Chapter 7: Cognitive and Social-Cognitive Aspects of Personality

Question 1

What is:

Gestalt psychology

7.1.1 Roots in Gestalt Psychology

Answer 1

The central tenets of this theory are:

1. Human brings seek meaning in their environments;
2. We organize the sensations we receive from the world around us into meaningful perceptions;
3. And complex stimuli are not reducible to the sum of their parts.

The German word gestalt means pattern or configuration. The view of this theory is that the configuration of a complex stimulus is its essence. Components of a stimulus or experience can’t be added up to re-create the original.

Question 2

What is:

field theory

7.1.2 Kurt Lewin’s Field Theory

Answer 2

The notion of “field” can be seen as either a field in the mathematical sense of vectors or as a playing field (a field of life). It focuses on the life space and the structural relationships between the person and the environment.

Question 3

What is:

life space

7.1.2 Kurt Lewin’s Field Theory

Answer 3

All the internal and external forces that act on an individual.

• An example of a life space is the family or a religion.
• The boundaries of the life space are clear for some people, meaning the emotions and issues of one space are kept independent of another, while others have more open boundaries, allowing different regions of their life to exert influence on one another.

Question 4

What is:

contemporaneous causation

7.1.2 Kurt Lewin’s Field Theory

Answer 4

The momentary condition of the individual. Lewin argued that how we behave is caused at the moment of its occurrence by all the influences that are present in the individual at that moment.

• Lewin’s orientation can be considered a cognitive position, although attention to the situation also makes it an interactionist position.
• The various approaches to personality can sometimes overlap more than one of the basic aspects.

Question 5

What are:

cognitive styles

7.1.3 Cognitive Style Variables

Answer 5

Each individual’s distinctive and enduring ways of dealing with their everyday tasks of perception, problem solving, and decision making.

• There is a long list of dimensions, including whether a person is generally: attentive or inattentive, an analyzer or synthesizer, effortless in intuition or deliberate in reasoning, and so on.
• All these differences explain why one person shows up to a garden party wearing a Hawaii sport shirt while another comes in all black cotton with a touch of white trim.

Question 6

What is:

field dependence

7.1.3 Cognitive Style Variables

Answer 6

• People who are high in this variable are very influenced in their problem solving by aspects of the context (field) in which the problem occurs that are salient but not directly relevant to the solution.
• People low on this variable are called field independent and aren’t as influenced by contextual factors. This style is more analytical and allows for more complex levels of restructuring in problem solving.
• Over the broad range of situations people normally confront, neither extreme is universally preferable.

Question 7

What is:

cognitive complexity

7.1.3 Cognitive Style Variables

Answer 7

The extent to which a person comprehends, utilizes, and is comfortable with a greater number of distinctions or separate elements among which an entity or event is analyzed, and the extent to which the person can integrate these elements by drawing connections or relationships among them.

• People low in this variable see the world in simple terms, prefering unambiguous problems and straightforward solutions.
• People tend to move toward higher levels of this variable as they get older and accumulate more life experiences.

Question 8

What is:

learning style

7.1.3 Cognitive Style Variables

Answer 8

The characteristic way in which an individual approaches a task or skill to be learned.

• People vary in their stable tendencies towards preferred approaches to a learning task.
• e.g. A student might approach his or her first course in an unfamiliar field with a holistic style, trying to build his or her own understanding of the topic and trying to see relationships between the new topic and existing knowledge. Another student might have an analytic approach, preferring to take in the information presented by the course and building their understanding as a separate module isolated from other knowledge.

Question 9

What are:

schemas

7.2.1. Schema Theory

Answer 9

According to Jean Piaget, children progress through a series of cognitive stages as they mature. New cognitive structures, called schemas, build on the schemas acquired earlier. The schema that’s activated in a given situation determines a person’s expectations, inferences, and actions in that situation. Sometimes a schema for a familiar event is called a cognitive script because it specifies the roles and actions of the participants in that setting.

• e.g. On a first date at a restaurant, the participants have a schema for eating at a restaurant. They know what the waiter will probably say and how to respond. Additionally, they expect the other person to behave in a certain way. If one of them uses a “business associate script,” they probably won’t leave a great impression.

Question 10

What is:

categorization

7.2.2 Categorization

Answer 10

The organization of our experiences by assigning the events, objects, and people we encounter into categories.

• It’s impossible for you to not categorize. What you see in front of you are doors, pens, computers, you don’t see them simply as components of your visual field.
• It is automatic and unconscious. It’s best demonstrated by the detection of emotions. Even without having to consciously perceive a particular muscle twitch or facial movement, we can detect the emotional stimuli.

Question 11

How does categorization contribute to stereotypes?

7.2.2 Categorization

Answer 11

• Category formation can guide our interpretations and expectations. Once a category exists for us, when we encounter something or someone who mathces a few features of that category, we “fill in the blanks” with the rest of the information that applies to the category.
• confirmation bias: People are more likely to notice information that supports their expectations than if it contradicts them.
• Our useful expectations and interpretations can often lead us to premature judgments (prejudice).

Question 12

What is:

social cognition

7.2.2 Categorization

Answer 12

The categorization and interpretation processes involved when a person interacts with another.

• The fact that social-cognitive processes change with changes in the situation is referred to as situated social cognition.

Question 13

How do we perceive persons, objects, and events in ways that are meaningful to us?

7.2.3 Control of Attention

Answer 13

The unconscious guiding of our attention to what we want to concentrate on.

• Tons of stimuli are constantly present, but we aren’t always paying attention to all of them. We’d go crazy if we did.
• We are constantly doing some conscious monitoring, though. For example, if there were even a faint smell of smoke you’d probably notice.
• The difference in people’s attention to things is a stable source of individual difference.

Question 14

Why is an individual’s attentional process relevant to their personality?

7.2.4 Individual Differences in Attention: ADHD

Answer 14

How an individual’s attentional processes operate is directly related to how they interact with social environments, and thus their personality. It’s also relevant because it influences how they’re perceived by others.

Question 15

How are the hyperactivity and impulsivity symptoms associated with ADHD related to the BIS?

7.2.4 Individual Differences in Attention: ADHD

Answer 15

The BIS is the neurological system involved in inhibiting learned responses to new stimuli. The inability to stop (or regulate) immediate reactions to events in the environment results in the disruptive behaviours (i.e. hyperactivity and impulsivity) and the poor academic performances frequently observed in these children.

Question 16

What is:

rejection sensitivity

7.2.5 Cognitive Influences on Interpersonal Relationships

Answer 16

This personality variable captures the extent to which an individual is overly sensitive to cues that they’re being rejected by another. If a child experiences repeated rejection by a significant person, they develop anxious expectations of rejection that are carried into other relationships. This anxiety tends to lead to a greater likelihood of actual rejection.

Question 17

What is the main purpose of Kelley’s personal construct theory?

7.3 Humans as Scientists: George Kelly’s Personal Construct Theory

Answer 17

That each of us tries to understand the world and that we do so in different ways. It’s named as such because its focus is on people’s active endeavours to understand the world and construct their own versions of reality.

Question 18

What is the key feature of Kelley’s theory that differentiates it from other approaches to personality?

7.3.1 Individuals as Amateur Personality Theorists

Answer 18

That we each have our own system of constructs that we use to understand and predict behaviour (both our own and others’). Kelley argues that each person is like a personality theorist, with personal systems of explanations for behaviours.

Question 19

What is the:

Role Construct Repertory Test

7.3.2 The Role Construct Repertory Test

Answer 19

An assessment instrument designed to evoke one’s personal construct system. The goal is to allow the individual’s own understanding of personality to emerge through the process of making comparisons.

• The individual is asked to name 20-30 people who fit specific roles in their life. These people are then put into triads and the individual is asked to identify how one of them differs from the other two. For example, if two of the people are described as calm while one is described as nervous, the construct of nervous-calm is one the individual uses to think about people.
• This is done until the individual comes up with about a dozen constructs which are important to how that individual understands and interprets behaviour. Our own unique sets of key dimensions is what makes us unique as individuals.

Question 20

What is:

social intelligence

7.4 Social Intelligence

Answer 20

An individual’s mastery of the particular cluster of knowledge and skills that are relevant to interpersonal situations.

• People vary in their abilities to understand and influence other people.
• This concept tries to capture the ways in which individuals differ from one another in their interpersonal skills.

Question 21

What is:

emotional intelligence

7.4 Social Intelligence

Answer 21

An individual’s emotional ability to deal with other people.

• e.g. Some people are more empathic while others are clueless.

Question 22

What are Goleman’s five components of emotional intelligence?

7.4 Social Intelligence

Answer 22

1. Being self-aware,
2. Controlling anger and anxieties,
3. Being persistent and optimistic in the face of setbacks,
4. Being empathic,
5. And interacting smoothly with others.

Question 23

What is Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences?

7.4 Social Intelligence

Answer 23

Ths theory claims that all human beings have at least seven different intelligences, or ways of knowing about the world, and that people differ from one another in their relative strengths in each domain.

• These seven intelligences are: knowing the world through language, logical-mathematical analysis, spatial representation, musical thinking, bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, understanding of the self, and understanding of others.
• Gardner rejects traditional IQ measures of intelligence because it’s too narrow and only reflects knowing in one or two spheres.
• This approach focusses on the variety of ways in which an individual can be intelligent, whereas social intelligence is focussed on the social-interpersonal domain. But both social/emotional intelligence researchers argue that individual differences in people’s abilities in the social-interpersonal domain can be viewed as a sort of intelligence.

Question 24

What is the role of emotion knowledge in social-emotional intelligence?

7.4 Social Intelligence

Answer 24

Emotional knowledge is the ability to recognize and interpret emotions in the self and others. It’s necessary for communicating emotion and for building and maintaining interpersonal relationships.

Question 25

Define:

explanatory style

7.5 Explanatory Style as a Personality Variable

Answer 25

A set of cognitive personality variables that capture a person’s habitual means of interpreting events in their life.

Question 26

Define:

defensive pessimism

7.5.1 Optimism and Pessimism

Answer 26

Situations in which a person reduces anxiety and actually improves performance in a risky situation by anticipating a poorer outcome.

Question 27

What is Bandura’s idea of self-efficacy?

7.5.1 Optimism and Pessimism

Answer 27

An individual’s belief that they can successfully perform a particular action. These beliefs are domain-specific. For example, you may have low self-efficacy in mathemathics but high self-efficacy in writing. These beliefs are the most important motivators of an individual’s achievement. People are much more likely to engage in activities that they believe they can successfully accomplish.

Question 28

What are the four kinds of experiences that self-efficacy decisions are based on?

7.5.1 Optimism and Pessimism

Answer 28

1. Previous successful experiences with the task demonstrate the ability to perform the task competently.
2. Seeing others successfully perform certain tasks increases the perception that they’re do-able.
3. The verbal persuasion of others encourages us by telling us that we’re capable of succeeding at a particular activity.
4. Our levels of physiological arousal give

Question 29

What are Bernard Weiner’s three properties of perceived causality for events in one’s life?

7.5.1 Optimism and Pessimism

Answer 29

1. Situations are perceived as either internally or externally caused;
2. Events are seen as the result of either controllable or uncontrollable factors;
3. The causes of occurrences are perceived as being either stable or changing.

Weiner hypothesizes that one’s usual style of explaining causes of success and failure is responsible for the expectancy of success and therefore achievement-oriented behaviours. High achievers tend to perceive the causes of their success as internal, controllable, and stable.

Question 30

What is Carol Dweck’s approach to understanding the relation between cognitions about task performance and success?

7.5.1 Optimism and Pessimism

Answer 30

• Dweck observed two behaviour patterns in achievement situations: a maladaptive “helpless” response or an adaptive “mastery-oriented” response. Helpless behaviour involves avoidance and poor performance in the face of challenges or obstacles.
• Children who show mastery behaviours do well when activities are demanding and continue to strive and succeed when they encounter difficulties.
• These differences were found even among children of similar abilities.
• Helpless children tend to view even their achievement as deficient in some manner and their performance tends to sink into a slow decline.
• Mastery-oriented children see challenges as interesting and to be surmounted. They increase their effort and concentration, and exhibit optimistic, positive emotions.

Question 31

What is:

learned helplessness

7.5.2 Learned Helplessness and Learned Optimism

Answer 31

A situation in which repeated exposure to unavoidable punishment leads an organism to accept later punishment even when it’s avoidable.

Question 32

What is:

cognitive intervention

7.5.2 Learned Helplessness and Learned Optimism

Answer 32

Teaching people to change their thought processes to try and affect subsequent behaviour.

• This aspect of personality is seen here as a kind of cognitive skill.

Question 33

What is:

learned optimism

7.5.2 Learned Helplessness and Learned Optimism

Answer 33

Developing methods of escaping one’s pessimistic style by training to think differently about the self and situations that arise in one’s life, and to develop healthier responses that characterize people who have an optimistic style.

Question 34

What is social-cognitive theory and how do outcome expectancy and reinforcement value play a role?

7.6 Julian Rotter’s Locus of Control Approach

Answer 34

A theory that bridges traditional social learning theories and more modern theories. According to Julian Rotter, our behaviour depends both on how strongly we expect that our performance will have a positive result (outcome expectancy) and how much we value the expected reinforcement (reinforcement value). Rotter’s theory focuses on why an individual performs a behaviour and which behaviour they perform in a specific situation.

Question 35

What is:

behaviour potential

7.6.1 Generalized Versus Specific Expectancies

Answer 35

The likelihood that a particular behaviour will occur in a specific situation.

• e.g. Laughing loudly may have a high behaviour potential in some situations (during a hilarious movie) and low behaviour potential in other situations (during a final exam).

Question 36

What are specific expectancies and generalized expectancies?

7.6.1 Generalized Versus Specific Expectancies

Answer 36

Specific expectancies predict the likelihood of a particular reward following a behaviour in a particular situation while generalized expectancies are related to a group of situations.

• e.g. A person may have the generalized expectation of enjoying parties, but the specific expectancy of not enjoying their father’s office holiday party.

Question 37

When do generalized expectancies influence our behaviour more than specific expectancies, and vice versa?

7.6.1 Generalized Versus Specific Expectancies

Answer 37

Rotter says that we tend to weigh generalized expectancies more heavily in new situations and use specific expectancies when the situation becomes more familiar (and we better know what to expect).

Question 38

What are:

secondary reinforcers

7.6.2 The Role of Reinforcements and the Psychological Situation

Answer 38

The reinforcer that has the highest value to an individual is the reinforcement that we can expect will lead to other things we value, and thus is more likely to prompt an individual to perform that behaviour. This occurs because individuals will prefer some reinforcements more than others because they satisfy different psychological needs.

Question 39

What are the six psychological needs that Rotter describes as developing from biological needs?

7.6.2 The Role of Reinforcements and the Psychological Situation

Answer 39

1. Recognitive-status, the need to achieve, be seen as competent, have a positive social standing;
2. Dominance, the need to control others, have power and influence;
3. Independence, the need to make decisions for oneself;
4. Protection-dependency, the need to have others give one security and help one achieve goals;
5. Love and affection, the need to be liked and cared for by others;
6. And physical comfort, the need to avoid pain, seek pleasure, and enjoy security and a sense of well-being.

Question 40

What is the:

psychological situation

7.6.2 The Role of Reinforcements and the Psychological Situation

Answer 40

Rotter use this term to refer to the hundle of behaviour potential, outcome expectancy, and reinforcement potential.

• He contends that this is more important than the objective situation, which behaviourists tend to emphasize.
• The psychological situation represents the individuals unique combination of potential behaviours and their value to this person. In this situation, a person’s expectations and values interact with the situational constraints to exert a powerful influence on behaviour.

Question 41

What is the best-known feature of Rotter’s theory?

7.6.3 Locus of Control

Answer 41

• The locus of control is the concept of external versus internal control of reinforcement.
• An internal locus of control is the generalized expectancy that the individual’s own actions lead to desired outcomes.
• An external locus of control is the belief that things outside of the individual, such as chance or powerful others, determine whether desired outcomes occur.
• Originally, Rotter saw LOC as having only these two dimensions, but in later studies found that it actually had three independent dimensions: internality, luck or chance, and powerful others.

Question 42

What is the focus of Albert Bandura’s work?

7.7 Albert Bandura’s Social-Cognitive Learning Theory

Answer 42

The process of learning by watching other people; his major work addresses the natural of observational learning as well as the manner in which the inner person and the demands of a situation combine to determine a person’s actions.

Question 43

What is the:

self-system

7.7.1 The Self-System

Answer 43

The set of cognitive processes by which a person perceives, evaluates, and regulates his or her own behaviour so that it’s appropriate to the environment and effective in achieving the individual’s goals.

• This view emphasizes the individual’s ability to think about and ancitipate the effects of the environment during an event instead of just responding to the environment.
• It gives rise to the central role of human agency, the capacity of a person to exercise control over their actions and also internal thought processes and motivations.
• Knowing that a particular behaviour in a particular situation was reinforced in the past allows the individual to anticipate that they’ll be reinforced for that behaviour in similar situations in the future. This approach thus draws on both learning and cognitive approahces to personality.

Question 44

What is:

observational or vicarious learning

7.7.2 Observational Learning

Answer 44

The process by which an individual learns without performing the behaviour themselves and without being directly rewarded or punished for the behaviour. It is also referred to as modeling, meaning that a person forms themselves in the image of another.

• In Bandura’s view, the individual consciously decides whether or not to perform a behaviour that was learned by observation.
• There’s a clear distinction between the acquisition of a behaviour and the performance of it.

Question 45

How did Bandura demonstrate the relationship with observational learning and aggressive behaviour through his clown experiment?

7.7.2 Observational Learning

Answer 45

In these studies, children watched a film that showed an adult behaving aggressively towards a plastic clown. These children were more likely to behave aggressively when they were later allowed to play with the clown themselves. When children saw adults rewarded for their aggressive behaviour, they were even more likely to engage in it than children in the control condition. Children who saw adults punished for the aggressive behaviour were less likely to behave the same. Children who saw unrewarded aggression were more likely to be aggressive than children who saw unawarded neutral behaviour.

Question 46

Whose behaviour is modeled?

7.7.2 Observational Learning

Answer 46

• Characteristics of the model that can influence whether or not people learn from their behaviour include: age, gender, similarity to the observer, status, competence, and power.
• Simple behaviour is also more likely to be modeled than complex behaviour.
• Some categories can be more salient, resulting in these behaviours being observed and reproduced more often.
• A behaviour that’s admired or desired is more likely to be modeled.
• People with low self-esteem, are more dependent, and who have had their imitative behaviour reinforced more in the past are more likely to imitate.

Question 47

When are people more likely to model behaviour?

7.7.2 Observational Learning

Answer 47

• If they’re able to correctly perceive, encode, and reproduce the behaviour. This ability usually improves with age.
• If a behaviour is very complex and learning would take a lot of time to learn by just reinforcement.
• If the consequences of not learning the behaviour before attempting it could be dangerous (e.g. tightrope walking).

Question 48

How does observational learning compare with reinforcement-oriented learning theory.

7.7.2 Observational Learning

Answer 48

• Bandura’s theories account for the learning of novel behaviours in the absence of any observable reinforcement, a phenomenon a behaviourist can’t easily explain.
• It also explains how a person learns to inhibit socially unacceptable behaviours without first having to produce them.
• It offers reasons why an individual will stop inhibiting a normally suppressed behaviour and start producing an unacceptable behaviour, as a result of exposure to a model of that behaviour. This is related to mob behaviours (e.g. group violence) which individuals wouldn’t generally do alone.
• Moral behaviour, delay of gratification, self-critical behaviour, and achievement orientation can also be explained using observationalist theory, where behaviourist theory falls short.

Question 49

What are the processes underlying Bandura’s observational learning?

7.7.2 Observational Learning

Answer 49

• Attention, which is influenced by the characteristics of the model of the situation.
• Retention, which is influenced by the cognitive ability of the observer and their capacity to encode the behaviour.
• Motor reproduction, which is influenced by characteristics of the observer (e.g. ability to turn the mental representation into a physical action and the ability to mentally rehearse the behaviour).
• Motivation, which influences the actual performance of the behaviour that’s been observed.

Question 50

What is:

self-regulation

7.7.2 Observational Learning

Answer 50

The individual’s internal processes of goals, planning, and self-reinforcement, as a result of the self-regulation of behaviour. Self-punishment can range from feelings of self-disgust or witholding a desired object. This concept recognizes the operation of internal standards of behaviour against which we measure our own success or failure.

Question 51

What is:

self-efficacy

7.7.3 Self-Efficacy

Answer 51

• A belief or expectation about how competently one will be able to enact a behaviour in a particular situation.
• It determines whether we try to act at all, how long we persist in the face of difficulty or failure, and how success or failure at a task affects our future behaviour.
• This concept differs from the LOC in that it’s a belief about our own ability to successfully perform a certain behaviour, whereas LOC is a belief about the likelihood that performing a certain behaviour affects the ultimate outcome.

Question 52

What are the four types of information that influence our self-efficacy beliefs?

7.7.3 Self-Efficacy

Answer 52

1. Our experiences trying to perform the target (or similar) behaviour, i.e. past successes and failures;
2. Watching others perform that behaviour (vicarious experience);
3. Verbal persuasion, e.g. people talking to us, encouraging or discouraging performance;
4. And how we feel about the behaviour (emotional reactions).

These are listed in order of importance in influencing our behaviour. We use these four sources to determine whether we think we can competently perform a behaviour. This is an important personality characteristic because it’s an essential cognitive determinant of our actions.