
  their realm membership They can be anything
  else at the same time, but they are always

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Types of Constructs (cont.)

• Propositional Construct leaves its elements
  open to alternative constructions very flexible
• All types are useful, in their place

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 The Fundamental postulate corollaries

• Kelly began with one basic postulate upon which
  his entire theory was based, followed by eleven
  corollaries that elaborate on the theory.
• The Fundamental Postulate A persons processes
  are psychologically channelized by the ways in
  which he anticipates events.
• Kelly argued that we are tied to our past
  experiences only in the sense that they have
  helped to develop our constructs expectancies
  for the future.

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The C-P-C Cycle

• Circumspection Preemption Control Cycle
• The process by which a person considers several
  constructs before deciding how to construe a
  novel or uncertain event
• Circumspection a person considers several
  constructs that could be used to interpret a
  situation look at all sides of a question

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The C-P-C Cycle (cont.)

• Preemption the person reduces the number of
  alternative constructs to ones most appropriate
  to the situation
• Control decides on a course of action and its
  accompanying behavior
• This process may be repeated several times,
  depending on the results

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Creating templates

• Imagine you generate a hypothesis about what one
  of your instructors is like, based on
  observations.
• Whenever you see this instructor you collect
  more information compare it to your hypothesis.
  If its verified (the instructor asks the way
  you predict) you continue using it, otherwise you
  discard it.
• We place the templates over the events we
  encounter. If they match, we retain the
  templates if not, we modify them for a better
  prediction next time.

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How do we go about anticipating events?

• Kelly explains in his Construction Corollary that
  we anticipate events by construing their
  replications.
• Without expectancies we would be overwhelmed with
  information which would leave us confused
  unable to predict anything.
• Therefore, we utilize past experiences to help us
  organize anticipate future events.

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Past experienceguides our predictions

• We use past experience to determine what is
  important to attend to what we can ignore.
• If you knew if a person was quiet or talkative
  (talkative-quiet construct), you could predict
  their behavior in a given situation more
  accurately.

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Kellys Organizational corollary

• We differ in the way we organize our constructs.
• Some constructs are more important than others in
  interpreting our worlds.
• Kelly calls these superordinate personal
  constructs compares them to be less important
  subordinate constructs.

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How can personal constructs be used to explain
personality differences?

• Kelly argued that differences in our behavior
  largely result from differences in the way people
  construe the world.
• Suppose two people meet a new individual named
  Adam.
• Person 1 uses friendly-unfriendly, fun
  loving-stuffy, and outgoing-shy constructs in
  forming his template for Adams behavior.

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Person 2 uses refined-gross, sensitive-insensitiv
e, intelligent-stupid constructs.

• After both individuals interact with Adam they
  walk away with different impressions of Adam.
• Person 1 believes that Adam is a friendly,
  fun-loving outgoing person, whereas Person 2
  thinks that Adam is gross, insensitive, stupid.
• The same situation is interpreted differently.

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What drives us according to Kelly?

• Anticipation is both the push pull of the
  psychology of personal constructs.(1955, p. 49).
  
• It is the future that tantalizes man, not the
  past.

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Why do two people who experience the same event,
have different interpretations of that event?

• 1. Each person may have a different set of
  constructs they use to evaluate a given event.
• 2. Two people may use similar constructs on one
  pole, but not on the other.
• E.g., You might use an outgoing-reserved
  construct, whereas you might use an
  outgoing-melancholy construct. Thus, what you
  see as reserved, I may see as melancholy.

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A subordinate construct may be subsumed within
one side of the superordinate construct, like
this

• Friendly-Unfriendly
• Outgoing-Quiet
• Here, people are judged as either friendly or
  unfriendly. If judged as friendly, they are then
  judged as either outgoing or quiet.

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You might, however organize your constructs this
way 

• Friendly-Unfriendly
• Outgoing-Quiet Outgoing-Quiet
• Here, whether you judge people as friendly or
  unfriendly, you can further judge them as either
  outgoing or quiet.

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Psychological Problems

• 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.
• All disordersresult from faulty construct
  systems.

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What is the route of all madness?

• Anxiety!
• Kelly argued that anxiety diminishes our capacity
  to predict future events.
• When we are anxious we fail to encode stimuli
  important in making predictions, leaving us
  feeling confused disoriented.

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Why do our constructs sometimes fail us when we
are trying to predict future events?

• Sometimes we develop impermeable constructs.
• An impermeable construct does not easily allow
  new elements into its existing range of
  convenience.
• This drastically limits your ability to
  anticipate events, which would make your world
  feel less predictable more out of your control.
  
•  
• Keep in mind construct systems may be
  incomplete.