Chapter 12

Question 1

Cognitive Approaches

Answer 1

Differences in how people think form the focus of cognitive approaches to personality.

Question 2

Personalizing Cognition

Answer 2

The first person who looked at the picture.

Question 3

Objectifying Cognition

Answer 3

The second subject who looked at the picture.

Question 4

Cognition

Answer 4

Awareness and thinking, as well as to specific mental acts such as perceiving, attending to, interpreting, remembering, believing, judging, deciding, and anticipating.

Question 5

Information Processing

Answer 5

Transformation of sensory input into mental representations and the manipulation of such representations.

Question 6

Perception

Answer 6

Process of imposing order on the information our sense organs take in.

Question 7

Interpretation

Answer 7

Making sense of various events in the world.

Question 8

Conscious Goals/Beliefs & Desires

Answer 8

Standards that people develop for evaluating themselves and others.

Question 9

Rod and Frame Test

Answer 9

Participants sit in a darkened room and are instructed to watch a glowing rod surrounded by a square frame, which is also glowing.

Question 10

Field Dependent

Answer 10

If the participant adjusts the rod so that it is leaning in the direction of the tilted frame, then that person is said to be dependent on the visual field.

Question 11

Field Independent

Answer 11

Other participants disregard the external cues and instead use information from their bodies in adjusting the rod to upright.

Question 12

Pain Tolerance

Answer 12

In which people undergo the same physical stimulus but react quite differently from each other in terms of the pain they report experiencing.

Question 13

Reducer/Augmenter Theory

Answer 13

The dimension along which people differ in their reaction to sensory stimulation.

Question 14

Construct

Answer 14

Summarizes a set of observations and conveys the meaning of those observations.

Question 15

Personal Constructs

Answer 15

Constructs a person routinely uses to interpret and predict events.

Question 16

Postmodernism

Answer 16

Intellectual position grounded in the notion that reality is constructed, that every person and every culture has a version of reality that is unique, and that no single version of reality is any more privileged than another.

Question 17

Fundamental Postulate

Answer 17

The statement that a person’s processes are psychologically channelized by the ways in which they anticipate events.

Question 18

Locus of Control

Answer 18

Concept that describes a person’s perception of responsibility for the events in their life.

Question 19

Expectancy of Reinforcement

Answer 19

Characteristics that distinguish specific individuals.

Question 20

Generalized Expectancies

Answer 20

A person’s expectations for reinforcement held across a variety of situations.

Question 21

External Locus of Control

Answer 21

Generalized expectancy that events are outside of one’s control

Question 22

Internal Locus of Control

Answer 22

Generalized expectancy that reinforcing events are under one’s control and that one is responsible for the major outcomes in life.

Question 23

Learned Helplessness

Answer 23

If repeated attempts to change the situation failed, they would resign themselves to being helpless.

Question 24

Explanatory Style

Answer 24

Tendencies some people have to frequently use certain explanations for the causes of events.

Question 25

Causal Attribution

Answer 25

A person’s explanation of the cause of an event.

Question 26

Pessimistic Explanatory Style

Answer 26

Puts a person at risk for feelings of helplessness and poor adjustment is one that emphasizes internal, stable, and global causes for bad events.

Question 27

Optimistic Explanatory Style

Answer 27

Emphasizes external, temporary, and specific causes of events.

Question 28

Personal Project

Answer 28

Set of relevant actions intended to achieve a goal that a person has selected.

Question 29

Cognitive Social Learning

Answer 29

Emphasizes the cognitive and social processes whereby people learn to value and strive for certain goals over others.

Question 30

Self-Efficacy

Answer 30

Belief that one can execute a specific course of action to achieve a goal.

Question 31

Modeling

Answer 31

Seeing others engage in the performance with positive results.

Question 32

Promotion Focus

Answer 32

The person is concerned with advancement, growth, and accomplishments.

Question 33

Prevention Focus

Answer 33

The person is concerned with protection, safety, and the prevention of negative outcomes and failures.

Question 34

If-Then Propositions

Answer 34

If situation A, then the person does X; but if situation B, then the person does Y.

Question 35

Achievement View of Intelligence

Answer 35

How much knowledge a person has acquired relative to others in their age cohort.

Question 36

Aptitude View of Intelligence

Answer 36

An ability to become educated, as the ability or aptitude to learn.

Question 37

General Intelligence

Answer 37

Intelligence used to be thought of as a single broad factor or G.

Question 38

Multiple Intelligences

Answer 38

Includes seven forms, such as interpersonal intelligence and intrapersonal intelligence.

Question 39

Cultural Context of Intelligence

Answer 39

What is defined as intelligent behavior will differ across cultures.

Question 40

Inspection Time

Answer 40

The time it takes a person to make a simple discrimination between two displayed objects.

Question 41

Human Nature

Answer 41

Humans as scientists; people attempt to understand, predict, and control events.

Question 42

Commonality Corollary

Answer 42

If two people have similar construct systems, they will be psychologically similar.

Question 43

Sociality Corollary

Answer 43

To understand a person, must understand how they construe the social world.

Question 44

Anxiety

Answer 44

Not being able to understand and predict life events.