Chapter 19 Kelly: Psychology of Personal Constructs 591(Grice et al., 2006). These are important aspects of people to consider, and they can
certainly affect how you would interact with a person, yet they do not appear on a
typical measure of the Big Five. Despite this, the Big Five is still enormously valu-
able as a framework for studying personality. In science it is often important, if not
imperative, that researchers have common tools and common descriptors for which
to compare their targets of study, people in the case of personality psychology. The
Big Five framework has provided those common descriptors that have facilitated a
great deal of research. But personality psychology is about individual differences and
the importance of the individual, and, compared to the Big Five, Kelly’s personal
construct theory does a very good job at emphasizing the uniqueness of individuals
and how individuals define themselves and those around them in their own terms.
Critique of Kelly
Most of Kelly’s professional career was spent working with relatively normal,
intelligent college students. Understandably, his theory seems most applicable to
these people. He made no attempt to elucidate early childhood experiences (as did
Freud) or maturity and old age (as did Erikson). To Kelly, people live solely in
the present, with one eye always on the future. This view, though somewhat opti-
mistic, fails to account for developmental and cultural influences on personality.
How does Kelly’s theory rate on the six criteria of a useful theory? First,
personal construct theory receives a moderate to strong rating on the amount of
research it has generated. The Rep test and the repertory grid have generated a
sizable number of studies, especially in Great Britain, although these instruments
are used less frequently by psychologists in the United States.
Despite the relative parsimony of Kelly’s basic postulate and 11 supporting
corollaries, the theory does not lend itself easily to either verification or falsifica-
tion. Therefore, we rate personal construct theory low on falsifiability.
Third, does personal construct theory organize knowledge about human
behavior? On this criterion, the theory must be rated low. Kelly’s notion that our
behavior is consistent with our current perceptions helps organize knowledge; but
his avoidance of the problems of motivation, developmental influences, and cul-
tural forces limits his theory’s ability to give specific meanings to much of what
is currently known about the complexity of personality.
We also rate the theory low as a guide to action. Kelly’s ideas on psycho-
therapy are rather innovative and suggest to the practitioner some interesting tech-
niques. Playing the role of a fictitious person, someone the client would like to
know, is indeed an unusual and practical approach to therapy. Kelly relied heavily
on common sense in this therapeutic practice, and what worked for him might not
work for someone else. That disparity would be quite acceptable to Kelly, however,
because he viewed therapy as a scientific experiment. The therapist is like a
scientist, using imagination to test a variety of hypotheses: that is, to try out new
techniques and to explore alternate ways of looking at things. Nevertheless, Kelly’s
theory offers few specific suggestions to parents, therapists, researchers, and others
who are trying to understand human behavior.
Fifth, is the theory internally consistent, with a set of operationally defined
terms? On the first part of this question, personal construct theory rates very high.