the psychology of personal constructs_george kelly

7/31/2019 The Psychology of Personal Constructs_George Kelly

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S()URCE:LJ.M.Wepman& R.W. Heine, Ccmcepts of Personality.Chicago: Aldine Publishing Co., 1963, 206-233.

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The Psychology of Personal Constructs:George KellyLee Sechrest

Any theory of personality necessarily ~.Qvolvessome fundamental as-sumptions about the nature of man. Indeed, these assumptions, it mightbe argued, are in large part the theory. However, as often as not theassumptions that theorists lll!U


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P ersonal C om /fuels: G eorge K elly 207indifferent environment, or were led through their lives in some othermysterious manner.

Kelly thought he saw in the people around him, with whom hewas working and associating, the same goals and desires as those ofthe scientist, namely, to be able to anticipate and ultimately to controltheir environments, From his point of view, it seemed that people hadhypotheses, working ideas about reality, that they sought to validatetheir hypotheses or to invalidate them, and that they went on from theirvalidational experiences to achieve new hypotheses. Some of the betterconceived ordinary attempts to validate ideas about the world evenapproached the sophistication of good scientific methodology. Startingfrom that position, Kelly developed the notion of construing man'sbehavior as an attempt to anticipate and to control, of considering everyman as a scientist. Kelly did not propose that every man literally is ascientiist-that would have been foreign to his outlook-but he didsuggest that we might consider every man and his behavior as if hewere !l scientist-just as we might consider every man as if he werean animal, a machine, or a self-organizing system. We may considerman in the character of scientist if it will help us as scientists to antici-pate the responses of man.

One central theme in Kelly's theory is actually a philosophicalrather'than a theoretical position. He suggests "we assume that all ourpresent interpretations of the universe are subject to revision and re-placement" (Kelly, 1955, p. 15). He calls this position constructivealtern4tivism. The meaning of constructive alternativism might beclarified if we consider the distinction between the classical philosoph-ical positions of realism and nominalism. Realism, undoubtedly morepopular and widely influential over the years, supposes that an objectivereality exists independent of any of our attempts to observe it, to thinkabout it or to impinge upon it in any way. Such a position results inan att~mpt to discover the nature of the universe, to find out nature. Arealist may suppose that there is such a thing as intelligence, that itexists "inactuality, and he will then set out to find out its nature andhow it manifests itself. Opposed to realism is the position designatedas nominalism, which eschews the objective reality of concepts, traits,ideas or the like and insists that only individual events have reality. Weare free to construe events and make sense out of them in any waythat is convenient for us. The nominalist would be inclined to seewhether he might devise some more useful ways of looking at theworld instead of demanding that reality reveal itself to him. He would


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be inclined to deny that there is really any such thing as Intelligence, buthe might accept the term as a convenient label for certain phenomena.

Kelly is by no means a pure nominalist, but he inclines quitedefinitely in that direction, and in some ways may be more extreme thanmany self-designated nominalists in H i s ' conception of reality. At anyrate, he takes the point of view that the only reality in nature consistsof the events with which we are faced. If for no other reason than thepassage of time, it is patently impossible that events could repeat them-selves. Kelly, like Heraclitus, sees time as the universal linkage anduniversal separator between events. The importance of events or the usewe make of them depends upon the way we construe them. The taskof the scientist is not to discover what nature had in mind when shepresented one or the other of her faces to us, but to invent ways ofconstruing nature that will help us to anticipate her.

Since there are only events, it follows that there are many possibleways of construing them. Each event occurs as itself, as a whole, butwe may, if we choose, construe it in a limited way from a particularpoint of view. Consider, for example, one event: the incident of anulcer of the duodenum. What is it? It is in fact nothing more or lessthan an ulcer. However, if we ask a physician to construe the event,we are likely to receive a description of a wound of particular charac-teristics resulting from the persistent irritation of the digestive tractby hyper-secretion of digestive acids, or something of the sort. If weask a psychologist, we may get an account of an individual basicallydependent. in character exposed to a situation that demands independ-ence of which he is incapable, thus arousing persistent tension. A sociol-ogist may give us some ideas about a social structure that exposes eachindividual to possibilities of feeling inadequate. The individual whohas the ulcer may view the event in various ways. He may see it asthe first signal of his mortality; he may, on the other hand, view it as avalidation of his conception of himself as a victim of a cruel world. Hemight even view his ulcer with something akin to pride. After all, arenot ulcers peculiarly masculine, a distinguishing mark of the energetic,successful man? The views held by various individuals regarding anyevent are not necessarily right or wrong. We construe events in waysthat will enable us to anti,c.M'c.te related events and hopefully to controlthem, and the way in whi4h we construe them dictates what the tech-nique of control shall bel The construction we place on ulcers willdetermine the character of our attempts to alleviate or prevent them.

Any conception we bow have about the universe may, then, be

208 LEE SECHREST


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P e rs oi na J C o ns tr uc ts : G e or ge Kelly 20 9held, to be tentative, as a temporarily useful or satisfying way of con-struing the events with which we have to deal. We must recognfzethe ~ossibility of simultaneously or sequentially existing constructionsdifferent from our own but equally or more useful. Kelly is particularlyfran~ and disarmingly direct in admitting that even his own theory issuggested only as a temporarily expedient way of dealing with eventscommonly construed from a psychological point of view. It is morethan la little remarkable to find a personality theorist proposing that theproduct of his own intellectual energies is to be regarded as a short-termeffort, probably ere long to be discarded or significantly modified.

This is not to say that all ways of viewing events are equally usefulor meaningful to us. Each construct or construct system is devised witha particular set of events in mind and thus has a fo cu s o f c on ve nie nc e,that is, an area In which it is particularly applicable. Moreover, anyconstruct or construct system has a ra n ge o f c on ve ni en ce , that is, a rangeor an area over which it works reasonably well. When a system isextended beyond the range of events for which it was intended, itmay Iose most of its utility. For example, the system of constructs com-prisipg scientific methodology has as its focus of convenience a vastarra~ of problems that are particularly amenable to measurement andexperimentation, and it may also easily apply to a wide variety of otherphenomena that lie within its range of convenience. However, it hasoften been suggested that the methods of science have a limited rangeof convenience, with such matters as questions of ethics and moralitylying well outside their scope. The picture of Darwin carefully totingup the positive and negative features of his potential wife in order toarrive at a decision about the advisability of marriage appears ludicrousto U $ not because of the inherent shortcoming of his method, but be-cause the phenomena of love and marriage presumably lie outside therange of convenience of such a precise arithmetical analysis.Kelly's philosophical and theoretical positions unquestionably stemat least in part from his own experiences. While in a manner consistentwith his conception of constructive alternativism, Kelly insists that weneed!not be the passive victims of our own biographies, he would notdeny that our environments, the events that impinge upon us, providethe taw material of which our total outlooks are constructed. One ofthe !immediate1y apparent characteristics of Kelly's biography is hisdiversity of experience. His geographical environment has extendedfrom the Kansas wheat fields where he was reared to most of theimportant and sophisticated cities of the world. His educational pack-


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210 LEE SECHRESTground has spanned civil engineering, education, philosophy and psy-chology; Park College (B.A.), the University of Kansas (M.A.),Edinburgh (B.Ed.) and the State University of Iowa, where he re-ceived the Ph.D. in psychology in 1931. His professional experiencehas included twelve years at Fort Hays Kansas State College atHays, the United States Navy, the University of Maryland, Ohio StateUniversity and visiting appointments at universities now too numerousto recount. Kelly admits intellectual debts to an exceptional range offine teachers, including psychologists Sir Godfrey Thomson, JamesDrever, Sr., Carl Seashore and 1. E. Travis, sociologists W. R. Smithand W. F. Ogburn, and even the naturalist, Edwin Teale. Is it anywonder, then, that Kelly arrived at the conclusion that it is possible,or should be, to see any number of dimensions in the world of mun-dane experience and fact?

Of course, it is impossible to determine whether Kelly's experiencesled to his theoretical position or whether his developing theoreticalposition led to a search for diverse experience. (Or-most likely-both?) In any case, Kelly was responsible early in his career for thedevelopment of a remarkable clinical psychology program in westernKansas, including a traveling clinic run by him and his students. Outof this early experience, Kelly began to formulate many of the laterideas that were to be incorporated into his two-volume work on per-sonality theory and clinical psychology (Kelly, 1955). It is probablyas true of Kelly as of Freud that his conceptions of personality de-veloped out of his clinical experience, and we may wonder whether thestriking differences in their views stemmed from the divergent natureof their experiences. For example, much of Kelly's early work was withcollege students and public school pupils, not with the representativesof extreme pathology. In part, his later emphasis on the intellectiveaspects of behavior and his commitment to a theory of (relatively)rational behavior may have stemmed from his experience with personswho were still capable of construing their own behavior in commu-nicable terms. Hili theory is not inapplicable at other points, but asimilarly trained psychologist who worked in a mental institution mighthave been less J;kely to arrive at the precise formulation of behaviorsuggested by Kelly.

In his clinical experiences, particularly in public schools, Kellybecame disillusioned with the standard motivational statements com-monly employed to account for behavior, statements which often re-vealed more about the person who made them than about the person

....;j j


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i .P erso ~a l C on stru cts: G eo rg e K elly 211they supposedly described. It was not so much that the ideas teachershad about their pupils were wrong as that they led to anticipations thatdid ~ot permit any constructive approaches to the problems whichexisted. The same thing might be said, of course, for the conceptionsthe children had of the school and their teachers. Thus, Kelly camegrad~ally to the position that it was the terms in which people choseto ca~t their experience that lent importance and meaning to it (Kelly,1958).

J1Cellyhas made the presentation of his theory in its general termspleasipgly simple by presenting it in the form of a fundamentalpostulate and eleven corollaries. The fundamental postulate is: " . Apersoa's processes are psychologically channelized by ways .in which heanticipates events." (Kelly, 1955, p. 46). What is proposed by thepostulate is, first of all, that the system with which Kelly is dealingis psychological, that it has as its focus of convenience phenomena thatare amenable to a psychological approach. Thus it is not meant to

Iaccouat for the behavior of automobiles, the workings of the centralnervous system or the stock market. Second, it is proposed that be-havio~is stable across time and across situations, that is, it is channe l-' ized. Behavior is given its consistency by attempts to anticipate events.

IParticular behavior in which an individual engages presumablyreflect~the anticipations he has for the future, and his anticipations areexpressed in his constructs.

J:terhaps the central theoretical term in T he P sy ch olo gy o f PersonalCons tsec ts is the term cons truct itself. By constructs Kelly means theinterpretations we place on events or the terms in which we chooseto lodk for replicability among events (Kelly, 1955, p. 50). He isnowh~re quite explicit as to the origin of the constructs by whichpeople attempt to make sense out of their universe. Kelly typically writesa s if ~hey had some existence apart from the experiences with whichthey ~eal and seems to imply that they are imposed upon evets. Onthe other hand, the term abstract is frequently used in its ver formto refdr to the process from which constructs arise, and the verb bstractordin~:.,.rilYefers to the development of ideas out o f experienc~e.It oftenseems i as if Kelly prefers to consider constructs as given, alreadyhavin~ been established by the time he begins to deal with th person.

However, it seems necessary to suppose that constructs c me fromsomewhere, and it is probably easiest to suppose that they aJe in parta reflection of the experience of the individual; that individuals whohave Bad similar experiences will have similar construct systems. Some


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21 2 LEE SECHRESTevidence suggests, for example, that people who have complex personalconstruct systems, that is, who have many constructs with which to dealwith events and who can apply them in a variety of independent ways,are likely to have had relatively complex environments as children(Sechrest & Jackson, 1961). There is also reason to believe that personswho have similar systems in terms of the verbal constructs they applyto other persons come from similar environments (Sechrest, 1962a).Thus, for example, persons who tend to use such terms as "friendly,""pleasant," "nice," "agreeable" to describe others tend to be moresimilar to each other than to persons who do not use such terms withrespect to such factors as socio-economic level, religious belief, familyconstellation, etc. Such findings support the conclusion that, at thevery least, constructs and experiences develop together, and that con-structs are determined in part by experience.

It is necessary to take special note of the absence of any motiva-tional construct in Kelly's system. He has, in fact, taken advantage ofa number of opportunities to deny the usefulness of the concept ofmotivation and to suggest that it is a needless residue of an outmodedphilosophical position which saw the universe as comprised of essen-tially inert objects. Since these objects were usually far from inert, itbecame necessary to conceive of forces operating on them. Carried overinto terms of behavior, motivations were supposed to be the forces thatimpelled organisms to action, and without motivation there would beno action. By the use of the term processes in his fundamental postulate,Kelly means that psychology necessarily deals with processes. Behavior,its subject matter, is inherently a process. People continue to behave inspite of any motivational manipulations we may attempt. A person can-not be distinguished from the processes that characterize him. Kellyproposes that we start with the behaving organism, that it is notnecessary to postulate the existence of forces outside the organism thatimpel him to action (Kelly, 1955, 1958, 1962).The first of the eleven corollaries in the system is the ConstructionCorollary, which states that "a person anticipates events by construingtheir replications." The interpretations we place on events enable usto anticipate their replications. However, since events never actuallyrepeat themselves, our interpretations of events merely make it possiblefor us to see some order in the universe-an order imposed by us andnot inherent in the universe.

The interpretation or construct is not necessarily verbal; in fact,a definite distinction must be made between the construct and the label


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I 'P erso na / C on stru cts: G eo rg e K elly 21 3to symbolize it. The construct is revealed only by the pattern ofwhich the indiivdual makes and not necessarily by the verbal

which symbolizes it. A construct may be symbolized by other thanmeans, and probably constructs commonly have visual symbols

or' are so poorly symbolized that they cannot be described in words.In any case, the verbal label may be a poor representation of the patternof . that constitutes the actual construct.

What man construes is also a process like himself. Man attunesf to the repeated themes in his universe and looks for repetitions.

However, according to Kelly we do not deal with actual repetitions ofsince they do not repeat themselves. Man may look for identity

ong events, but only their replicative aspects will be found. We lookat passage of time, for example, and note a period we call a day.I'IIm,nr"nUT is not expected to be identical with today, but in certain

rp~I',.,p("t~tomorrow is going to be a replica of today. The next horse weI is not going to be identical with all previous horses or with any

we have seen, but it will have sufficient replicative aspects tofy our calling it a horse.

i The Individuality Corollary states the rather obvious point-con-with the term personal constructs-that people differ from eachin their interpretations of events. There may be some inclinationof a personal constructs theory as phenomenological, and Kellynot object strenuously as long as one does not say that hisis nothing but phenomenology. The pre-emptive "nothing." argument is anathema to a constructive alternativist. It istrue that much of Kelly's theory is consonant with a phenom-approach, for central to his theory is the proposition that

an I individual will behave in a manner consistent with his own percep-of and ideas about the universe. But while we ought to base our

about an individual on the things we have seen him dothan upon the things we have seen other people do, it is never

- '-~----J possible to see the world from another person's point of view.oreover, Kelly, unlike most phenomenologists, believes that it is

to look for general nomothetic principles about behavior. Thus,though no one person's construct system is like any other's, con-systems like other events have replicable aspects, and we mayfor regularities based upon the various properties of the systems.

the psychologist is himself a construing individual, and hisrnr tr'l1ri',n". must be taken into account in arriving at an understandingof another person. "Each study of an individual becomes a problem


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214 LEE SECHRESTin concept formation for the psychologist. After he has conceptualizedeach of his cases, he next has the task of further abstracting the indi-vidual constructs in order to produce constructs which underlie peoplein general" (Kelly, 1955, p. 43).

The third corollary is the Organization. Corollary, which states thefact of relationships of a hierarchical nature between constructs withina system. Some constructs have implications for others; for example, onemay imply another, or one may have another construct as its element.Thus one of the most important characteristics of a construct is its posi-tion in a hierarchical system relative to others. A construct may, ofcourse, be quite independent of most constructs in the system, but it islikely to be superordinate to some and subordinate to others. A constructis superordinate to other constructs that are elements forming a partof its. context, and it is subordinate to those of whose contexts it is anIelement. There appear to be two ways in which a construct may besuperordinate .. First, a construct may be superordinate to another be-cause each pole of the subordinate construct forms a part of the contextfor the two poles of the superordinate. For example, the construct"good-bad!' may be superordinate to the construct "intelligent-stupid"if thingswhich are intelligent are good and things which are stupidare bad. There are many things, presumably, which are good, butamong them are intelligent things. On the other hand, both .'good-bad" and. "intelligent-stupid" might be subordinate to the construct"evaluative-objective." In this case, the whole construct "good-bad" isone of the elements forming the context of the "evaluative" pole,as is "intelligent-stupid." A construct such as "chromatic-achromatic"might b e subordinate to the "objective" pole. The former type ofsuperordina.tion may be more common, but the latter type is probablymore important in its implications. Many of the philosophical constructsby which men guide their major decision processes are of a highlysuperordinate nature, e.g., "spiritual-material," "charitable-selfish,""scientific-nonscientific," Williams (1958) found that the most usefulconstructs of an individual tend to be broadly general in the sense ofcuttingacross many other construct dimensions.

Other aspects of the organization of construct systems will be indi-cated later in discussing some of the dimensions of constructs and ofdiagnosis .

.~#le Dichotomy Corollary proposes that a person's constructions y s t e C i j is made up of a finite number of dichotomous constructs. Thiscorollary represents a distinct departure from most current conceptions,~.}",,

. . . .


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thought, for it indicates that all thinking is basically di-cnotornous. At anyone point and for anyone issue, if a construct is

then an either-or decision must be made. If the evaluativeUUll1\.1U,,,Ons relevant for a particular issue, then the events to which the"V',I"~'Ll"'.is to be applied are either "good" or "bad."

lIt should be understood that the context in which a constructdetermines a part of its meaning. It has already been stated thatare anticipated by construing their replications. Having chosenof two events with respect to which they are replicative bfit follows that another event is definitely not a replielltUm

first two. A person's own choice of an aspect determines both! is considered to be similar and what is considered contrasting with. to a set of events. The minimum context for a construct, accord-Kelly, is three elements. That is, we need two elements withto which we can construe some similarity, in contrast to a thirdA similarity between two persons cannot be construed, for


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216 LEE SECHRESTin terms of shades of gray rather than black or white. However, Kellybelieves that the dimensional character of the terms we use results fromthe combination of constructs of quantity and quality. Thus, the di-chotomous construct "black-white" and a dichotomous quantitativeconstruct permit a four-value scale, viz., black, slightly black, slightlywhite and white. If Miller (1956) is correct in his conclusion thatapproximately seven bits of information constitute the limit of appre-hension for the human brain, it is clear that not many dichotomousconstructs would have to be combined to produce the most complexscale usable by most persons.

Whether thought is in fact dichotomous is difficult to prove, butKelly does think that Lyle's (1953) research supports such a conten-tion. Lyle found that from the standpoint of consensual agreement inthe use of common terms descriptive of personality, if his subjectswere accurate in the use of a particular term, e.g., "cheerful," "broad-minded," they were accurate in the use of its opposite, i.e., "sad" or"narrow-minded." These results suggest that in the development of theunderstanding and use of such terms, the construct that is acquired isactually bipolar and dichotomous and not two distinct unipolar con-structs such as "cheerful-not cheerful" and "sad-not sad." Perhaps thefrequent warnings by logicians of the dangers of dichotomous modesof thought evidences the naturalness of such a way of thinking. Strongand repeated prohibitions, as noted by Freud, usually betray thestrength of some response tendency.

In the personal constructs theory the Range Corollary states thata construct is convenient only for the anticipation of a finite range ofevents. As indicated in the discussion of range of convenience, noconstruct is meant to apply to the whole universe of events.

The Experience Corollary indicates that a person's construct sys-tem varies as he successively construes the replications of events. As anindividual observes the passage of events, he places some structure onthem and begins to anticipate their replications. His anticipations are infact hypotheses about the universe, and as he is subjected to the flowof events, his hypotheses are exposed to the test of experience. Asanticipations are revised following feedback concerning their adequacy,the construction system undergoes progressive change. The individualreconstrues and further develops his system. Such is the nature ofexperience th~ it occurs only when an individual revises and elaborateshis system inthe light of events taking place over a period of time, andit does not consist of a simple. passive submission to such events. If


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Constructs: George Kelly 217psychologist in the tenth year of his career is still doing

in the same way he did them in his first year (whethethe is still"'''''''1'''6 the same mistakes or is still accurate in the same 'way) ,from

point of view we may question whether it is correct to say thathad "experience," Experience will have occurred only in so farhe did and what happened to him in his first year led him to dodifferently and see things differently in his second year, and so

Modulation Corollary states the conditions under which wechanges in construct systems; specifically, "the variation in a

s construction system is limited by the permeability of the,..nn'~rlrl1


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218 LEE SECHRESTa long term point of view it is supposed that an individual's choicesmust be somehow consistent with respect to the higher order constructshe uses.

The Commonality and Sociality corollaries have to do with therelationships between persons and their construction systems. TheCommonality Corollary states, "To the extent that one person employsa construction of experience which is similar to that employed byanother, his psychological processes are similar to those of the otherperson" (Kelly, 1955, p. 90); the Sociality Corollary states, "To theextent. that one person construes the construction processes of another,he may play a role in a social process involving the other person"(Kelly, 1955, p. 95). Together, these two corollaries probably havemore definite implications for research than any other statements inKelly's theory. It is not simple to determine similarity in constructionsystems or to assess the degree to which one person is construing theconstruction processes of another, but some beginnings have been made.Assuming that persons who use similar verbal construct labels have simi-lar construct systems, Triandis (1959) found that such persons havemore satisfactory relationships with each other (in terms of better corn-munication and greater personal gratification) than with others. Sechrest( 1962c) found that personal constructs (again in terms of verballabels) that are used jointly by two or more persons have a greaterconsensus in their application within a group than do constructs thatare unique to a given group member. If two people both employ theconstruct "sincere-insincere" and a third person apparently does notcustomarily use that construct, the first two people are likely to agreebetter in applying the construct to a group of mutually known persons.Although from the standpoint of the issues involved here there aresome obvious confoundings, it is interesting that Shoemaker (1955)found that persons who were construed by an individual as similar werepredicted by him as likely to behave in similar ways.Th~ff is also some research relating to the abilities of persons toplay rol." ~n relation to each other as a function of the characteristicsof rheir-constru systems, but no satisfactory procedures have beenworked out for determining whether or in what way one person isconstruing the construction system of another. In perhaps the mostdirectly relevant research, Payne (1956) found that knowledge ofanother individual's personal construct system led to more accurate pre-dictions about behavior than did descriptions by others of that person.Thus the opportunity to construe another person's construct system


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Constructs: George Kelly 219to enable an individual to imagine what that person might dosituations. Shoemaker (1955) found that subjects were more

"rr.,.r"jf" in their predictions of the behavior of persons with whomcomfortable than persons with whom they felt uncomfortable,can be taken to suggest that the ability to construe (anticipate)

ilUIJU!I"~person's behavior leads to a more satisfactory relationship withIn some data relating to the selection of patients forkinds of psychotherapeutic interventions, Sechrest (1956)

patients selected for interpretive as opposed to supportivewere more likely to use constructs of an abstract or

nature. That is, patients selected for interpretive therapyprone to use constructs that would be termed "psychological"personality" than constructs related to such manifest charac-

as physical appearance. Perhaps they were selected for interpre-pS!TchottlerllPVbecause the therapist felt that he could work with

way, because he felt that he and his patient couldconstrue each other's way of looking at things and could

I a more satisfactory role in relation to each other.last corollary to be considered (though not actually the lastby Kelly) is the Choice Corollary: "A person chooses forthat alternative in a dichotomized construct through which hethe greater possibility for extension and definition of his

This corollary is the most directly related to the predictionbehavior, but, as will be seen, there are serious problems infrom an individual's construct system to his behavior in any

LJ,U,U\..UJ ar situation. The Choice Corollary indicates that when an indi-faced with a choice situation, i.e., must construe an event inor another, he will make the choice that is most likely either

broaden his understanding of the universe or better to define theis already using. This is called the elaborative choice. Whatis looking for, then, is either constricted certainty orunderstanding -in relation to his construction system. In

respects the elaborative choice is analogous to such basic moti-constructs in other theories as self-actualization, self-consist-

for superiority, etc. The ultimate aim of behavior in Theof Personal Constructs is the development and consolidation

construction (anticipation) system. Kelly wishes to avoid thehedonism and states that there is a continuing movement towardcipation of events rather than a general tendency of behavior in

of maximizing pleasure. He expresses the conviction that


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220 LEE SECHHJSTthe orientations of people are of longer term than a "series of bartersfor temporal satisfactions."

If the Choice Corollary provides the essential link between theconstruction system and observable behavior, the nature of the link hasnot been precisely described. One ge~s'the impression that the predic-tions to be made from the Choice Corollary are not at all exact. Aconstruct presumably establishes the dimensions within which choicesor behavior may occur, but emphasis on the personal nature of con-structs implies that the behavior that follows from anyone person'sconstructs would not become evident until after a rather exhaustivestudy of his construction system. Moreover, as construct labels arc fre-quently elicited, e.g., by the Role Construct Repertory Test (RCRT),they are primarily descriptive of the dimensions along which otherpersons may be seen as moving. If it is desirable to anticipate tliebehavior of a person, then we must know whether his own bch.rviorlies within the range of convenience of the constructs he applil' II)others.

For example, suppose a psychiatric patient uses the construct "Lottempered-even tempered" to describe other persons; what may We'anticipate about his own behavior? First, it would be necessary In knowwhether the construct was applicable to his own behavior. It is CUll'ceivable that the patient's behavior is not governed, at least el i recl II', h ythat construct at all, and we might be mistaken if we anticipated II athe would be particularly hot-tempered or particularly calm. His c on-struct represents his view of the world and not necessarily his rc:spIJll,Cto it. (This problem is related to the distinction between similarity ~ L I I L Icomplementary projection as described by Campbell et aI, 195


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Personal Constrscts: George Kelly 22 1will become curious whether the electric shock apparatus remains potentduring the periods in which they are avoiding shock, and they willoccasionally deliberately take the shock, apparently in order to keep intouch with reality and make sure their anticipatory system is working(Solomon, 1959). The behavior of children that is often described as"testing of limits" seems to be of a similar nature.

A dichotomy is posed by the separate notions of extending anddefining the system. It seems that these are alternative possibilities, andthere is not an exact way of specifying whether extension or definitionwill occur at any given time. However, in his discussion of constrictionversus dilation Kelly implies that extension should probably occurwhen the person is most confident, when he has been generally success-ful in his anticipations. Definitive choices would be more likely ininstances in which the construction system seemed to be in need ofrepair. A young man is more likely to consider asking the new girlin town for a date when he has been relatively successful in his ex-perienceswith the old ones, and he is more likely to ask her when theproposed date is for a relatively familiar function. Thus he may prefera girl he knows well if he is about to attend his first formal, countryclub ball.

There is probably in the Choice Corollary an implicit assumptionof some alternating extension and consolidation of the constructionsystem.When the person feels secure and capable of anticipating events.orrcctly, he will make choices that offer possibilities of extending hisI stun, even at the risk of being wrong; but then a period of con-, idation will follow in which he will make choices that reduce

to error but are confirmative. This, of course, is something ofviay in which science proceeds.Several steps are involved in the progression from construction tobehavior. Kelly describes one possible sequence in terms of the

p ec tion -P reem p tio n-C ontro i (C -P -C ) C yc le . The circumspectioninvolves the multi-dimensional survey of the events, simultane-

Iy or sequentially, with constructs that are applied independently ofother. Circumspection will occur in terms of the constructs thatavailable for interpreting the phenomena with which the individual

. faced and will establish the dimensions within which responses areThe second stage of the cycle, preemption, is the decision

to which of all the possible constructs is critically relevant. Controlchoice) refers to the ultimate response made in the light of the

ve interpretation.

, .


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22 2 LEE SECHREST !'.For example, a young man who has just j-een drafted into the army

may circumspectively survey his situation, employing a wide variety ofconstructs. However, if he is to be an effective soldier, the situationmust be pre-empted in terms of the construct "soldier-civilian," and theyoung man must decide that he is a soldier and nothing but a soldier.If he continues to think of himself as a soldier and also as the salesurviving son of a loving mother and as a fellow who loves blueberrypie and as the exclusive sweetheart of a remarkable young lady, he isunlikely to be able to make the choices that will contribute to effective:soldiering. The pre-emption may be only temporary, it may be almostimmediately superseded, but it provides the basis for setting the courseof action.

It is not a simple matter to specify the research data that would becritical to support the choice corollary, but there is some research in-dicating that behavior is related to the constructions that are employedin interpreting events. For example, the writer is exploring (Sechrest.1962b) the relationship between constructs of particular content ; 1 { 1 < 1the behavior that might be expected to be related to those constructs.With respect to the use of the construct "friendly-unfriendly" or similarconstructs on a verbal level, it is possible to identify which persons uscthat construct on the RCRT and which do not. What differences couldbe expected in their reputations for friendliness among their peers?Considering reputational ratings on the construct "pleasant-unpleasant,"one could predict that persons who employ the construct "friendly-unfriendly" would, be different from those who do not. However, thereis nothing in Kelly's theory that would enable us to specify the directionin which the difference should exist, unless it might be expected thatpersons who use the construct would constitute the extremes of boththe pleasant and unpleasant groups. Actually, the persons who usedthe construct "friendly-unfriendly" proved to have reputations towardthe unpleasant end of the dimension when compared with persons whodid not use the construct. On the other hand, considering scores on ananxiety measure, persons who use "anxious-not anxious" and relatedconstructs such as "nervous-calm," "stable-easily upset" and the like,scored higher on the anxiety measure. Thus there is some indicationthat the constructs "friendly-unfriendly" and "anxious-not anxious" areparticularly relevant for the behavior of persons who use them.

In another investigation it has been found that persons who employa construct dimension are likely to be rated by their peers at oneextreme or the other on that dimension (Sechrest, 1962c). However, i t

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Personal Constructs: George Kelly 22 3is unpredictable whether they will be rated toward the favorable orunfavorable end of any evaluative dimension. Such a finding at leastsupports the hypothesis that constructs, set the patterns within whichbehavior will occur.

On the basis of his anticipatory system, the individual makespredictions about the future. In effect, he lays bets as to what heexpects, how he thinks things will turn out, and presumably he thenobserves the evidence. Some of his bets may be large and important,and their loss can represent a serious threat to the bettor. Others aretrivial and of little significance. When a prediction is correct, littlechange in the construction system will occur, but if the prediction iswrong, then changes will be relatively extensive (Poch, 1952). How-ever, the outcomes of his predictions must also be construed by theperson, and it is difficult at best to predict how an individual maybehave following the "invalidation" of a prediction.

For example, an individual in making a prediction may assumethat the people with whom he is associating are intelligent-and itturns out that their behavior is not what he anticipated. There are nowseveral possibilities. He may assume that his associates are not intelligentafter all; he will view them as unintelligent. Or he may decide that heis wrong about the behavior to be expected of intelligent people, andhe may revise his system for construing the elements subsumed byintelligence. Or he may decide that the construct "intelligence" is in-,qlplicahle in the situation in which he made his observations; he shouldr.ot 11.Iveexpected intelligent behavior in a strictly social situation. Or1 :( may just abandon the notion of intelligence and regard it as ameaningless construct that leads to no useful, correct predictions. Whileit is not easy to predict what the reaction of an individual may befollowing an "invalidating" experience, it is assumed that the construc-tion system is elaborated, either in the direction of extension or defini-tion, as a result of the predictions which an individual makes andtheir outcomes.

C h ar dc te ri sl ic .r o f p er so na l c on st ru c tsKelly has a number of constructs about constructs, i.e., he has ways

of construing the constructs which he observes people to be using.Reference has already been made to the "permeable-impermeable dis-tinction," i .e. , whether new experiences may be accounted for in termsof a given construct. A permeable construct is one that will admit new

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224 LEE SECHRESTelements to its context; an impermeable construct is one that has ex-hausted its context. It is not clear from the use which Kelly makesof this distinction whether an impermeable construct is one that willadmit no new elements to its purview, or whether it is only one thatis exhaustive at one or the other of the two poles. For example, areligious person may maintain the construct "miraculous-natural" toaccount for events with which he must deal, but he may have decidedthat there are no more miracles, that the last miraculous occurrenceswere in 1446. The miraculous pole of the construct is impermeable, butthe natural pole continues to be applicable. (Some sports fans use asimilar construct when they think of the "great ballplayers vs. modernday mediocrities." The former are nearly all deceased, while the lattercontinue to appear year after year.) On the other hand, another individ-ual may use the construct "miraculous-natural" in a totally impermeableway and insist that current and future' events are neither rnirurulou:nor natural. While there may once have been events that could hedescribed as miraculous or natural, the whole thing no longer tll.lhC'sense. The permeability of one's constructs limits the ability to dc:tlwith new experience to the extent that impermeable constructs have notbeen replaced.

The pre-entptioe construct is one that "pre-empts" its clements furmembership in its own realm exclusively. Kelly sometimes refers topre-emptive construing as "nothing but ... " kind of thinking. Forexample, political labels are often used pre-emptively. If a given personis identified as a Communist, then he is typically thought of as nothingbut a Communist. Even less extreme labels may be used in very nearlythe same fashion. Once a politician has been categorized as "liberal"or "conservative," it is difficult for him to induce people to think ofhim in other ways, e.g., as an expert on foreign affairs, a championof constitutional government, a devotee of the arts. One rather amusingexample of pre-emptive construction occurred when the writer wasworking in a psychiatric hospital in which it became necessary todecontaminate one of the units of an infection of lice. There was oneelderly gentleman in the unit, a very dignified man full of pride anda sense of propriety, who stoutly resisted the "delousing" procedure.He was almost literally dragged away shouting, "But you can't delousea Yale man." He was a Yale man and nothing but a Yale man in thatsituation.A constellatory construct is one that fixes the realm membershipof its elements, i.e., once an event is appropriately structured by one


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Constructs: George Kelly 22 5, its other characteristics are fixed. Many stereotypes, for ex-are of a constellatory nature. "This girl is a blonde, thereforedumb," "if it is a pencil, it must be more or less round and" For many students, the construct "difficult" is constellatory

construct "has to do with mathematics." On the other hand, aitional construct is one that leaves open to construction in allways the elements subsumed by it. The construct pole "blonde"ing used propositionally to the extent that one does not supposeany other characteristics necessarily follow. While it is easy to

that pre-emptive and constellatory constructs are bad and';)lllVU"" constructs are desirable, such is not necessarily the case.mes pre-emption is clearly necessary, and at times constellatory

are most useful. Propositionality only represents a contrastptive and constellatory construction.

There are many other characteristics that constructs may have orin which they may be categorized; space does not permit their

Ut;;l,"~".Cl description. Such obvious characteristics of constructs as their(comprehensive vs. incidental constructs), their centrality foron (core vs. peripheral constructs) and their preciseness (tightconstructs) are accounted for.

personality constructs as represented in Kelly's systemPsvcbolo gy () Personal Constructs certainly has an apparent

la';is on psychological processes at a high level of cognitive aware-I and Kelly makes no special provision for a construct of the un-

However, it is incorrect to suppose that "irrational" processeses that go on outside the individual's awareness are excludeds system. Instead of a single construct by means of which tofor such processes, e.g., repression, Kelly actually has severalconstructs that are relevant to unconscious mental processes.with, Kelly suggests that level of cognitive awareness is arunning through the construct system. A high-level construct

that is effectively symbolized in socially communicable terms,I alternatives that are both readily accessible, within the range of. of the person's major constructions, etc.! Other constructs may be at a low level of awareness for one orof several reasons. First, some constructs are preverbal, i.e., theyno consistent word symbol. They may have been formed priore development of language, but they may also have been formed

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22 6 LEE SECHRl'STunder conditions not conducive to appropriate verbal description. Con-structs may be at a low level of awareness because one of the poles issubmerged and thus is unavailable for use. For example, the implicitpole of the construct "good people" ordinarily is "bad people," but ifthat pole is submerged, the person using the construct may not be awareof the implicit distinctions he is making and may not readily compre-hend all his responses to the people he meets. Suspension refers to theomission of some element from a construct's context as a result ofrevision of the system. If an element is suspended, and if there is noother readily available structure for dealing with it, it may be at a lowlevel of awareness in the system. Whole parts of a construction systemmay be suspended as a result of revision of superordinate constructions.If an individual were to conclude that the construct "good-evil" hadabsolutely no further relevance to his behavior and were to revise III,system so as to exclude it, then elements (behavior) that had oncebeen dealt with by that construct might be less well remembered th.u:before.

Some events might lie outside the range oj convenience of our ron-struct system, and we might for that reason be unaware of them. Tilewriter once knew a small girl who had been reared in an isolated hutpeculiarly protected environment and was utterly oblivious to threatsin interpersonal situations. She apparently had no constructs withinwhose range of convenience threats from other persons might fall.Most persons have no convenient structure for their own digestivesystems (probably fortunately), and digestive processes may be saidto be "unconscious." Kelly proposes, then, to deal with the issues raisedby unconcious processes by invoking a variety of constructs from withinhis system.

Anxiety is a commonly used personality construct that has a specialmeaning in Personal Constructs theory. Whether Kelly means to uscsuch common terms as anxiety only as defined within his system orwhether he means to say that what other people take to be anxietye.g., apprehensions concerning the future, anticipations of punishment,etc.-really amounts to or stems from his own definition is not clear.He does deny specifically that his definition of anxiety abrogates otherdefinitions. Kelly defines anxiety as "the awareness that the eventswith which one is confronted lie outside the range of convenienceof his construct system" (Kelly, 1955, p. 495). In other words, anxietyis the awareness of lack of structure for events. Kelly points out that itis not the fact that one's system is not working that is anxiety produc-

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Personal Constructs: George Kelly 22 7ing; one does not feel anxious merely because his anticipations areincorrect. Anxiety is produced only when it is recognized that one'ssystemis inapplicable.

The question why the failure of structure should be "anxiety-producing" is rather difficult. Persons who work within a differentconceptual system often do not understand just why it is that loss of

i structure should necessarily involve any question of affect. First, anxietyi and loss of structure are related by definition in the same way thati anxiety may be defined in some other system as the threat of an instinc-I tual impulse breaking into consciousness. Second, however, loss ofI structure limits severely the basic process of anticipation, which is! fundamental to human behavior according to Kelly. Thus anything thati threatens the anticipatory system will be a source of dread to the in-I dividual. We may take it as assumed that anxiety is for Kelly, as forI other theorists, a predominantly undesirable experience.I ' Hostility and aggression are treated by Kelly in a way which rep-I resents a considerable and deliberate departure from their usual usageI in personality theory, where they seem to be regarded largely as synony-i mous, Kelly defines aggression as "the active elaboration of one'sI perceptual field." Defined in such a way, aggression has absolutely noi implications of hostility or of undesirability of any kind. It is simplyi the attempt of the individual to take into account a greater portion ofI his universe. To the extent, then, that a student is attempting to broadeni h is horizons, to get a grasp on phenomena he has never consideredIhcfure, he is behaving aggressively. The nonaggressive individual isI[onewho is content with the limits of his vision. Hostility, on the other! hand, is "the continued effort to extort validational evidence in favorj o f a type of social prediction which has already been recognized as a!failure." The mythological representation of hostility lies in the legend! Procrustes, who had a bed to fit every traveler-after he had either[stretchedor shortened the travelers who were the wrong size. Similarly,i parent who insists that her offspring is "only a baby" in the face ofI evidence of maturity is displaying hostility. Not all hostilityI involve inflicted pain or a desire to inflict pain upon one's

. all that is necessary is an insistence that one's victim is some-ing he isn't. To be sure, many, perhaps most attempts to inflict painother persons are extortional in nature. A husband who beats hisifc is probably attempting to validate a prediction he has made whichs simply not working, e.g., his prediction that his wife will obey himmatter what happens.

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228 LEE SECHRESTOne further personality construct that should be mentioned is

guilt, which Kelly defines as "the awareness of dislodgment of theself from one's core role structure." It is probably true that mostexperience categorized as guilt by other theorists would be consideredguilt by Kelly, but he would also include some experiences that wouldappear not at all like guilt to others. Guilt arises when the individualbecomes aware that he is alienated from the roles by which he main-tains his most important relationships to other persons. For manyscientists, "objectivity" is a fundamental aspect of their role, e.g., it isbasic to their categorization of themselves as scientists; if in some wayit becomes evident to a scientist that his behavior is nonobjective, thenhe may be expected to experience guilt. Guilt is the common consequentto dislodgment from the roles of "loving spouse," "careful parent,""competent employee," etc.; it may ensue if the individual re,~ardshimself as dislodged from (my role by which he maintains himself inrelation to other persons. It seems, for example, that some persons mayeven attempt to maintain themselves by reference to the role of "an evilperson." If it happens that they are dislodged momentarily from thatrole, e.g., by unaccountably performing some charitable deed, then theymay experience guilt as Kelly defines it. Their "atonement" may welltake the common form of stricter adherence to role demands, but itwill result in somewhat different forms of overt response.

Many persons ask where are "the feelings" in Personal Constructstheory, and insist that Kelly does not take sufficient account of whatthey call "affect." In the course of a generally favorable review ofKelly's book, Bruner (1956) says he thinks that when a young man isout on a date with a girl, he is scarcely thinking at all about the elabora-tion of his system; there are passions of some sort involved.

It will certainly be agreed that Kelly's system does not place anyparticular emphasis on the affective aspects of experience. Indeed, inhi s book there are no index references at all to the three terms "affect,""emotion," and "feeling." However, in Personal Constructs theorythere is no need to account for affect in any special way. Affect is whereit has always been, in the individual. There are, or may be, constructs,patterns of choice by an individual that are "affective" in nature orhave some internal feeling states as elements, but which are not differentfrom any other constructs. When we construe some events as amusing ornot amusing, we laugh or we do not laugh accordingly. When weconstrue people as "pleasing" or "distressing," "stimulating" or "dull,"affect may be regarded as given, manifest in the elements that form thecontext for the construct.

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Personal C 0 11 S/I '1 4C ls: G eorge K elly 22 9

Relationship to other personality theoriesNowhere in his two volumes does Kelly define the term person-

ality, but he has discussed the concept in general terms in a later article(Kelly, 1961b) in which he states that personality is "our abstractionof the activity of a person and our subsequent generalization of thisabstraction to all matters of his relationship to other persons, knownand unknown, as well as to anything else that may seem particularlyvaluable" (pp. 220-221). In considering personality it is necessary tonote that it involves abstraction by psychologists of processes they ob-serve. It is not simply an object to be discovered by them. Moreover,Kelly states that personality cannot ignore the person's relationship toothers, and by its nature personality is value laden. It is possible to givea definition of personality within Kelly's theoretical system, or at leastto translate certain common ideas about personality into his terms. Onecommonconception of personality is that it represents those consistenciesin the individual's behavior that make him different and discriminablefrom other persons. From this manifest behavior view, within Kelly'ssystem personality consists of the characteristic choices made by theindividual as he attempts to anticipate his future. His personality, theview we have of it, depends upon the constructions we place on hischaracteristic choices. If, on the other hand, we wish to view personality.I S some essence underlying the more obvious manifestations of anindividual's behavior, then in Kelly's system personality is probablysynonymous with the constructions an individual places upon the eventswith which he has to deal. An individual's personality is his constructsystem (Kelly, 1961a, p. 229).

It is evident that Kelly's theory can be construed variously, thatone can apply one's own particular constructs to The Psycholo gy ofP e rs o na l C o n st ru c ts . The one thing Kelly would suggest is that con-structs not be applied in a pre-emptive manner, insisting that his systemis "nothing but" something-or-other. It should not be insisted thatPersonal Constructs Theory is nothing but neophenomenology or noth-ing but ego psychology. Kelly has stated that his theory may be con-strued as phenomenological-although he disagrees with that construc-tion (Kelly, 1955, P: 517)-but it may also be construed as rational,interpersonal, experimental and in many other ways.

Like most cognitive and phenomenological theories, Kelly's tendsto be ahistorical in its approach to understanding behavior. Its principalemphasis is placed upon current perceptions in the prediction of be-

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230 LEE SECHRESThavior. On the other hand, Kelly is quite cognizant of the importancemost persons attach to historical experience in understanding behaviorand in justifying it. While many, perhaps most persons, are more orless passive "victims of their own biographies," Kelly does not supposethat victimization by one's experience is necessary. Unlike, for example,psychoanalysis, Personal Construct theory places no special emphasisupon the early experiences of the individual. It is clearly antithetical toconstructive alternativism to suppose that the individual's course in lifeis inexorably set at anyone point in time, and here Kelly's theoreticalideas resemble those of many other cognitive theorists. Albert Ellis,for example, in his exposition of "rational therapy," suggests that itis not what has happened or will happen to us that is important, but thestatements (interpretations) we make to ourselves about events (E l lis,1962). With such a proposition Kelly would agree completely.

There is in Kelly a good deal less emphasis on the importance ofthe self and the self concept than in most phenomenological theories.He does not make the self concept the central construct in his 111(:ol") , .and he recognizes the possibility of behavior determined without aWMC-ness. Kelly suggests that in many instances the individual may behavein ways that even to himself seem irrational. He also suggests that hi"position differs from that of the self-concept theorists in that they arcinclined to study the placement an individual makes of himself upondimensions determined externally, that is, by the experimenter or theassessor of personality, while he, on the other hand, prefers to studythe placement the individual makes of himself with respect to the con-structs that he himself emits and has found useful.

The Psychology oj Personal Constructs is an intellectual model, orrather, it is based upon an intellectual model of behavior. Kelly doesnot think of his theory as only intellectual, but says simply that he hastaken intellectual behavior, the rational processes that people engage in,as a model in building his theory. This may have the result of givinghis theory as a focus of convenience certain particular phenomena ofpersonality rather than others. His theory may lose some utility whenit is extended into areas of behavior that are usually considered to beirrational.

Inasmuch as Kelly views behavior in its anticipatory aspects, thereare obvious similarities to the theories of Adler as presented by Dreikurs(Ch. 00). From the standpoint of Adlerian theory, behavior is deter-mined by the expectations and intentions of the person. It has, then,teleological aspects. Kelly agrees that, at least for those persons who are

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C onstruc ts: G eo rge K elly 23 1with teleological terms, the constructs the individual placesevents with which he has to deal serve the purpose of

......w...,..,him to achieve control over events.It is of more than passing interest that an analysis of the interpreta-made of a clinical case by a number of exponents of leading per-it y theories (Farberow & Shneidman, 1961) revealed that Kelly's

were most similar to those growing out of Adlerian, Sui-ian and nondirective positions (Kelly, 1961b). While it is impos-

ible to distinguish clearly between Kelly the theorist and Kelly the!lUL'U the three theoretical positions to which he shows the greatest

I nity have a number of things in common with Personal Constructs. All three probably place somewhat more emphasis on the con-determinants of behavior than, for example, Freudian and Jung-

, n theories. All three also place a rather substantial emphasis uponI he interpersonal determinants of behavior. And, finally, at least thelcrian and nondirective positions tend to be ahistorical in their

to predictions of behavior.Like Freudian and Rogerian theories, The Psychology oj PersonalComtrt . tc ts grew out of its originator's experience in psychotherapeuticpr.lctice. It was by his own account not a theory which he brought tohis experiences and imposed upon them. Personal Construct theoryi'robably has as its focus of convenience the process of helping peoplerestructure their lives. Although an examination of Volume II of Kelly'swork reveals that his therapeutic techniques are not radically differentfrom those typically used by most current psychotherapists, they arecertainly varied and exemplary of considerable flexibility. PersonalConstructs Theory, also like psychoanalysis and the nondirective schools,proves to be the source of a novel therapeutic attack, which Kelly labelsF ix ed R ole T he ra py , However, fixed role therapy is obviously not meantto constitute the whole or even the major therapeutic technique forKellian practitioners. In spite of the prominence given to fixed roletherapy by its description in Volume I, it is actually a specializedvariant meant to be used only in a limited number of cases for which itis particularly applicable by reason of time and goal limitations. Fixedrole therapy is not at all emphasized in Volume II, which is devotedalmost exclusively to the clinical applications of the theory.

The Psychology oj P ersonal C onstructs is a theory that has withinits intended range of convenience an exceptional variety of behaviorof which the human organism is capable, including learning, dreams,occupational choice, sexual activity, and so on. There may be wider-

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23 2 LEE SECHRESTranging theories, but unquestionably most theories are less broad inscope. How well The Psychology of Personal Constructs lives up to itsintentions remains to be seen. George Kelly would never hesitate to layhis bets and note their consequences. Owing to his convictions aboutconstructive alternativism, however, he will probably never suffer fromlost bets. He may even enjoy them for the opportunities they offer toone with almost unlimited intellectual resources to risk.

REFERENCES

BRUNER,J . S. You are your constructs. Contemp, Psycbol., 1956, 1, 355357.CAMPBELL,D. T., MILLER, N., & LUBETSKY,J . Five varieties of projection in traitattribution. Progress report to the National Institute of Health. Research Grant:M-1544. Mimeographed, Northwestern University, 1959.ELLIS,A. Reason and emotion in psychotherapy. New York: Lyle Stuart, 1962.FARBEROW,N. 1., & SHNEIDMAN,E. S. The CfY for help. New York: McGraw-Hili,1961.KELLY,G. A. The psychology of personal constructs. New York: Norton, 1955. 2 vols.KELLY,G. A. Man's construction of his alternatives. In G. Lindzey (Ed.). Assessmentof human motives. New York: Rinehart & Co., 1958.KELLY, G. A. The abstraction of human processes. Proceedings of the XlVt/; lnter-national Congress of Applied Psychology, Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1961. (a)KELLY, G A. A nonparametric method of factor analysis for dealing with theoreticalissues. Unpublished manuscript. Mimeograph, Ohio State University, 1961. (b)KELLY,G. A. Europe's matrix of decision. In M. R. Jones (Ed.). Nebraska symposiumon motivation, 1962. Lincoln, Nebr.; Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1962.LYLE,W. A comparison of emergence and value as determinants of selective percep-tion. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 1953.MILLER, G. A. The magical number seven, plus or minus two: some limits on ourcapacity for processing information. Psycbol, Reu., 1956, 63, 81-97.PAYNE, D. E. Role constructs versus part constructs and interpersonal understanding.Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 1956.POCH, SUSANNEM. A study of changes in personal constructs as related to inter-personal prediction and its outcomes. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Ohio StateUniversity, 1952.


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Person~l Constructs: George Kelly 23 3SECHREST, L. Patients' interpretations of their psychotherapists. Unpublished doctoraldissertation, Ohio State University, 1956.SECHREST, 1. Biographical similarity and similarity in personal construction. Unpub-lished manuscript, 1962. (a)SECHREST, 1. Personal constructs and observable behaviors. Unpublished manuscript,1962. (b)SECHREST, 1. Consensus in ratings and characteristics of traits rated. Unpublishedmanuscript, 1962. (c)SECHREST, 1., & JACKSON, D. N. Social intelligence and accuracy of interpersonalpredictions. J . Pers., 1961, 29, 167-182.SHOEMAKER, D. ]. The relation between personal constructs and interpersonal predic-tions. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 1955.SOLOMON, R. 1. Human avoidance learning. Colloquium address at NorthwesternUniversi ty, 1959.TRIANDIS, H. C. Cognitive similarity and interpersonal communication in industry.J . a p p l. P s yc b ol ., 1959, 43, 321-326.WILLIAMS, T. G. The ascribed usability of personal constructs as a function of theirgenerality. Unpublished master's thesis, Pennsylvania State University, 1958.

the psychology of personal constructs_george kelly

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