2. Cognitive-social Theories

Question 1

Develop from behaviourist and cognitive roots and consider learning, beliefs, expectations and information processing to be central to personality.

Answer 1

Cognitive-social theories

Question 1

Reflects a constant interplay between environmental demands and the way the individual processes information about the self and the world.

Answer 1

Personality

Question 2

Several conditions must be meet for a behaviour to occur.
(1) The person must encode the current situation as relevant to her goals and current concerns and the situation must have enough personal meaning or value to initiate goal driven behaviour.
(2) The individual must believe that performing the behaviour will lead to the desired outcome and that she has the ability to perform it.
(3) The person must also actually have the ability to carry out the behaviour.
(4) The person must be able to regulate ongoing activity in a way that leads to goal fulfilment.
If any of these conditions is not met, behaviour will not occur.

Answer 2

Conditions for behaviour

Question 3

For people to respond to a situation they must first encode it as relevant.

Answer 3

Encoding

Question 4

Mental representations of the people, places, settings and events that are significant to a person.

Answer 4

Personal constructs

Question 5

Refers to the importance individuals attach to various outcomes or potential outcomes.

Answer 5

Personal value

Question 6

The conscious, self defined problems people attempt to solve.

Answer 6

Life tasks

Question 7

Expectations relevant to desired outcomes.

Answer 7

Expectancies

Question 8

A belief that a certain behaviour will lead to a particular outcome.

Answer 8

Behaviour outcome expectancy

Question 9

A person’s conviction that she can perform the actions necessary to produce the desired outcome.

Answer 9

Self efficacy expectancy

Question 10

Skills and attributes used for solving problems.

Answer 10

Competencies

Question 11

Refers to setting goals, evaluating performance and adjusting behaviour to achieve these goals in the context of ongoing feedback.

Answer 11

Self regulation

Question 12

(1) Bringing into focus the role of thought and memory in personality.
(2) Cognitive-social theory is readily testable through experimentation.

Answer 12

Contributions of cognitive-social theories

Question 13

(1) They tend to emphasise the rational side of life and underemphasise of the emotional, motivational and irrational.
(2) The tendency to assume that people consciously know what they think, feel and want and hence can report it.

Answer 13

Limitations of cognitive-social theories