Chapter 14 - Social Cognitive Theories

Question 56

Social Cognitive Theories

Theorists

Answer 56

• Social cognitive theorists combine behavioural and cognitive perspectives into an approach to personality that stresses the interaction of a thinking human with a social environment that provides learning experiences
  
  • Take into account both internal and external factors

Question 57

Social Cognitive Theories

Reciprocal Determinism

Answer 57

two way causal relations between the person, behaviour, and the environment

Question 58

Social Cognitive Theories

Julian Rotter: Expectancy, Reinforcement Value, and Locus of Control

Expectancy and Reinforcement value

Answer 58

• Likelihood that we engage in a particular behaviour in a given situation is influenced by two factors: expectancy and reinforcement value
  
  • Expectancy – perception of how likely that certain consequences will occur if we engage in a particular behaviour
  • Reinforcement value – how much we desire or dread the outcome that we expect

Question 59

Social Cognitive Theories

Julian Rotter: Expectancy, Reinforcement Value, and Locus of Control

Locus of Control:

Internal-external locus of control

Answer 59

generalized expectancy that one’s outcomes are under personal versus external control

Question 60

Social Cognitive Theories

Albert Bandura: The Social Cognitive Perspective and Self-Efficacy

Answer 60

• A concept central to Bandura’s work, and to social cognitive theory, is the idea of human agency, the idea that humans are active agents in their own lives.
• argued that we are not just at the mercy of the environment, we make plans and set goals, and then we behave in ways that help us reach our goals.
• Human agency is a process, not a trait or a characteristic, and includes four aspects:

1. intentionality: we plan, modify our plans, and act with intention.
2. forethought: we anticipate outcomes, set goals, and actively choose behaviours relevant to those goals
3. self-reactiveness: the process of motivating and regulating our own actions, the processes that we use when we modify our goals, monitor our progress toward those goals, and, when necessary, change strategies.
4. self-reflectiveness: we think about and evaluate our own motivations, values, and goals.

Question 61

Social Cognitive Theories

Albert Bandura: The Social Cognitive Perspective and Self-Efficacy

Self-Efficacy

Answer 61

• beliefs concerning their ability to perform the behaviours needed to achieve desired outcomes
  
  • Key factor in way people regulate their lives

Question 62

Social Cognitive Theories

Albert Bandura: The Social Cognitive Perspective and Self-Efficacy

Determinants of Self-efficacy

Answer 62

1. Performance attainments in similar situations
2. Observational learning (if another person similar to yourself can accomplish a certain goal, so can you)
3. Verbal persuasion
4. Emotional arousal (anxiety or fatigue tend to decrease self-efficacy)

Question 63

Research Foundations:

Albert Bandura, Human Agency, and the Social Cognitive Perspective

Answer 63

• His research is known as rigorous and creative, his theoretical writing as clear, carefully argued, and based on a solid empirical foundation.
• He argued, however, that our behaviour is not controlled simply by stimuli in our environment and the immediate consequences of our behaviour.
• tested 7- to 9-year-old children in a bowling game
• Bandura and Walter Mischel, his colleague at Stanford, found that children would sacrifice a small but immediately available reward in favour of a delayed but more valuable reward if they saw a model behave in this way.
• behaviour was controlled not by the immediacy of a reward in front of the child but by the behaviour they saw modelled by others, even when that meant delaying reward to a future time.

Question 64

Applications

Increasing Self-Efficacy Through Systematic Goal Setting

Answer 64

research-derived guidelines for effective goal setting:

1. Set specific, behavioural, and measurable goals
2. Set performance, not outcome, goals.
3. Set difficult but realistic goals.
4. Set positive, not negative, goals.
5. Set short-range as well as long-term goals.
6. Set definite time spans for achievement.

Question 65

Social Cognitive Theories

Walter Mischel: The Consistency Paradox and if…Then…Behaviour Consistencies

Answer 65

• Mischel argued that a more cognitive approach to personality was required, one that takes into account not only the power of situational factors, but also how people characteristically deal mentally and emotionally with experience.
• He has argued for the importance of personal constructs, individual ways of perceiving and understanding events, in behaviour.
• if…then… behaviour cosistencies - suggests that there is consistency in behaviour, but it is found within similar situations
  
  • Ex: if Mark gets angry at his partner, then he will shout and become aggressive; however, once the if changes, so does the then: If Mark becomes angry with his boss, then he will withdraw and sulk.

Question 66

Social Cognitive Theories

Evaluating Social Cognitive Theories

Answer 66

• A strength of the social cognitive approach is its strong scientific base. It brings together two perspectives, the behavioural and the cognitive, that have strong research traditions.
• Another strength is its ability to translate insights derived from other perspectives into cognitive-behavioural concepts.
• Social cognitive theory suggests that the inconsistency of a person’s behaviour across situations is actually a manifestation of a stable underlying cognitive-affective personality structure that reacts to certain features of situations.