Chapter 14: Kelly – Personal Construct Theory
Part 2: Personal Construct Theory
Kelly’s personal construct theory departs from cognitive social learning in that he proposes it is not simply enough to know what a person is likely to do in a given situation, even when your predictions are correct. More importantly, we need to know what a person might have done (Kelly, 1966). Thus, unlike the cognitive social learning theorists who consider cognitive processes as an aspect of the environmental circumstances associated with behavior, Kelly focused on the cognitive constructs first and foremost.
Kelly presented his personal construct theory in a two volume set, which was published in 1955 (Kelly, 1955a,b). In the mid-1960s, Kelly was preparing a new book that was to include talks and papers he had presented around the world, many of which were never published. Unfortunately, he did not survive to complete this task, but the project was later completed by Brendan Maher (Maher, 1969), thus furthering the information available on this unique theory.
Constructive Alternativism
Kelly begins by questioning the role that psychologists have assigned to themselves. Psychologists consider themselves to be scientists, engaged in the systematic study of human behavior and thought. Kelly questions why we, as psychologists, don’t extend the same perspective to all people. According to Kelly, doesn’t every person seek to predict and control the course of events in their lives? Doesn’t every person have their own theories about situations in life, don’t they test their own hypotheses, and weigh the experimental evidence gained through experience?
Since Kelly proposes that each individual is theorizing about and testing their own life circumstances, he suggests the term man-the-scientist for understanding how all people (including, of course, women) approach the world around them.
In trying to understand the world around us, using arguments that sound either existential or like Eastern philosophy, Kelly questions the existence of the universe. Of course it exists, he says, but so do the thoughts of each individual, and the correspondence between what people think exists and what does, in fact, exist is constantly changing. Thus, Kelly suggests that it is better to say that the world around us is existing, rather than to say it exists. Likewise, life can only be understood in the context of time, if it is to make sense. However, life is not simply the changes that occur over time. Rather, it is a relationship between living things and their environment. Kelly emphasizes the creative capacity of living things to represent their environment, as opposed to simply reacting to it. These representations are known as constructs, patterns that we create in our mind and attempt to fit over the realities of the world. Since our constructs don’t always fit with reality, we are constantly modifying them, as well as trying to increase our repertoire of constructs. Over time, we tes