Kelly and Personal Construct Theory

• Kelly's childhood

  • Strong interest in drama and acting, taught drama at Sheldon Junior College, Iowa
• Personal Construct Theory

  The same event or situation can be interpreted in different ways, our current view of things is open to revision, we can always look at things differently
• Constructive Alternativism

  The view that it is possible to interpret (and re-interpret) an event as if it were correct, not just a notion of make-believe, but also experimentation and hypothesis
• Invitational mood

  Inviting people to experiment and 'do science' in one's everyday life
• People as (Naive) Scientists

  • Use 'templates' (constructs) to anticipate events, reduce uncertainty, interpret their personal experiences via construing, importance of anticipation - being able to predict and therefore reduce uncertainty
• Constructs

  Templates we use to map the world, no two people the same in terms of content and organisation, construing is a process, dynamic, bi-polar
• View of Self

  Reveals how self is seen relative to others, what constructs do we have in common with people, in what ways do we differ from those around us
• Commonality and Sociality

  • People share common perspectives on experiences
  • Construing does not occur in isolation, we interact with our environment and people in it, we are social beings
  • Construing is a social act - it involves a person interacting with and understanding their environment
• PCT as a Theory of Personality

  • Kelly's theory is the most interior of all systems
  • Personality is how a person interprets life's events, how he construes reality
• Motivation for the theory

  • Behaviourism, Pragmatism, Psychoanalysis
• Behaviourism

  • "Stimulus -> Response"
  • Kelly questioned the usefulness of this framework
  • Unlike behaviourism, Kelly did not see people as passively responding to stimuli
• Pragmatism

  • The idea of person in action
  • Our ideas are not just 'out there' waiting to be discovered, they are tools to help us make sense of our worlds
  • Kelly's theory is a pragmatic theory because it makes no claim to truth, its aim is to develop a way of looking at people that is useful for a particular purpose
• Psychoanalysis

  • Freud's psychoanalysis was the other major intellectual influence when Kelly was developing his ideas
  • Kelly did not find inspiration in Freud's theory
  • Freud's theory is a motivational theory which posits that behaviour is determined by unconscious drives and inner forces
  • Kelly saw people as inventive and creative, this view did not sit well with Freud's theorising
• Traits, drives do not 'exist'; they are not 'truths'. They are inferred from behaviours
• The role of construing in understanding behaviour

  More useful to have propositions that can be tested and revised and retested
• PCT provides a unique, unconventional and challenging view of human behaviour, a theory that sees people as inventive with the capacity to change, people are active participants in the way they make sense of the world
• Try and step inside someone's shoes and 'see' how they construe their world