Chapter 15 Flashcards
what is the cognitive approach?
Differences in personality are differences in the way people process information
what is Kurt Lewin’s Field theory of behavior (1938)?
B= f(LS) B = f(p,e)
Life space (LS) behavior (B) is a function of the person (p) and their cultural environment (e)
Psychological field = The total sum of all forces and influences that can impact a person’s behavior. It incorporates situational, cultural, and social elements.
Life space = This represents a person’s unique experience and reality. It includes their feelings, thoughts, perceptions, goals, and experiences
who published the “psychology of personal constructs”? what is it?
Published by George Kelly
Premise of many approaches identified as cognitive
what is Kelly’s man-woman-the-scientist?
viewing individuals as constantly generating and testing hypotheses about the world, similar to scientists
observe, explain, predict, control
what are personal constructs?
Cognitive structures people use to interpret and predict events
(T/F) ___ People do not use identical personal constructs
(T/F) ___ Individuals do not organize constructs in an identical manner
both are true
what does it mean that personal constructs are bipolar?
Friendly–unfriendly
Intelligent–unintelligent
Kelly emphasizes the _____ capacity of living things to represent their environment, as opposed to simply reacting to it.
creative
what are the 4 characteristics of constructs?
patterns that we create in our mind and attempt to fit over the realities of the world.
Since our constructs don’t always fit with reality, we are constantly modifying them, as well as trying to increase our repertoire of constructs.
Over time, we test our constructs for the ability to predict what will happen in our lives.
With sufficient time and experience, and if we are willing to learn from our mistakes, we can evaluate all of our interpretations of the world in which we live
what is Kelly’s fundamental postulate?
“a person’s processes are psychologically channelized by the ways in which he anticipates events”
how many corollaries does Kelly have?
11
what is individuality corollary? (3)
Persons differ from each other in their construction of events.
Two people cannot play the same role in a situation.
They will therefore interpret the event differently
what is organization corollary? (3)
When faced with conflict, there may be solutions that contradict one another.
Which do we choose?
E.g., stupid might work but we choose smart
Each person characteristically evolves, for his convenience in anticipating events, a construction system embracing ordinal relationships between constructs.
Application of first ____ is followed by other bipolar constructs, which determines what?
construct
the extent of the blackness or whiteness
Differences in personality result from differences in the way people “______”
______ of people to make sense of others and their behavior
Individuals may use the ____ constructs and construe the world ____
Differences in personality result from differences in the way people “construe the world”
Initial thoughts of people to make sense of others and their behavior
Individuals may use the same constructs and construe the world differently
why do people suffer from psychological problems according to Kelly and the cognitive approach? (3)
People suffer from psychological problems due to defects in their construct systems
Past traumatic experiences are not the cause of the problems
People become anxious when personal constructs fail to make sense of the events in their lives
how do you fix inadequate personal constructs?
People frequently generate a new construct to replace the inadequate one
what are cognitive personality variables? (4)
Elements between the stimulus and response
- Constitute to individual differences in people
- Referred as cognitive-affective units
Part of a complex system that links situations people encounter with their behavior
place the following: encoding, expectations and beliefs, affects, goals and values, competencies and self-regulatory plans
1) Categories (constructs) for encoding information about one’s self, other people, events, and situations
2) Expectations for what will happen in certain situations, for outcomes for certain behaviors, and for one’s personal efficacy
3) Feelings, emotions, and emotional responses
4) Individual goals and values, and life projects
5) Perceived abilities, plans, and strategies for changing and maintaining one’s behavior and internal states
1) encodings
2) expectations and beliefs
3) affects
4) goals and values
5) competencies and self-regulatory plans
Individual differences in cognitive framework is due to difference in _____ of people
Individuals differ in the manner they ____ stored information
People react to the same situation _____
Individual differences in cognitive framework is due to difference in mental representations of people
Individuals differ in the manner they access stored information
People react to the same situation differently
(T/F) ___ Mental representations are unique to individuals
true
what are self-concepts? (3)
Cognitive representation of oneself
Relatively stable over time
Play a central role in the way people process information
what are self-schemas (3)?
Cognitive representations of oneself that one uses to organize and process self-relevant information
Consists of the important behaviors and attributes
Provide a framework for organizing and storing information
what are trait concepts? (2)
Part of self-schema
People behave differently due to individual differences in self-schemas
what is the self-reference effect?
Easy remembering of self-referent words as they are processed through self-schemas
what are possible selves and how do they affect behaviour?
Cognitive representations of the kind of person we might become someday
Provide incentives for future behavior
Helps to interpret the meaning of behavior and events in our lives
what behaviours do researchers use possible selves to study?
Binge drinking, academic performance
Weight loss, adherence to an exercise program
(T/F) ___ Researches indicate gender differences in the possible selves of young men and women
true
what is cognitive psychotherapy (2)?
Helps recognize inappropriate thoughts and replace them with appropriate ones
Cognitive psychologists teach clients how to deal with future and recurring problems
what is the limitation of cognitive psychotherapy?
Limited to psychological problems that are based in irrational and self-defeating thinking
who developed rational emotive therapy and what is it?
Developed by Albert Ellis
People become depressed, anxious, and upset due to faulty reasoning and reliance on irrational beliefs
what is the ABC process of rational emotive therapy?
Activating experience
Irrational belief
Emotional consequence
what is the goal of rational emotive therapy? (2)
Clients must see their irrational beliefs and identify the fault in reasoning
To replace irrational beliefs with rational ones
Rational emotive therapists challenge clients to identify their _____ beliefs and see how these beliefs lead them to their faulty conclusions.
irrational
who developed the repertory grid technique and what is it?
To measure personal constructs, Kelly developed the Repertory Grid Technique, a method used to identify and understand an individual’s personal constructs.
how does the repertory grid technique work? (3)
The Repertory Grid Technique involves creating a list of elements (usually specific people known to the test-taker) and eliciting personal constructs by comparing and contrasting these elements.
The most common version is the Role Construct Repertory Test, where clients provide a list of 24 people, and the therapist asks how two of three presented names are alike but different from the third, based on personal constructs.
About 20 trials, or “sorts,” provide a useful sample of the client’s principal constructs.
what are limitations of the repertory grid technique?
Limitations include the lack of a simple test score, requiring interpretation by the therapist, and assumptions about the permanence of constructs and the representativeness of people on the list.
what assumption did Kelly express concern about in the repertory grid technique?
Kelly expressed concern about the assumption that people can accurately describe the constructs they use, acknowledging that words may not adequately capture certain constructs and interpretations may vary between clients and therapists.
what are the strengths of the cognitive approach (2)?
The cognitive approach to personality is strengthened by its empirical basis, rooted in extensive research findings and laboratory experiments.
The adaptability of the cognitive model allows for continuous modification as researchers gain more insights into cognitive structures and processes.
what are the criticisms of the cognitive approach? (2)
concepts are sometimes too abstract for empirical research.
there is no single model to organize and guide theory and research.
