Chapter 18- Mischel Flashcards
How did Mischel feel about his psychoanalytic training?
He didn’t really feel like it helped him in the actual practice of therapy
What is the consistency paradox?
Believing that human’s personalities tend to remain consistent over time despite their behavior changing in different situations
Give an example of the consistency paradox
In class, John is overly aggressive and loud, so you label him as an aggressive person. In reality, however, John only acts like this in class. At work, home, and anywhere else, he’s super chill.
Mischel believed that traits are consistent depending on what?
The situation; behaviors are consistent if the situation is the same, but inconsistent from one situation to another
How did Mischel feel about personality tests?
He didn’t like them; believed people were more able to predict their own feelings and future behaviors than any kind of test
Give an example of an If-then personality description
If Mark is provoked by his wife, he will act with aggression; if he is provoked by his boss, he will act in submission
What is the behavioral signature of personality?
One’s consistent manner of varying their behavior in different situations
What are cognitive-affective units?
all those psychological, social, and physiological aspects of people that permit them to interact with their environment with some stability in their behavior; there’s 5 units
What are the 5 cognitive-affective units?
- Encoding strategies
- Competencies and self-regulatory behaviors
- Expectancies and beliefs
- Goals and values
- Affective responses
What are encoding strategies and how might they affect people’s behavior?
People’s way of categorizing info received from external stimuli; people encode the same situations differently, and how they encode affects how they behave.
ex. a guy might either encode a person’s smile as either flirtatious or friendly, and will react differently depending on how he interprets it
How might competencies and self-regulatory strategies affect behavior?
If we believe ourselves to be competent/capable of doing something, we’re more likely to do it
People use self-regulatory strategies to control their own behavior and set their own goals.
How might expectancies and beliefs affect behavior?
Having no expectancies or beliefs of a behavior will result in the use of behaviors that had the best reinforcement in similar situations
ex. a student prepping for the GRE; they haven’t taken it before, so they will use the best studying strategies they used on previous tests
How might goals and values affect behavior?
Our goals and values determine what behaviors will be important to us. For example, take 2 college students; one has the goal of just graduating college, the other has the goal of going to grad school. The first might not place as much emphasis on maintaining A and B grades because of the differing goals.
What are affective responses and how might they influence behavior?
Affective responses include emotions, feelings, and physiological reactions. How someone feels is obviously going to affect their behavior.
How does locus of control relate to being a hero during the Nazi holocaust?
Being oriented more toward an internal sense of control relates to being a holocaust hero because such individuals believe they have control over their own life and that their success isn’t due to chance. Being more autonomous and believing your actions will have an effect is a crucial element to being able to help others under extraordinary conditions such as the holocaust.
