1. An evaluation of George Kelly’s Personal Construct Theory in terms of its usefulness in contemporary society Personality is an influential and important aspect of psychology. Personality psychology asks the question what does it mean to be a person? And it is primarily concerned with human nature and individual differences (Pervin and John, 2001). This essay will demonstrate an understanding of George Kelly’s Personal Construct Theory and its position in relation to the major perspectives in personality psychology.
It will seek to evaluate Personal Construct Theory in terms of three main criteria of evaluation. Firstly comprehensiveness, which is its ability to account for and encompass a wide variety of data. Secondly parsimony, which is its ability to accounts for varied phenomena in a simple, economical and consistent way, and finally research relevance or relative utility, which is its ability to produce hypotheses which can be confirmed through systematic research.
Many psychologists have developed theories to understand and explain individual personality from different perspectives, including behavioural, psychodynamic, trait, social learning, biological, humanist, interactionist and cognitive (Friedman and Schustack, 1999). Since the 1950s there has been, what is described as a cognitive revolution with the model of a person on sophisticated processors of information. This was at odds with behavioural and social learning theories put forward by Skinner and Clark (Friedman and Schustack, 1999).
Although Kelly did not label his approach as cognitive it is generally accepted to be associated with the cognitive approach. This can be said as Personal Construct Theory emphasises the ways in which we perceive events, the ways we interpret these events in relation to already existing structures and the ways that we behave in relation to these interpretations (Pervin and John, 2001). A theory of personality, if it can be considered complete, should cover structure, process, growth and development, psychopathology and change.
Personal construct theory gives an account of how people experience the world and make sense of that experience (Crittenden, 2002). The fundamental assumption of Kelly’s theory is that people approach the world as scientists thus like scientists, individuals form hypotheses make predictions and test these predictions (Phares and Chaplin, 1997). This basic idea in Kelly’s theory of personality is that we all interpret, try to understand and explain the world by employing personal constructs (Friedman and Schustack, 1999). It is these constructs which are the basis for the structure of Kelly’s Theory.
According to personal construct theory an individual uses the formation 2. George Kelly ‘s Personal Construct Theory and Fixed Role Therapy George Kelly (1905-1967 ) was an American psychologist who developed a personality theory called the personal construct psychology . The psychologist did not talk about development from birth to adulthood . Rather , his theory sees human beings as forms of motion regardless of age . According to Kelly ‘s view , the human `becoming ‘ is a highly individualized process of psychological development .
In this process ,each child and adult continuously extends , revises , and reorganizes the system of meaning , emotion , and action schemes that he or she constructs . With an emphasis on the individual ways in which humans construct and reconstruct the meaning of their lives , Kelly presents his theory with an image of persons as developing scientists . These scientists have their own distinctive theories of self and the world that enable them to understand and anticipate the repetitive themes of their lives .
And , as mentioned before , these theories of self and the world are constantly undergoing change through construction , testing ,revising , and expanding (Neimeyer , 2006 Fransella and Neimeyer , 2005 . Kelly ‘s personal construct theory of psychology is organized into a fundamental postulate and eleven corollaries . The fundamental postulate says , in Kelly ‘s words “A person ‘s processes are psychologically channelized by the ways in which he anticipates events ” The processes in this definition refer to an individual ‘s experiences , thoughts ,feelings , behaviors , and everything that remains .
All processes are determined by the person ‘s anticipation of the self , of others , and of the world in general . Hence , the anticipation leads to hypotheses ,experiments , and observation , that is , from anticipation to experience and behavior (Boeree , 1997 . GEORGE KELLY ‘S PERSONAL CONSTRUCT THEORY AND FIXED ROLE THERAPY Page 2 The eleven corollaries in Kelly ‘s personal construct theory of personality detail the process of construing , the structure of the personal construct systems , in addition to the social embeddedness of human knowing (Neimeyer .
The first corollary is the construction corollary , which states that an individual anticipates events by construing their replications . The second corollary , the experience corollary , is explained by Kelly thus “A person ‘s construction system varies as he successively construes the replication of events “Therefore , past experiences are important . The third corollary is the dichotomy corollary which states that an individual ‘s construction system is made up of a limited number of dichotomous constructs .
The organization corollary is the fourth corollary “Each person characteristically evolves , for his convenience in anticipating events ,a construction system embracing ordinal relationships between constructs ” Kelly describes the fifth corollary thus “A construct is convenient for the anticipation of a finite range of events only ” The sixth corollary , modulation corollary , states that certain constructs are permeable while the rest are relatively impermeable , and hence , the variation in an individual ‘s construction system is limited by the permeability of constructs .
The choice corollary , the individuality corollary , the commonality corollary , the fragmentation corollary , and the sociality corollary are the remaining corollaries – all explaining the fundamental method by which human beings understand themselves ,others , and… 3. 18703. GEORGE A. KELLY’S PERSONAL CONSTRUCT THEORY. This paper critically reviews the personal construct theory of George A. Kelly, in which it is claimed that people create mental constructions in response to events in their lives.
The paper describes the strengths and weaknesses of the theory and makes recommendations for how the theory might be improved. It is argued that the theory is especially important for introducing the repertory interview technique, which is widely used today by engineers and human resources personnel as well as psychotherapists. 4. George Kelly’ Constructs The last theorist discussed in class was, George Kelly; an American psychologist who developed a personality theory called the personal construct psychology .
The psychologist did not talk about development from birth to adulthood. Rather, his theory sees human beings as forms of motion regardless of age . According to Kelly ‘s view, the human `becoming ‘ is a highly individualized process of psychological development . In this process, each child and adult continuously extends , revises , and reorganizes the system of meaning , emotion , and action schemes that he or she constructs .
With an emphasis on the individual ways in which humans construct and reconstruct the meaning of their lives, Kelly presents his theory with an image of persons as developing scientists(as discussed in class). These scientists have their own distinctive theories of self and the world that enable them to understand and anticipate the repetitive themes of their lives. As mentioned before, these theories of self and
