Feist−Feist: Theories of
Personality, Seventh
EditionV. Learning Theories 18. Kelly: Psychology of
Personal Constructs(^576) © The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2009
What they found was rather stunning: There was only about 50% overlap
(Grice, 2004; Grice et al., 2006). This means that the repertory grid was capturing
aspects of people the Big Five was not and that the Big Five was capturing aspects
the repertory grid was not. Some of the unique aspects captured by the repertory grid
were body type, ethnicity, wealth, smoker status, and political affiliation (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 valuable as a framework
for studying personality. In science it is often important, if not imperative, that re-
searchers have common tools and common descriptors for which to compare their
targets of study, people in the case of personality psychology. The Big Five frame-
work has provided those common descriptors that have facilitated a great deal of
research. But personality psychology is about individual differences and the im-
portance of the individual, and, compared to the Big Five, Kelly’s personal con-
struct 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, intel-
ligent 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 optimistic, 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, per-
sonal construct theory receives a moderate to strong rating on the amount of re-
search 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 falsification.
Therefore, we rate personal construct theory low on falsifiability.
Third, does personal construct theory organize knowledgeabout human be-
havior? On this criterion, the theory must be rated low. Kelly’s notion that our be-
havior is consistent with our current perceptions helps organize knowledge; but his
avoidance of the problems of motivation, developmental influences, and cultural
forces limits his theory’s ability to give specific meanings to much of what is cur-
rently known about the complexity of personality.
We also rate the theory low as a guide to action.Kelly’s ideas on psychother-
apy are rather innovative and suggest to the practitioner some interesting techniques.
Playing the role of a fictitious person, someone the client would like to know, is in-
deed 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 some-
one 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
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