George Kelly

Brandi L. Johnecheck

The Art Institute of Portland & The Art Institute Online

About the Man

Born an only child in a small Kansas town, and lived 1905-1967.
Studied public debate and music at Friends University; received a degree from Park College for math & physics; received a degree in education in Edinburgh; received a PhD from the University of Iowa following a dissertation on speech and reading.
Started professionally with psychology at Fort Hays State College, then moved on to the University of Maryland after serving as a WWII aviation psychologist for the Navy, before finally become a professor and director of clinical psychology for Ohio State University.
Started a network of traveling clinics in Kansas.
Disliked the psychoanalytic approach because “his clinical experiences had taught him that people in the Midwest were paralyzed by prolonged drought, dust storms, and economic concerns, rather than by overflowing libidinal forces.”
Some students disliked him for his formality and sometimes abrasive behavior; others considered him a great teacher who listened well, and many became prominent in psychology.
Had an interest in language and speech.
Wrote The Psychology of Personal Constructs while at OSU.

Notes

“George Alexander Kelly was born in a small town in Kansas in 1905, the only child of a Presbyterian minister and his wife. He attended high school in Wichita, Kansas, and then Friends University, where he enrolled in courses in music and public debating. He graduated from Park College in 1926 with a degree in mathematics and physics.”

“In 1929 he was awarded an exchange scholarship and spent a year at the University of Edinburgh, where he earned a bachelor's degree in education. He returned to the United States with a developing interest in psychology and entered the graduate program in that field at the University of Iowa. In 1931 he was awarded his Ph.D. for a dissertation in the area of speech and reading disabilities.”

Had an interest in speech and language.

“Kelly's professional career in psychology began with his acceptance of a position at Fort Hays State College in Kansas. […]he established a network of traveling clinics throughout the state.”

“After a stint in the navy as an aviation psychologist during World War II, Kelly was appointed associate professor at the University of Maryland. He left Maryland in 1946 to become professor of psychology and director of clinical psychology at Ohio State University.”

“Some of his students disliked and feared him. There were several reasons for their feelings. First, he could be very formal in his interactions with them. He insisted, for example, that students call him “Professor” Kelly and on his calling them “Mister,” “Miss,” or “Mrs.”—right up to the acceptance of their Ph.D. dissertation (after which he told them to call him “George” and he called them by their first names). Second, students that did not measure up to his (and the department's) high standards could well find themselves face-to-face with Kelly in his office, where he would dismiss them rather quickly from the program. Third, a few students found some of his behavior hurtful.”

“Despite the fact that he was disliked by some students for his sometimes abrasive behavior, the majority of the students liked him and respected his brilliant intellect. In addition, many of his students agreed that he was a fine teacher. As one of his ex-students, Brendan Maher, put it:

He was undoubtedly one of the small number of true teachers that I have met. He was delighted to hear the student's ideas, to encourage and help the student to bring them to a successful completion. This is the kind of thing that does not make students into mechanical imitators, nor indeed into disciples, in the narrow sense of the word. What it did do was to make many of us feel that he respected us, was willing to have us disagree with him and that he always had at the back of his own head the possibility that he might be wrong; it made us into lifelong friends, admirers of Kelly the man, aware of the possibility of error in our own convictions, and free to pursue our ideas as we saw fit, and know that we were honouring his teaching in doing so. (Fransella, 1995, p. 26) (cont.)

(cont) It should also be noted that many of his former students have become prominent figures in psychology.”

“Finally, during his tenure at Ohio State University, he produced his major theoretical work, The Psychology of Personal Constructs.”

About the Theory

Kelly’s theory focuses on people building constructs by which they perceive the world, tending to interpret events in a way that fits into their construct system, such as by believing that a bad grade for hard work must mean that the teacher is unfair. The constructs are not static, though, but constantly updating to reflect new experiences through constructive alternativism, which allows a person to change their mind about how something is perceived – so if that teacher showed the student how they had gotten the bad grade and offered some suggestion for improving it (maybe a different study method, maybe changing what is focused on, etc), then the student may no longer consider the teacher unfair.

These constructs also feature a variety of hierarchal setups and other details, depending on what the construct is for, how easily it can be changed, what other constructs it may be connected to and what that relation is (does it control them, is it affected by them?), etc. Among the more notable are core and peripheral constructs; the latter can be easily changed, but the former is something a person grows with and holds to tightly.

A number of corollaries also can be noted is the system, such as commonality corollary (those with similar interpretations will have similar behavior) and fragmentation corollary (when constructs aren’t fully consistent with each other, leading to behavior that doesn’t fit one or the other).

Notes

While at Fort Hays, “Kelly largely abandoned the psychoanalytic approach to human personality. He reported that his clinical experiences had taught him that people in the Midwest were paralyzed by prolonged drought, dust storms, and economic concerns, rather than by overflowing libidinal forces.”

“The crux of Kelly's theory of personal constructs arose from his observation that “people tended to have the symptoms they had read about or had seen in other people” (Kelly, 1955, Vol. 1, p. 366). When the terms (or constructs) inferiority complex and anxiety were popular in the 1920s and 1930s, people began to describe themselves as having inferiority complexes or anxieties. These self-descriptions were subsequently used in their interpretations of reality. Kelly's preoccupation with the structure of language and the impact of language and roles on behavior led him to read the works of the eminent linguist Korzybski and the role-playing theorist Jacob Moreno; on the basis of his reading, he was able to refine his theory.”

“The concept of constructive alternativism underlies Kelly's theory of cognition. [...] the assumption that all of us are capable of changing or replacing our present interpretation of events. [...] we can always change our minds. The assumption also implies that our behavior is never completely determined; we are always free to some extent to reinterpret our experiences.”

“In brief, she was free to choose her goal but, once chosen, the goal determines certain related behaviors. Translating this example into Kelly's terminology, we can say that the superordinate construct—attainment of the college degree—was freely (cont.)

(cont.) chosen. It then acted to control other subordinate constructs—the number of social activities and the number of hours spent studying.”

“Theorists who adopt a behavioral stance, in contrast, maintain that all behavior is determined. They disagree with Kelly on the free choice of goals, which, they argue, are also determined by prior experiences.”

“Kelly believed that each of us, like the scientist, attempts to predict and control events. We are continually in the process of evaluating and reevaluating our experiences and trying to use our interpretations to understand and control the world around us. We have our own theories about human behavior.”

“Our constructs are not as objectively defined as those used by research scientists, and our theories rarely meet the rigorous criteria set by conventional science. In short, we have rather commonsense views of ourselves and reality, and the possibilities for distortion and error are great. Moreover, many of us continually shift our view of reality to fit the data. No matter how distorted our views of reality are, however, they are still real to us...”

“Thus, Kelly embraced the phenomenological position of the humanist theorists reviewed in Part Five. Like the humanists, Kelly believed we are not passive organisms; we relate actively to the environment, often in creative ways.”

“In building our systems of personal constructs, we place interpretations on events; that is, we construe them. We construe the meaning of events for ourselves through an abstraction process, by placing constructions upon our experiences. We then utilize our constructions to deal with new information from the environment. These interpretations are reality for us, and (cont.)

(cont.) determine how we act. They are also highly personalized: we may have the same experiences as others do, but we often interpret them differently.”

“Because constructs are personal, people may apply different labels to the same experiences. […]Even when two people label an experience similarly, the contrast end of the dimension may differ.”

“…constructs that are highly important in people's lives as core constructs. These are beliefs that reflect their personal identity, structures that help maintain their existence. Core constructs are very resistant to change, whereas peripheral constructs are relatively easy to change.”

“In short, Kelly has posited a complicated, hierarchical system of cognition populated by personal constructs derived from experience that now control or determine the ways in which the person will react to incoming stimuli or information. Although much of the person's behavior is determined by such constructs, there is also room within the system for change because the superordinate concepts are free and often permeable. Changes in these permeable constructs would then produce changes in the subordinate construct system.”

“People differ because they have had different experiences and also because they take different approaches to anticipation of the same event.”

“In other words, our construct subsystems are not always mutually consistent, and we may sometimes show behaviors that are inconsistent with our most recent experiences. Kelly calls this the fragmentation corollary.”

“...commonality corollary states that those who interpret events similarly will behave alike. The underlying assumption is that “to the extent that one person employs a construction of experience which is similar to that employed by another, his psychological processes are similar to those of the other person.””

“Kelly assumed that the development of each person revolves around attempts to maximize understanding of the world through the continuing definition and elaboration of his or her construct system. Like other major humanistic psychologists, Kelly simply assumed that this tendency was innate. Certainly he did not believe it was learned, although he assumed that the person's interaction with the environment plays the major role in helping to move the individual toward personal growth. He rejected outright the mechanistic learning view that behavior was determined solely by the operation of environmental events. Individuals do not simply react to the environment. Instead, they actively, uniquely, and systematically construe it and then utilize these constructions to anticipate events. They use previous experiences to create hypotheses about possible new outcomes. In Kelly's view, people do not respond to the environment in order to maximize pleasure and avoid pain, as reinforcement theorists assume. Instead, they actively seek to maximize the accuracy of their views.”

Terms to Know

constructs - "Ways of representing our experiences; they are abstractions that are defined in terms of the similarities and contrasts of their poles."
core constructs - "Important beliefs that are part of the individual's personal identity."
peripheral constructs - "Beliefs that are relatively unimportant to the person and that can be changed rather easily."
range of convenience - "The scope of a construct; the number of other constructs to which it is related."
permeability - "The degree to which new elements will be admitted within the boundaries of a construct."
subordinate construct - "Construct that is controlled by other constructs."
superordinate construct - "Construct that controls many other constructs."
Role Construct Repertory Test (RCRT) - "Test devised by Kelly to assess an individual's personal construct system; also known as the REP test."
self-characterization sketch - "Initial step in fixed-role therapy, in which clients are asked to write a brief character outline of themselves as it might be written by an intimate and sympathetic friend."
enactment sketch - "A description of a role that clients are asked to play that provides an opportunity for them to behave in ways that contrast with the self-characterization sketch."

Personality Development

Kelly believed personality development to be somewhat of an ongoing process, believing people to be capable of changing - even intentionally - how they perceive things. He did have models for how a person processes and uses experiences though, such as the C-P-C (circumspection-preemption-control) cycle:

The cycle begins, according to Kelly, when the person circumspects by considering all the possible ways of construing a given situation; that is, the person considers a series of propositional constructs that might help in dealing with the situation at hand. Next comes the preemption phase, when the person reduces the number of available constructs and seriously considers only those that will help solve the problem. Finally, in the control phase, the person decides on a course of action by choosing the single construct that he or she believes to be most useful in solving the problem.

Notes

“Kelly developed several models of the ways in which the individual utilizes information from the environment in deciding on a course of action. One of the more important ones he termed the circumspection-preemption-control (C-P-C) cycle. The cycle begins, according to Kelly, when the person circumspects by considering all the possible ways of construing a given situation; that is, the person considers a series of propositional constructs that might help in dealing with the situation at hand. Next comes the preemption phase, when the person reduces the number of available constructs and seriously considers only those that will help solve the problem. Finally, in the control phase, the person decides on a course of action by choosing the single construct that he or she believes to be most useful in solving the problem (Kelly, 1955, Vol. 1, pp. 516–517). As an illustration, consider the case of a young woman who wants to become a world-renowned violinist. She could construe herself in many different ways—as a future tennis great, a lazy person, or a popular local actress. Until she rejects these self-constructs and settles on one that paints her as a dedicated student of music, she is unlikely ever to become successful and to realize her ambition. By making that choice, she exercises control over her behavior and anticipates the extension of her construct system.”

Pathological Behavior

In his theories and with testing done by others, Kelly's way of assessing showed that schizophrenics had many loose constructions - weak, unstable, and difficult to predict. That also used very few words to describe themselves, seeming to have weak self-conceptions, as well as trouble categorizing others according to personal traits.

Among the more general populace, there can be issues with those who have certain negative or incorrect core constructs, or those with too many loose constructions. Also, "In Kelly's view, the sick person is one who continues to use constructs that are invalid."

Methods of Assessment

Among other things, one assessment tool Kelly used ofted is the Role Construct Repertory Test (RCRT), a sort of graph with focuses on having the person make various associations between people and traits. They start of listing people and traits, thinking of two people who share a trait and a third who is considered an opposite, then proceed to relate how others do or don't have that trait.

Notes

“Kelly used many different techniques to assess personality and promote positive growth in his clients. Some of these procedures he devised himself; others he borrowed and adapted from the works of other major personality theorists. Kelly noted two general approaches to the appraisal of clients’ experiences—one focusing on the past, and the other tending to de-emphasize the past and to concentrate instead on the present.”

“One test that proved extremely useful to Kelly in his therapeutic work was the Role Construct Repertory Test (RCRT), which he devised as the major diagnostic tool for assessing the personal construct systems of people in clinical settings.”

“One example of the application of the RCRT to a clinical population is a study conducted by Harter, Erbes, and Hart (2004, pp. 27–43). These investigators did a content analysis of the personal constructs generated by college women who had experienced childhood sexual abuse and compared it to an analysis of the personal constructs generated by college women who had no history of childhood sexual abuse.”

“In non-clinical samples, the RCRT has been used to assess the level of cognitive complexity of students.” Bieri tested RCRT validity with college students, how they expected others to answer a question. Seemed to come out true.

Types of Therapy

In Kelly's methods, the primary point of therapy is to help the person recognize invalid constructs and to make small changes to those constructs so as to help correct them. The process - after getting an idea of the person's construct system and which, specifically, were a problem - focuses on the therapist gently pointing out flaws and alternatives, and frequently includes the person taking on some role counter to themself. For determining what the problems are to begin with, the therapist uses controlled elaboration to get the person thinking and explaining, and to provide a setup for the person to more easily compare experiences to their constructs, to see how they hold up to the experiences.

During the process, Kelly felt that while the therapist needs to empathize with the client, the therapist should not try to take on other constructs for the client, but should maintain their own constructs.

Notes

“In Kelly's view, the sick person is one who continues to use constructs that are invalid. Thus, the basic aim of psychotherapy is to help clients form new constructs or revise old ones so that they can deal more effectively with their environment. Therapy is concerned primarily with opening up the possibility of continual change in the client's construct system. The therapist's job is to diagnose the illness and to throw light on the paths by which clients can become well.”

Minor change - “By threat, Kelly meant clients’ awareness of the possibility of imminent change in their construct structures. Under such conditions, Kelly believed, the therapist can take advantage of the situation by pointing out new ways for clients to construe their experiences in order to facilitate constructive growth. Change can also be produced if the therapist invalidates clients’ constructs, by showing them why and how their constructs do not work. Finally, the therapist can produce minor change by admonishing clients and exhorting them to behave differently and more effectively.”

“For major change to occur, clients must be convinced that the therapist accepts them and is willing to help them think through their problems. Kelly's view of acceptance differs from that of other nondirective therapists, however. In the traditional view, the therapist assumes that everyone has the right to choose to become anything she or he desires. In Kelly's view, (cont.)

(cont.) acceptance does not necessarily imply approval of the clients’ characteristics, but rather a readiness to understand clients’ construct systems and to use their own systems to help them get well. One implication of this stance is that therapists must have a clear and firm understanding of their own construct systems. They must be able to empathize with clients without surrendering their own viewpoint. Toward this end, therapists should try to subsume much of the client's system into their own.”

“Controlled elaboration is Kelly's term for the therapist-assisted process of thinking through. Its aim is to make the client's construct system internally consistent and communicable so that it can eventually be validated or invalidated by new experiences. The therapist takes an active role in this process...”

References

Ryckman, R. M. (2008). Chapter 11: Kelly’s theory of personal constructs. In Theories of personality (9th ed.). Thomson/Wadsworth.