Chapter 10: Personal Control Beliefs

Question 1

What are the two kinds of expectancy?

Answer 1

1: Efficacy expectancies: estimates about our capacity to competently perform the behaviour
2: Outcome expectancies: Predictions about how likely it is that certain consequences will follow once behaviour is performed

Ex: Surgery

1: Can I perform this procedure
2: will the outcome make it worthwhile

Question 2

What is an expectancy?

Answer 2

A subjective prediction about the likelihood that an event will occur

Question 3

Personal control behaviours: Challenge Appraisal vs. Threat Appraisal

Answer 3

Challenge Appraisal: is positive (I can Handle it) know what to do to achieve it. —> Mastery Coping: Problem solving, guidance seeking, help seeking. —> adaptive functioning and outcomes

Threat Appraisal: Something is wrong with me, I am bad at this, I don’t have what it takes. —> Defensive Coping: Blame others, self denigration, rummination. —> Maladaptive functioning and outcomes

Question 4

What is Self Efficacy?

Answer 4

A personal belief that the self “has what it takes” to cope with the changing and potentially overwhelming demands of the environment

A persons judgement of how well (or poorly) he or she will cope with a situation, given the skills they possess and the circumstances they will face

Self Efficacy is just as important as ability when it comes to competent functioning

Question 5

Jeff’s take on Self Efficacy

Answer 5

Efficacy = belief about a specific task

Self Efficacy = General capacity to cope with things as they happen

Self- Efficacy DOES NOT EQUAL ability

Ability only gets you so far in a changing environment

Self-Efficacy is the knowledge that you can adapt/cope with the changes

Question 6

What does Bandura say is the root cause of anxiety?

Answer 6

Low Self-Efficacy

Question 7

Extent of Self-Efficacy: What are the 4 Sources of Self-Efficacy?

Answer 7

1: Personal Behaviour History: Memory of past demonstrations of the task by you (done it before)
2: Vicarious Experience (Modelling): Similar others doing the task. Ex: if they do well I should too, if they fail I might also fail.
3: Verbal Persuasion (Pep talk): Pep talk must be from credible and respected source.
4: Physiological Activity: Increased HR, Increased Breathing Rate etc.

Question 8

Extent of Self-Efficacy: What are the 4 Effects of self efficacy?

Answer 8

1: Choice (Approach vs. Avoid): Set Appropriate goals
2: Effort and Persistence: Increased want, increased self-efficacy
3: Thinking and Decision making: Stay on track, make good decisions and use good strategies vs. Freeze up, make poor decisions and strategies

4: Emotional Reactions (stress and anxiety): High —> Positive emotions, interest, and enthusiasm
vs
Low —> Stress and Anxiety

Question 9

What is learned helplessness?

Answer 9

The psychological state that results when a person expects that their voluntary behaviour will have little or no effect on the outcomes they strive to attain or avoid

external locus of control = learned helplessness

Loss of control –> overwhelming so they strop trying –> poorer performance –> learned helplessness

Question 10

Mastery Orientation

Answer 10

Higher focus on your behaviour and the outcomes that come along with them and less focus on the uncontrollable other influences

Question 11

Learned helplessness

Answer 11

Higher focus on the uncontrollable factors associated with outcomes from a behaviour that the factors you can control to change the outcome

Question 12

Learned Helplessness can be understood by:

Answer 12

The strength of the received relationship between behaviour and outcomes

Question 13

What are the 3 components of Learned helplessness?

Answer 13

1: Contingency : Objective relationship between the environment and person’s behaviour and outcomes (Can control vs. Can’t control)
2: Cognition: Subjective (Perceived) –> what I think about the contingency can have an impact
3: Behaviour: Persons voluntary coping response ex: lethargic and passive = helplessness and alert and active = assertive and not helplessness.

Question 14

What are the 3 deficits in a person who has learned helplessness ?

Answer 14

1: Motivational Decifits: Why try? lack of any motivation

2: Learning Deficits: Pessimist mindset –> no learning possible
- good outcome does not have a learning relationship
- good outcome = Fluke so not worth repeating

3: Emotional Deficits: Energy depleting emotions such as depression.

Question 15

Do individuals with depression have high or low perceived control in their environment?

Answer 15

Low Perceived control over their environment and the outcomes of their actions

Illusion of control is likely healthy as it pushes us forward and to keep going.

Question 16

What is Explanatory style?

Answer 16

A stable, cognitive based personality variable that reflects the way people explain why bad things (in particular) happen to them

Question 17

What are attributional optimists and Attributional Pessimists distinguished by?

Answer 17

Their explanations concerning: Stability and Controllability

Question 18

Pessimistic Explanatory Style:

Answer 18

Associated with a tendency to explain bad events with attributions that are stable and uncontrollable

Question 19

Optimistic Explanatory Style:

Answer 19

Associated with a tendency to explain bad events with attributions that are unstable and controllable

Question 20

Control mismatches:

Answer 20

not healthy to think you have more control than you do in an environment. that makes you delusional

Question 21

When confronted with a situation that is difficult to control what do people do?

Answer 21

People initially show a reactance response in which they attempt to re-establish personal control

if they are unable to regain control they will try a little more and if they still arent able to gain control then they will give up = learned helplessness.

Question 22

Mikulincer Study:

Answer 22

LH1: given unsolvable problem to spend time on then a delay. then given set of different problems that are solvable:
A) told easy to solve
B) hard but solvable (moderate)
C) extremely solvable

LH4: Same as LH1 but initially given 4 unsolvable problems = a lot of frustration

LH1: One setback translated into better performance

LH4: Helplessness - when participants had low success expectation they performed worse than LH1 and the control group.

Question 23

Mikulincer Study Findings:

Answer 23

Participants in low learned helplessness (LH1) condition with a moderate expectation of success , then reported higher levels of frustration, anger, sadness and incompetence compared to those of the control group

Helplessness group (LH4) reported higher levels of depression than participants in the control group.

Question 24

Reactance Theory (EXAM 4 POINT QUESTION)

Answer 24

1: Reactance and Helplessness both arise from outcome expectancies
ex: If I have only a little bit of experience with loss of control I am likely to keep trying and will still have expectancy of success
2: Reactance is rooted in perceived personal control whereas helplessness is rooted in perceived ABSENCE of control
ex: LH1 has a sense of control still but LH4 does not
3: A reactance response comes before a helplessness response
4: A reactance response enhances performance, whereas a helplessness response undermines it
ex: when still believe in control (LH1) put in more effort whereas when LH4 had poorer performance