George Kelly

George Kelly, an American psychologist, came up with Personal Construct Theory (PCT) or Personal Construct Psychology (PCP). As to this concept, every individual has a distinct perspective on the world. To comprehend and make sense of the world around them, people use mental frameworks known as constructs or schemas. As a major player in the early years of cognitive psychology, Kelly is often seen as a pivotal figure in the development of cognitive clinical psychology. Let's explore his life journey in this short article.

Early Years

On April 28, 1905, George Alexander Kelly was born in Perth, Kansas. He was Merriam Kelly and Theodore Vincent Kelly's only child. Living in a devout environment where certain activities were forbidden, his father, a former pastor, was forced to resign owing to health concerns. His mother showered Kelly with attention.

The family began farming when he was four years old, but they encountered difficulties and left for four years, returning to Kansas. Kelly's parents taught him at home when they lived in Colorado.

Kelly's early school years were uneven. At the age of thirteen, he moved to Wichita for further schooling, attending four different high schools there after having been homeschooled and attending a one-room rural school in Perth.

Educational History and Professional Experience

In 1926, George Kelly graduated from Park College with a B.A. in physics and mathematics, having first studied mechanical engineering. Later, he developed an interest in social concerns while working in engineering and teaching. As a result, he enrolled in the University of Kansas' master's program in educational sociology and, upon graduation, began teaching courses at a community college.

Kelly pursued a bachelor's degree in teaching within a year after receiving a scholarship at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland in 1929. He returned to the United States and changed his focus to psychology, graduating with a doctorate from the University of Iowa in 1931.

Kelly established a free psychology clinic and taught at Fort Hays Kansas State College upon the completion of his doctorate. He was an aircraft psychologist in the military during World War II. Before attending Ohio State University in 1946, he had been a professor at the University of Maryland after the war. His theory of personality was established throughout his 19 years there.

Globally, Kelly delivered lectures at renowned universities such as Stanford, Northwestern, the University of Southern California, and the University of Chicago. He took a renowned job in 1965 at Brandeis University in Massachusetts as the Riklis Chair of Behavioural Science, but he tragically died there in two short years.

Work

Kelly's Concerns

When his personal construct theory was contrasted with other ideas, Kelly took offense. Kelly distinguished it as a distinct category, while others saw it as related to humanistic or cognitive ideas. He was also taken away by the similarities made by some to Ulric Neisser and Abraham Maslow.

According to Kelly, current theories of personality are excessively nebulous and difficult to evaluate. The diagnosis in clinical instances was often impacted more by the observer's viewpoint than by the patient's true problems. For instance, the analysis would be provided in Freudian terminology if someone saw a Freudian analyst; the same would apply to other methods.

Kelly saw that each person had their thoughts, as did the therapist and the patient. It was, therefore, difficult for therapists to be entirely unbiased. A skilled therapist would be able to comprehend the patient's viewpoint and assist in rejecting their harmful beliefs.

Personal Construct Psychology

As inquisitive scientists, Kelly thought, individuals see the world through the prism that their own beliefs and perspectives have produced. Personal construct theory is the name given to this. People employ these mental models, according to Kelly, to anticipate and manage life's obstacles.

Personal experiences, however, may sometimes alter these frameworks and make them irrelevant to the circumstances at hand. As far as Kelly was concerned, mental health problems can result from continuously using an inadequate framework.

Kelly investigated the process by which individuals make mental maps of their lives in his 1955 study "The Psychology of Personal Constructs." The meanings people gave to words excited his curiosity. When someone describes their sister as shy, for instance, there are several ways that one may understand the term "shy," depending on connections and past experiences. Kelly was interested in how people interpret the world using their conceptual frameworks.

Later versions of intersubjective psychoanalysis and cognitive-behavioral therapy were inspired by Kelly's theory that humans behave like foolish scientists. Kelly's theory did not see humans as being led only by instincts or prior learning, in contrast to certain other psychological views.

On the contrary, he thought that people are driven by the need to comprehend and anticipate what will happen in their social environment. An important aspect of Kelly's theory was that it recognized that people may modify their opinions and, in turn, their interactions with the outside world.

Constructs, according to Kelly, are usages of contrary categories, such as "attractive" and "ugly," to make sense of the outside world. The extent to which an individual's construct system can adjust and forecast events is a measure of its adaptability. When they come across fresh knowledge, adaptive people are always updating their constructions. Overall, Kelly's theory suggests that people have the choice to redefine themselves, a concept he called constructive alternativism.

Kelly's theory is like a scientific framework with a main idea and some supporting principles.

Main idea: "How a person thinks is guided by how they expect things to happen."

1. Construction Corollary: "People expect things by thinking about similar past events."
2. Experience Corollary: "As people think about similar events, their way of thinking changes."
3. Dichotomy Corollary: "People have a set number of opposing ideas that make up their way of thinking."
4. Organization Corollary: "Everyone creates a system of ideas that helps them predict events in a specific order."
5. Range Corollary: "Each idea is only good for predicting a limited range of events."
6. Modulation Corollary: "People can only change their way of thinking within the limits of their existing ideas."
7. Choice Corollary: "People pick the option in their thinking that allows them to predict and understand more."
8. Individuality Corollary: "Everyone has their unique way of thinking about events."
9. Commonality Corollary: "If someone's way of thinking is similar to another person's, their thoughts and processes are alike."
10. Fragmentation Corollary: "People might use different ways of thinking that don't match, confusing."
11. Sociality Corollary: "Understanding how someone else thinks can affect how you interact with them."

Dimensions of Transitions

When people go through big changes in life, it's like their understanding of the world gets shaken up. These times can bring feelings like anxiety, hostility, and guilt, but they also offer chances to change how someone sees things.

1. Anxiety: This happens when someone faces a situation their usual way of thinking can't handle, like a person used to earthquakes feeling super anxious about a hurricane because it's something new to them. It's like being caught off guard without the right mental tools. For example, a boy who's been treated badly might get anxious when someone tries to be kind to him because he's not used to it.
2. Guilt: Imagine feeling guilty not because you did something wrong but because you didn't act in a way that fits who you think you are. If someone sees others as just tools for making money and suddenly can't manipulate them, they might feel guilty because they're not sticking to their usual way of thinking.
3. Hostility: This is like stubbornly sticking to your beliefs even when they're not working out. It's trying to force the world to fit what you already think, even when it clearly doesn't. For example, a teacher who thinks they're amazing might get hostile when students give bad reviews instead of considering that maybe there's room for improvement.

So, when life throws curveballs, it can mess with how we see things, bringing anxiety, guilt, or hostility. But these moments also give us a chance to update our mental tools and see the world in a new light.

Rep Test

Based on his construct theory, George Kelly created the rep test, also known as the repertory grid, in 1955. This grid facilitates the process of giving meaning to one's own or other people's thoughts. The test consists of listing significant individuals or items and assigning them to groups of three. Each set consists of two items that are similar and one that is distinct from the other two.

The responses are categorized into two sections: one addressing the emergent pole (similarity between two items) and the implicit pole (difference between the third item). Once this is determined, the individual reviews the list, marking items that most closely suit the emerging pole and leaving the implicit pole blank for those that do not.

Because it helps relate these concepts to a variety of events, Kelly believed that this test may be applied in a variety of contexts, such as psychology or marketing. Mathematical modeling of an individual's "psychological space" may be possible, he thought.

The Psychology Contributions of Kelly

During his tenure at Ohio State University and in his leadership capacities at the American Psychological Association, George Kelly produced noteworthy advancements around clinical psychology.

Among the earliest cognitive theorists, he was influential in the early psychology cognitive movement. He is also seen as a humanist by others because of his philosophy, which was based on Abraham Maslow's theory of the hierarchy of needs and focused on human potential and personal transformation.

It's noteworthy that Kelly objected to the term "cognitive theorist." He thought his personal construct theory was distinct and unconnected despite some parallels with other humanistic and cognitive ideas.