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George Kelly
George Kelly
I. Biography: 1905-1967
George Kelly was born in a farming community near Wichita, Kansas. He graduated with a degree in physics and mathematics from Park College in Missouri in 1926. Kelly didnt care for psychology. He was incredulous of Freuds theory & unimpressed with learning theory as well.
Biography contd.
Kelly attended a learning class in college & was bored stiff. This is what he said of his experience: The most I could make of it was the S was what you had to have in order to account for the R, and the R was put there so the S would have something to account for, he wrote.
Biography contd.
Kelly went to the University of Edinburgh to study education in 1929. While there he developed a growing interest in psychology. In 1931 he received his Ph.D. from the University of Iowa. For 10 years he worked at Fort Hays Kansas State College, setting up clinics for dustbowl victims in the 1930s. After WWII (He served in the Navy), Kelly spent a year at the University of Maryland & the next 20 years at Ohio State University.
Creating templates
Imagine you generate a hypothesis about what one of your instructors is like, based on observations.
Whenever you see this instructor you collect more information & compare it to your hypothesis. If its verified (the instructor asks the way you predict) you continue using it, otherwise you discard it.
Kelly described this process as template matching. We place the templates over the events we encounter. If they match, we retain the templates; if not, we modify them for a better prediction next time.
Personal Constructs:
Are cognitive structures we use to interpret & predict events.
No 2 people use identical personal constructs, & no 2 people organize their constructs in an identical manner.
Personal constructs
According to Kelly, personal constructs are bipolar. --That is, we classify relevant objects in an either/or fashion with each construct. E.g., friendly-unfriendly, tall-short, intelligent-stupid, masculine-feminine, etc. After applying the original black-and-white construct we can use other bipolar constructs to determine the extent of blackness or whiteness. E.g., If you think a person is intelligent, you may then apply the construct, academically intelligent or commonsense intelligent. --provides a clearer picture!
Kelly argued that we are tied to our past experiences only in the sense that they have helped to develop our constructs & expectancies for the future.
Therefore, we utilize past experiences to help us organize & anticipate future events.
We use past experience to determine what is important to attend to & what we can ignore. If you knew if a person was quiet or talkative (talkative-quiet construct), you could predict their behavior in a given situation more accurately.
Why do two people who experience the same event, have different interpretations of that event?
1. Each person may have a different set of constructs they use to evaluate a given event.
2. Two people may use similar constructs on one pole, but not on the other. E.g., You might use an outgoing-reserved construct, whereas you might use an outgoing-melancholy construct. Thus, what you see as reserved, I may see as melancholy.
A subordinate construct may be subsumed within one side of the superordinate construct, like this:
Friendly-Unfriendly
Outgoing-Quiet
Here, people are judged as either friendly or unfriendly. If judged as friendly, they are then judged as either outgoing or quiet.
Outgoing-Quiet
Outgoing-Quiet
Here, whether you judge people as friendly or unfriendly, you can further judge them as either outgoing or quiet.
Psychological Problems:
Kelly thought that people have psychological problems because their construct systems are faulty, not because of the residue of past traumatic experiences. Past experiences with an unloving parent or a tragic incident may help explain why people construe the world the way they do, but they are not the cause of the problems. All disordersresult from faulty construct systems.
Why do our constructs sometimes fail us when we are trying to predict future events?
Sometimes we develop impermeable constructs.
An impermeable construct does not easily allow new elements into its existing range of convenience. This drastically limits your ability to anticipate events, which would make your world feel less predictable & more out of your control. Keep in mind construct systems may be incomplete.