Personal Constructs Essay

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Personal Constructs PSY/230 October 18, 2013 Introduction George A. Kelly (1905-1966) labored as a teacher, aeronautical engineer, and clinical psychologist until he wrote, and published two volumes, The Psychology of Personal Constructs in 1955. Kelly’s book took the field of personality psychology by storm (McAdam, 2009). Kelly life was short, and several psychologists thought he was ahead of himself. McAdam (2009) stated, “People differ from one another with respect to the kinds of self-representations, and social construal’s they characteristically formulate, and act upon” (p. 302). Kelly says the problem of human motivation is not a problem (McAdam, 2009). Personal Constructs McAdam (2009) stated, “A person is motivated to predict or anticipate what will happen to him or her. What moves people to act George A. Kelly (1905-1966) developed a highly influential theory of personality that described human beings as lay scientist who seek to organize or predict, and control their world” (p. 303). Kelly says, people believe that a prediction is the drivers of our mind (McAdam, 2009). A construct has two extreme points; “happy-sad”, and we place people; at either one at some point in between (McAdam, 2009). A personal construct is the way we as people look at life, people, and our surroundings. McAdam (2009) stated, “A personal construct according to Kelly classifies his or her own world by developing personal constructs, which are characteristic ways of how some things are alike, and some things are different from one another” (p. 303). Kelly says all constructs are bipolar specifying how two things are similar to each other on the same pole, and the third thing lying at the opposite pole (McAdam, 2009). Our decisions are determine on how we want to speak, act or think and the way we live our life. I think the principal determines how the world
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