Feist−Feist: Theories of
Personality, Seventh
EditionV. Learning Theories 18. Kelly: Psychology of
Personal Constructs© The McGraw−Hill^577
Companies, 2009Concept of Humanity
Kelly had an essentially optimisticview of human nature. He saw people as antici-
pating the future and living their lives in accordance with those anticipations. Peo-
ple are capable of changing their personal constructs at any time of life, but those
changes are seldom easy. Kelly’s modulation corollary suggests that constructs are
permeable or resilient, meaning that new elements can be admitted. Not all peo-
ple, however, have equally permeable constructs. Some accept new experiences and
restructure their interpretations accordingly, whereas others possess concrete con-
structs that are very difficult to alter. Nevertheless, Kelly was quite optimistic in
his belief that therapeutic experiences can help people live more productive lives.
On the dimension of determinism versus free choice, Kelly’s theory leans toward
free choice. Within our own personal construct system, we are free to make a choice
(Kelly, 1980). We choose between alternatives within a construct system that we
ourselves have built. We make those choices on the basis of our anticipation of
events. But more than that, we choose those alternatives that appear to offer us the
greater opportunity for further elaboration of our anticipatory system. Kelly referred
to this view as the elaborative choice;that is, in making present choices, we look
ahead and pick the alternative that will increase our range of future choices.
Kelly adopted a teleologicalas opposed to a causal view of human personal-
ity. He repeatedly insisted that childhood events per se do not shape current
personality. Our present construction of past experiences may have some influence on
Chapter 18 Kelly: Psychology of Personal Constructs 571imagination 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.
Kelly was exceptionally careful in choosing terms and concepts to explain his fun-
damental postulate and the 11 corollaries. His language, although frequently diffi-
cult, is both elegant and precise. The Psychology of Personal Constructs(Kelly,
1955) contains more than 1,200 pages, but the entire theory is pieced together like a
finely woven fabric. Kelly seemed to have constantly been aware of what he had
already said and what he was going to say.
On the second half of this criterion, personal construct theory falls short, be-
cause like most theorists discussed in this book, Kelly did not define his terms oper-
ationally. However, he was exemplary in writing comprehensive and exacting defini-
tions of nearly all terms used in the basic postulate and supporting corollaries.
Finally, is the theory parsimonious?Despite the length of Kelly’s two-volume
book, the theory of personal constructs is exceptionally straightforward and eco-
nomical. The basic theory is stated in one fundamental postulate and then elaborated
by means of 11 corollaries. All other concepts and assumptions can be easily related
to this relatively simple structure.