Evaluate the contribution of Kelly to the understanding of personality and personality development over the lifespan.

Contribution of Kelly to the Understanding of Personality and

Personality Development over the Lifespan

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Contribution of Kelly to the Understanding of Personality and

Personality Development over the Lifespan

Introduction

Personality is an influential and important aspect of psychology Personality psychology asks the question what does it mean to be a person ? And it is primarily concerned with human nature and individual differences (Pervin and John , 2001 . Many psychologists have developed theories to understand and explain individual personality from different perspectives , including behavioural

, psychodynamic , trait , social learning , biological , humanist , interactionist and cognitive (Friedman and Schustack , 1999 . Since the 1950s there has been , what is described as a cognitive revolution with the model of a person on sophisticated processors of information . This was at odds with behavioural and social learning theories put forward by Skinner and Clark (Friedman and Schustack , 1999

George A . Kelly 's Personal Construct Theory (PCT (Kelly , 1955 , is a comprehensive theory of personality (Neimeyer , 1995 ) which has been applied to clinical situations more than it has been supported by empirical data (Fransella , 1995 . Yet recent developments in psychology under the general rubric of constructivism (Neimeyer , 1995 , indicate that the classical Aristotelian division of experience into thought feeling , and behaviour is undergoing reevaluation (Efran Fauber 1995 . In the light of these new developments , it may be both useful and necessary to provide more analytical support for PCT

This essay will demonstrate an understanding of George Kelly 's Personal Construct Theory and its position in relation to the major perspectives in personality psychology . It will seek to evaluate Personal Construct Theory in terms of three main criteria of evaluation . Firstly comprehensiveness , which is its ability to account for and encompass a wide variety of data . Secondly parsimony , which is its ability to accounts for varied phenomena in a simple , economical and consistent way , and finally research relevance or relative utility , which is its ability to produce hypotheses which can be confirmed through systematic research . Then , the will access how the theory has been used in practical settings , research , etc , limitations of theory , and examine how theory can be applied in non-western society as well

Personal Construct Theory

Although Kelly did not label his approach as cognitive it is generally accepted to be associated with the cognitive approach . This can be said as PCT emphasises the ways in which we perceive events , the ways we interpret these events in relation to already existing structures and the ways that we behave in relation to these interpretations (Pervin and John , 2001 . A theory of personality , if it can be considered complete should cover structure , process , growth and development , psychopathology and change

Kelly 's theory is dynamic and systemic it comprises a Fundamental Postulate and eleven corollaries . Four corollaries describe the process of construing (explaining the meaning of events to oneself , four describe the structure of the construct system (the organization of these explanations , and the remaining three describe the social context of construing . In addition , Kelly (1955 ) indicates...