Running head: GEORGE KELLY’S PERSONAL CONSTRUCT THEORY 1

George Kelly’s Personal Construct Theory

Victoria Hunter

Catawba College

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of Psychology 3380, Psychology of

Personality

November 10, 2020

On my honor, I have not violated the honor code in completing this work.
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George Kelly’s Personal Construct Theory

George Kelly’s Theory of Personal Constructs has an overall neutral view of humans,

depending on the individual, it would be either positive or negative. This theory focuses on the

need for humans to be willing to change, develop, and not remain stagnant in the idea of how

they wanted things to be like. The basic tenets about personality development according to this

theory is the eleven corollaries that go along with an individual’s basic postulate. The basic

postulate is that when a person’s processes are psychologically channelized by the ways in which

s/he anticipates events. An important aspect of this theory is a person’s constructs. A construct is

a schema; how you explain the world. All constructs are guided by anticipation of any future or

events. The Personal Construct theory is applied to maladaptive responses including threat,

anxiety, fear, and guilt, as well as being used in fixed role therapy.

George Kelly’s Personal Construct Theory has a view of humans that lays the

responsibility of your personality in your hands. Personality is your habitual behavior. You

cannot be inflexible according to George Kelly’s theory. It is important to be willing to

reconstruct your constructs that you have for your life. Our personal experiences change our

constructions constantly throughout a lifetime and we are responsible for these changes (Chiari,

2013). Kelly says that the core assumption of this theory is that everything individuals face

(events) can be constructed into something new and that individuals should not be stuck on one

construct; we have to be willing to change or else we will not be happy (Kelly, 2003). The other

few basic assumptions of this theory are that we interact with the world given our anticipation of

events and the meaning that we place on the events. We are guided by what we hope for in the

future and we plan for that, although, sometimes things happen, and we have to be willing to

reconstruct to find a new plan. We have to find a new plan through our behaviors and the view of
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the world and ourselves. Construction is a personal affair, and we cannot base our own

constructions on the constructions of others (Kelly, 2003).

It is important to examine how the basic postulate works before explaining the different

corollaries within Kelly’s theory. The basic postulate begins with people, specifically, the things

about individuals that develop their personality. The basic postulate focuses on the psychological

aspect that states that as people, we have no other commitments to ourselves other than our

bodies chemistry and physiological needs (Kelly, 2003). There are eleven corollaries that are

based on this basic postulate. The eleven corollaries are construction, individuality, organization,

dichotomy, choice, range, experience, modulation, fragmentation, commonality, and sociality.

The construction corollary looks at an event and compares it to a previous encounter and see if

something similar has happened to you in the past, if so, you act accordingly. The individuality

corollary considers the fact that it is unlikely for anyone to have an identical experience,

therefore, all of your constructs are individually based. Organization corollary is the idea that all

of our constructs are related to each other.

The dichotomy corollary explains that we have many different constructs that are an

either-or type of situation as opposed to something that is fluid. Choice corollary occurs when

the person makes a choice from the dichotomous constructs made during the dichotomy

corollary. The range corollary suggests that realism is necessary for constructs; constructs cannot

apply to all situations; adaption is necessary. The experience corollary states that we change our

constructs based on our personal situations, through each experience, we have a better ability to

anticipate future events. The modulation corollary says that are constructs are easily changed

based on our new experiences. For example, if you grow up in a small town with very

conservative views and you start college at a big liberal college, you will be introduced to new
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ideas, different perspectives, and different religions. Due to your new college experience, your

constructs may change.

The fragmentation corollary leads to incompatible constructs that we use at different

times. The commonality corollary suggests that we like people who have constructs similar to us

because we can examine how they handle a situation based on the same construct and see how it

works out for them in the case that we endure the same situation at a later date. Sociality

corollary encourages us to try to relate to other people so that we can understand other people

(Kelly, 2003). This allows us to have new perspectives and view the world as someone else does.

All of the corollaries go along with the basic postulate that helps us create and reconstruct our

constructs.

Whenever we have constructs, we have maladaptive behavior. These behaviors include

us feeling threat, anxiety, fear, and guilt. Whenever we feel that our construct is being threatened

and we are not capable of adapting to another construct, we do not know what to do and wish to

get rid of the threat. If we do not adapt and cannot eliminate the threat, we will not be able to

continue our personality development; we will be stuck in a state of unhappiness until we are

able to deal with the problem. Whenever we feel anxiety, we are worried about our construct

because it is no longer there. In this case, we do not know what to do and do not adapt to another

construct. Feeling as though our construct is not working is fear. Whenever we encounter that

fear, the two options are to reconstruct our current construct or to not move forward. With fear

being a maladaptive behavior, they are not able to go through reconstruction. Whenever you feel

guilt due to behaving outside of your usual construct, you feel as though you must reconsider

your construct. You feel guilty for not following your construct and think that this may lead to

punishment of some form; this could be an actual punishment or something to give back to the
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world (Kelly, 2003). All of these maladaptive behaviors result in us becoming stagnant in our

personality development and leading to unhappiness because we are not able to be flexible with

our constructs.

Using Personal Construct Theory in fixed role therapy (a psychotherapeutic approach)

allows us to take the role of another person in our relationship which leads people to

understanding each other whenever they have conflicting constructs. Using fixed role therapy

could ultimately help us characterize our relationship and define our own self construct more

clearly. Fixed Role Therapy would be helpful to use in an area such as marriage counseling.

A big critique regarding this theory is that it does not consider the role of affect in

construction. According to Chiari, there is nothing that distinguishes cognitions and emotions

within the Personal Construct Theory (2013). The reason that the role of affect in construction is

not part of this theory is because humans only commitment is to their body’s chemistry and

physiological needs. Therefore, our emotions are left behind when reconstructing. Another

critique is that there is a “cold attitude of the therapist toward the client” (Chiari, 2013, p. 258).

This is important to recognize because whenever a client feels as though the therapist is not

being warm to the client, they are going to be less receptive of what the therapist has to say.

Even with these critiques, Kelly has managed to establish a theory that works with others.

Overall, according to Kelly, personality is based on the way that we view ourselves and

how we view the world. The world determines how we view our past experiences which will

eventually affect how we make decisions in the future. These types of decisions will ultimately

change our personality because we have to be fluid and ready to change our construct at any

given time if the event permits it. Otherwise, we will be stuck in the state of unhappiness while

our personality is not developing.

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References

Chiari, G. (2013). Emotion in personal construct theory: A controversial question. Journal of

Constructivist Psychology, 26(4), 249-261.

https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10720537.2013.812853

Kelly, G. A. (2003). A brief introduction to personal construct theory. International Handbook of

Personal Construct Psychology, 3-20. https://dx.doi.org/10.1002/0470013370.ch1