yours. In other words, the relatively stable patterns in our behavior are the re-
sult of the relatively stable way we construe the world.
Personal Construct Systems
To get a rough idea of your own personal constructs, ask yourself what youtend to notice about people when you first meet them. The first few thoughts
that come to mind are probably some of the constructs you typically use to
make sense of other people and their behavior. It is also possible that two
people use the same constructs but construe the world differently. That is, I
might think someone intelligent, and you might see the same person as unin-
telligent. Further, two people ’s constructs might be similar on one pole but
not the other. I might use an outgoing –reserved construct, whereas you use
anoutgoing –melancholy construct. If that were the case, what I see as re-
served behavior you might see as sadness.
One reason you and I act differently from each other is that we use differ-
ent constructs. Another reason is that we organize our constructs differently.After I determine that a new acquaintance appears friendly, I might want toGeorge Kelly
1905 –1967
George Alexander Kelly was
born in a farming commu-nity near Wichita, Kansas, in1905. He attended FriendsUniversity in Wichita for
3 years before graduatingfrom Park College inMissouri in 1926. He was
an active member of the intercollegiate debate teamduring these years and developed a keen ability tochallenge arguments and conventional positions.Although these skills would eventually become anasset, they may have kept him away from the field ofpsychology for many years. Kelly described his first
psychology course as boring and unconvincing. Theinstructor spent considerable time discussing learningtheories, but Kelly was unimpressed. “The most I could
make of it was that the S was what you had to have in
order to account for the R, and the R was put there so
the S would have something to account for, ”he wrote.
“I never did find out what that arrow stood for ”(1969,
pp. 46 –47). He was also skeptical when he first read
Freud. “I don’t remember which one of Freud’ s books I
was trying to read, ”he recalled, “but I do rememberthe mounting feeling of incredulity that anyone could
write such nonsense, much less publish it ”(p. 47).
After graduating with a degree in physics and
mathematics, Kelly went to the University of Kansasto study educational sociology. After a series of odd
jobs, including teaching speech and working as anaeronautical engineer, he went to the University ofEdinburgh to study education in 1929. While there,he developed a growing interest in psychology andreceived his PhD in psychology from the University ofIowa a few years later.
Kelly spent the next 10 years at Fort Hays Kansas
State College. During this time he set up a network ofclinics to provide psychological services to the poor anddestitute Dustbowl victims of the 1930s. “I listened to
people in trouble, ”he wrote, “and tried to help them
figure out what they could do about it” (p. 50). He
soon came to see that what these people needed most
was an explanation for what had happened to them
and the ability to predict what would happen to them
in the future. Personal construct theory evolved fromthis insight. After serving in the Navy in World War II,Kelly spent a year at the University of Maryland andthen 20 years at Ohio State University. He moved toBrandeis University in 1965 and died soon after.
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