Introduction:
George Kelly can be labeled as either a phenomenological or a
cognitive theorist. He shares with both perspectives an emphasis on the fact
that our experience is a model or construal of the world. His unique
emphasis was that how we construe reality depends on the personal constructs
we use. Personal constructs are bipolar distinctions such as “nice-mean” or
“hard-easy”. Because we all use different constructs, we all have different
experiences. For example, John might view his personality professor as
“nice" whereas Jane might view the same professor as “hard”. It is not that
Jane necessarily disagrees with John; rather, “nice-mean” is simply not a
construct she spontaneously applies to understanding her professors. Kelly
viewed personal constructs as hypotheses about the world, and viewed people
as scientists constantly testing and improving their hypotheses. Just like
scientists, they should keep those constructs that help them predict
important events, and revise or replace those lacking “predictive
efficiency”.
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