Chapter 19 Kelly: Psychology of Personal Constructs 571rejected extreme phenomenology (see Combs & Snygg, 1959), which holds that
the only reality is what people perceive. Kelly (1955, 1991) believed that the
universe is real, but that different people construe it in different ways. Thus, peo-
ple’s personal constructs, or ways of interpreting and explaining events, hold the
key to predicting their behavior.
Personal construct theory does not try to explain nature. Rather, it is a theory
of people’s construction of events: that is, their personal inquiry into their world.
It is “a psychology of the human quest. It does not say what has or will be found,
but proposes rather how we might go about looking for it” (Kelly, 1970, p. 1).
Person as Scientist
When you decide what foods to eat for lunch, what television shows to watch, or
what occupation to enter, you are acting in much the same manner as a scientist.
That is, you ask questions, formulate hypotheses, test them, draw conclusions, and
try to predict future events. Like all other people (including scientists), your per-
ception of reality is colored by your personal constructs—your way of looking at,
explaining, and interpreting events in your world.
In a similar manner, all people, in their quest for meaning, make observations,
construe relationships among events, formulate theories, generate hypotheses, test those
that are plausible, and reach conclusions from their experiments. A person’s conclu-
sions, like those of any scientist, are not fixed or final. They are open to reconsidera-
tion and reformulation. Kelly was hopeful that people individually and collectively will
find better ways of restructuring their lives through imagination and foresight.
Scientist as Person
If people can be seen as scientists, then scientists can also be seen as people.
Therefore, the pronouncements of scientists should be regarded with the same
skepticism with which we view any behavior. Every scientific observation can be
looked at from a different perspective. Every theory can be slightly tilted and
viewed from a new angle. This approach, of course, means that Kelly’s theory is
not exempt from restructuring. Kelly (1969b) presented his theory as a set of half-
truths and recognized the inaccuracy of its constructions. Like Carl Rogers (see
Chapter 10), Kelly hoped that his theory would be overthrown and replaced by a
better one. Indeed, Kelly, more than any other personality theorist, formulated a
theory that encourages its own demise. Just as all of us can use our imagination
to see everyday events differently, personality theorists can use their ingenuity to
construe better theories.
Constructive Alternativism
Kelly began with the assumption that the universe really exists and that it functions
as an integral unit, with all its parts interacting precisely with each other. Moreover,
the universe is constantly changing, so something is happening all the time. Added
to these basic assumptions is the notion that people’s thoughts also really exist and
that people strive to make sense out of their continuously changing world. Differ-
ent people construe reality in different ways, and the same person is capable of
changing his or her view of the world.