Biography of George Kelly

• • Born on April 28, 1905
  • Proponent of Psychology of Personal Constructs

  George Alexander Keller
• • Mother of George Kelly
  • A former school teacher

  Elfreda M. Kelly
• • Father of George Kelly
  • An ordained Presbyterian minister

  Theodore V. Kelly
• Kelly was a man of many and diverse interests. His undergraduate degree was in physics and mathematics, but he was also a member of the college debate team and, as such, became intensely concerned with social problems.
• First, he went to Minneapolis, where he taught soapbox oratory at a special college for labor organizers, conducted classes in speech for the American Bankers Association, and taught government to an Americanization class for prospective citizens.
• • Wife of George Kelly
  • an english teacher

  Gladys Thompson
• With the dust bowl and the Great Depression, however, he soon became convinced that he should “pursue something more humanitarian than physiological psychology”
• True to his psychology of personal constructs, Kelly pointed out that his decision was not dictated by circumstances but rather by his interpretation of events; that is, his own construction of reality altered his life course.
• From his days at Fort Hays State, Kelly began to formulate a theory of personality. Finally, in 1955, he published his most important work, The Psychology of Personal Constructs. This two-volume book, reprinted in 1991, contains the whole of Kelly’s personality theory and is one of only a few of his works published during his lifetime.