Chapter 15

Question 1

What does the cognitive approach explain?

Answer 1

explains differences in personality as differences in the way people process information

Question 2

How does Kelly explain how we control events in our lives?

Answer 2

We constantly engage in a process Kelly compared to template matching.

That is, our ideas about the world are similar to templates that we place over the events we encounter.

If they match, we retain the templates. If not, we modify them for a better prediction next time

Question 3

What are personal constructs in Kelly’s theory?

Answer 3

the cognitive structures we use to interpret and predict events

• No two people have identical constructs

Question 4

How does Kelly describe personal constructs?

Answer 4

As bipolar

we classify relevant objects in an either/or fashion within our constructs.

When I meet someone for the first time, I might apply the personal constructs friendly–unfriendly, tall–short, intelligent–unintelligent, and masculine–feminine

Question 5

How did Kelly explain differences in personality?

Answer 5

result largely from differences in the way people “construe the world.”

Example:

If you and I interact with Jacob, I might use friendly–unfriendly, fun–boring, and outgoing–shy constructs in forming my impression.
But you might interpret Jacob in terms of refined–gross, sensitive–insensitive, and intelligent–unintelligent constructs.

Question 6

According to Kelly, what creates stable patterns in behaviour?

Answer 6

relatively stable patterns in our behavior (i.e., our personalities) are the result of the relatively stable way we construe the world. (our personal construct systems)

Question 7

According to Kelly, what else causes differences in people’s understanding of the world?

Answer 7

differ in the way they organize their constructs.

In what order / style you judge someone’s personality

Question 8

unlike many theorists, Kelly rejected the notion that psychological disorders are caused by past traumatic experiences. He instead argued…?

Answer 8

people suffer from psychological problems because of defects in their construct systems.

Past experiences with an unloving parent or a tragic incident may explain why people construe the world as they do, but they are not the cause of the person’s problems.

Question 9

According to Kelly, what was “at the heart of most psychological problems”

Answer 9

Anxiety

become anxious when our personal constructs fail to make sense of the events in our lives.

Question 10

What was the goal of Kelly’s therapy?

Answer 10

help clients “try on” new templates and thereby regain their ability to make sense of their worlds.

Question 11

Explain the “black box” metaphor to describe the relationship between stimuli and response:

Answer 11

features in the environment (e.g., a loud noise) cause behaviors (e.g., running away). But what happens inside the organism between the stimulus and response is unknown and unknowable, that is, a black box.

Question 12

What do cognitive personality psychologists argue about the “black box”?

Answer 12

elements between stimulus and response are the key to understanding personality and behavior.

In recent years, these psychologists have introduced a large number of these cognitive variables to account for individual differences in the way people act

Question 13

Explain the following cognitive–affective units (cognitive variables to account for individual differences in the way people act):

Encodings

Expectations and Beliefs

Affects

Goals and Values

Competencies and Self-Regulatory Plans

Answer 13

Encodings: Categories (constructs) for encoding information about one’s self, other people, events, and situations

Expectations and Beliefs: Expectations for what will happen in certain situations, for outcomes for certain behaviors, and for one’s personal efficacy

Affects: Feelings, emotions, and emotional responses

Goals and Values: Individual goals and values, and life projects

Competencies and Self-Regulatory Plans: Perceived abilities, plans, and strategies for changing and maintaining one’s behavior and internal states

Question 14

How do we explain individual differences within this cognitive framework?

Answer 14

each of us possesses a different set of mental representations.

ex. What one person hears as a clever retort someone else might take as an insult

Question 15

What are Self-Schemas?

Answer 15

cognitive representations of ourselves that we use to organize and process self-relevant information

– behaviors and attributes that are most important to you

Question 16

What is your core self schema?

Answer 16

Basic information about you

your name, information about your physical appearance, and information about your relationships with significant people, such as with a spouse or parents.

Question 17

Some people include athlete or physically fit in their self-schemas, do people who incorporate these identities into their self-schemas more likely to stick with regular exercise programs?

Answer 17

Yes

Question 18

What are trait concepts (ex. independence or friendliness) in relation to self schema?

Answer 18

can also be part of your self-schema.

If that is the case, you frequently evaluate your behavior by asking yourself, “Was that a friendly thing to do?”

Question 19

how do psychologists determine what a person’s self-schema looks like?

Answer 19

look at how people perceive and use information presented to them

Ex. “Are you a competitive person?”
- If take long to answer, probs not super important to you
- answer quickly = in well-defined schema.

Question 20

Do people respond faster for schema related info?

Answer 20

Yes

Question 21

What is the self-reference effect

Answer 21

People remember more information if it is related to schema

Question 22

What are Possible selves?

Answer 22

Cognitive representations of the kind of people we think we might become some day

Question 23

How can our possible selves cause us stress?

Answer 23

Denise and Carlos both get 41 on test. Denise moves on and gets studying while Carlos freaks out.

Why are their reactions so different? Carlos is thinking about going to law school and becoming a trial attorney, but Denise is not
Therefore the test jeopardizes his possible self

Question 24

What are the two important functions the possible self serves?

Answer 24

1. they provide incentives for future behavior. When making decisions, we ask ourselves whether a choice will take us closer to or further away from one of our future selves (woman might enter an MBA program because this decision moves her closer to becoming her powerful business executive possible self. )
2. help us interpret the meaning of our behavior and the events in our lives. A man with a professional baseball pitcher possible self will attach a very different meaning to an arm injury than someone who does not think of himself this way

Question 25

Can possible selves be useful in predicting future behaviour?

Answer 25

Yes, more than one-third of the juvenile delinquents had developed a criminal possible self. (could also be used positively too, ex. exercise)

Question 26

What are gender differences in possible selves?

Answer 26

female high school and college students are less likely than males to see themselves in traditionally masculine roles in the future.

University women are less likely than men to have a possible self that includes a career in a math, science, or business

BUT! ppl with friends / role models outside the typical might develop a possible self outside the norm too

Question 27

How might a cognitive therapist help a man who suffers from intense social anxiety?

Answer 27

A cognitive therapist might explore the kinds of thoughts the man tells himself when he anticipates a social encounter.

These thoughts most likely include statements like, “I don’t know why I’m going to this dumb party. No one ever wants to talk with me. And when they do, I usually sound awkward and stupid.”

In other words, this man has set himself up to fail. SO help the man to replace these self-defeating thoughts with more appropriate, positive ones. (and be prepped to deal with disappointments and failures)

Question 28

What is rational emotive therapy?

Answer 28

people become depressed, anxious, upset, and the like because of faulty reasoning and a reliance on irrational beliefs.

Question 29

(rational emotive therapy)

Explain the A-B-C process from Ellis:

Answer 29

suppose your boyfriend/girlfriend calls tonight and tells you the relationship is over. This is the A, which Ellis calls the Activating experience.

However, when clients seek out psychotherapy, they usually identify the reason as the C, the emotional Consequence. In this case, you are probably feeling depressed, guilty, or angry

Middle step in the sequence: B, irrational Belief. “I can never be happy without this person”

A= Dumped

C= Sad about it

B = Irrational thinking

Question 30

How does Ellis explain the importance of B, irrational belief?

Answer 30

each of us harbors and relies on a large number of these irrational beliefs.

Imagine that you fail an important class (A).

If you then fall back on the irrational belief “I need to do well at everything to be considered worthwhile” (B),

you’ll lead yourself to the conclusion that this is a catastrophe and become excessively anxious (C)

Question 31

What are the two goals of rational emotive therapy?

Answer 31

1. clients must see how they rely on irrational beliefs and the fault in their reasoning.
2. the therapist works with the client to replace irrational beliefs with rational ones.

Question 32

needed an efficient way to identify personal constructs that could also be easily understood by clients, what was the solution?

Answer 32

Repertory Grid Technique

Question 33

What is the Repertory Grid Technique?

Answer 33

Step 1: the test taker creates a list of elements. The items on this list can be anything the person encounters in life, but most often the list consists of specific people the test taker knows.

Step 2: the test taker’s personal constructs are elicited by comparing and contrasting various elements on the list.

Question 34

What is the most common version of the grid technique?

Answer 34

Role Construct Repertory Test (REP test)

Question 35

What does the Role Construct Repertory Test (REP test)

Answer 35

Ask ppl to name 24 people from various personal experiences—for example, a teacher they liked

therapist then presents clients with three of the names from this list and asks, “In what important way are two of these people alike but different from the third?”

A client might say that two of them are warm people and that the third person is cold.
– In Kelly’s terms, this client has used a warm–cold construct to categorize the three people.

(repeated with other names from list)

Question 36

2 Limitations of the grid technique?

Answer 36

1. does not generate a simple test score
2. many assumptions underlying the test
   • constructs used during the test are relatively permanent (not the patients first time using them)
   • the people on the list are representative of the kind of people clients are likely to deal with in their daily lives

Question 37

What are the 2 strengths of the Cognitive Approach?

Answer 37

1. A lot of the ideas were developed through empirical research
2. it fits well with the current mood, or Zeitgeist, of psychology.

Question 38

What are the 2 Criticisms of the Cognitive Approach?

Answer 38

1. concepts are sometimes too abstract for empirical research
2. no single model to organize and guide theory and research.