fei75766_ch19_610-639.indd 617  02/06/20 01:53 PM
Chapter 19     Kelly: Psychology of Personal Constructs617
Kelly (1955, 1970) clarified thisfundamental assumption bydefining itskey
terms. First, thephrase person’s processes refers toaliving, changing, moving human 
being. Kelly wasnotconcerned herewithanimals, withsociety, orwithanypartorfunc-
tionoftheperson. Hedidnotrecognize motives, needs, drives, orinstincts asforces 
underlying motivation. Lifeitselfaccounts forone’s movement. 
Kelly chose thetermchannelized tosuggest thatpeople move withadirection 
through anetwork ofpathways orchannels. Thenetwork, however, isflexible, bothfacil-
itating andrestricting people’s range ofaction. Inaddition, thetermavoids theimplica -
tionthatsome sortofenergy isbeing transformed intoaction. People arealready in
movement; theymerely channelize ordirect theirprocesses toward some endorpurpose.
Thenextkeyphrase isways of anticipating events, which suggests thatpeople 
guide theiractions according totheirpredictions ofthefuture. Neither thepastnor
thefuture persedetermines ourbehavior. Rather, ourpresent viewofthefuture 
shapes ouractions. Arlene didnotbuyabluecarbecause shehadabluebicycle 
when shewasachild, although thatfactmayhavehelped hertoconstrue thepresent 
sothatsheanticipated thatherbluelate-model carwould beareliable oneinthe
future. Kelly (1955) saidthatpeople aretantalized notbytheirpastbutbytheirview
ofthefuture. People continuously “reach outtothefuture through thewindow of
thepresent” (p.49).
Supporting Corollaries
Toelaborate histheory ofpersonal constructs, Kelly proposed 11supporting corollar -
ies,allofwhich canbeinferred from hisbasic postulate.
Similarities Among Events
Notwoevents areexactly alike, yetweconstrue similar events sothattheyareper-
ceived asbeing thesame. Onesunrise isnever identical toanother, butourcon-
struct dawn conveys ourrecognition ofsome similarity orsome replication ofevents. 
Although twodawns arenever exactly alike, theymaybesimilar enough forusto
construe them asthesame event. Kelly (1955, 1970) referred tothissimilarity among 
events astheconstruction corollary.
Theconstruction corollary states that“a person anticipates events by construing 
their replications” (Kelly, 1955, p.50).Thiscorollary again points outthatpeople are
forward looking; theirbehavior isforged bytheiranticipation offuture events. Italso
emphasizes thenotion thatpeople construe orinterpret future events according to
recurrent themes orreplications.
Theconstruction corollary mayseem littlemore thancommon sense: people 
seesimilarities among events anduseasingle concept todescribe thecommon prop -
erties. Kelly, however, feltthatitwasnecessary toinclude theobvious when building 
atheory.
Differences Among People
Kelly’s second corollary isequally obvious.  “Persons differ from each other in their 
construction of events” (Kelly, 1955, p.55).Kelly called thisemphasis onindividual 
differences theindividuality corollary.Final PDF to printer