Personal Constructs Theory

1. George Kelly’s
Personal Constructs Theory
Presented by:
Martin Vince C. Cruz
MAP105 – Advanced Theories of Personality
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2. Video Links:
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbWfAeVzcKQ&feature=y
outu.be
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zE74Mk8_n8&feature=y
outu.be
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3. Biographical Sketch (1905-1967)
• Born: Perth, Kansas (1905)
• Parents were devout fundamentalists
• Home-schooled as a child
• M.A in Educational Sociology at University of Kansas
• Studied at University of Edinburgh (B. Ed.)
• Ph. D. at the State University of Iowa (1931)
• Scarcity in careers related to Physiological Psychology lead
him to pursue Clinical Psychology
• Died: 1967
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4. The Person as a Scientist
• We are invited to look at ourselves as scientists
• The posture we take as an attempt to predict and control
events in our world is similar to a scientist developing and
testing a hypothesis.
• We develop personal constructs, which makes our world
meaningful to us.
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5. Constructive Alternativism
• Any event is open to a variety of interpretation.
• The objective truth of a person’s interpretation are
unimportant.
• We look through the world through transparent patterns or
templates of our own creation.
• During the course of our lives, we develop different
constructs.
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6. Fundamental Postulate
“A person’s processes are psychologically channelized by
the ways in which he anticipates events”
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7. Fundamental Corollaries
• Construction
• People anticipate events by interpreting them
• Individuality
• Each person construes events differently
• Organization
• People develop an organized system of constructs
• Dichotomy
• Constructs are bipolar in nature
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8. Fundamental Corollaries (cont’d)
• Choice
• People choose the most useful among the alternatives
• Range
• Each construct has a limited focus
• Experience
• Constructs are changed in the light of experience
• Modulation
• Constructs are open to change and alteration
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9. Fundamental Corollaries (cont’d)
• Fragmentation
• People may use constructs that seem to be incompatible
• Communality
• Communication is based on similar personal constructs
• Sociability
• Social interaction entails understanding constructs
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10. Reconstructing Old Self-Concepts
• Our self-constructs is based on the perceived consistencies
in our behavior
• A role is a process/behavior we engage to understand the
behavior and construct of others.
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11. Abnormal Development & Personal Construct
Theory
• Psychologically healthy people validate their personal
constructs against their experiences with the real world.
• Unhealthy people cling to outdated personal constructs
despite the invalidation attempts.
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12. Abnormal Development & Personal Constructs
Theory
• Threat is the awareness of imminent comprehensive change
in one’s core structures.
• Fear is the specific and incidental changes in a person’s core.
• Anxiety is the recognition of events with which we are
confronted outside our range of convenience.
• Guilt is the loss of core role structure.
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13. Kelly’s Psychotherapeutic Technique
• People should be free to choose the course of action that is
consistent with prediction of events.
• Alter the construct systems to improve efficiency of
predictions.
• Fixed-Role Therapy is aimed at changing their outlook in life
by acting out a predetermined role within the therapeutic
setting to the environment outside therapy.
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14. Assessment in Kelly’s Theory
Role Construct
Repertory (Rep) Test
• Used for
understanding how
people construe
significant people in
their lives.
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15. Kelly’s View of Human Nature
DETERMINIS
M
FREE WILL
UNCONSCIOUS CONSCIOUS
PESSIMISM OPTIMISM
CAUSALITY TELEOLOGY
NATURE NURTURE
UNIQUENESS UNIVERSALITY
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16. Evaluating Kelly’s Theory
• Generates Research ---- 5
• Falsifiable ---- 1
• Organize and Explain ---- 1
• Offer Practical Solutions ---- 3
• Internally Consistent ---- 5
• Parsimonious ---- 5
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17. Thank You for Listening 
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