Chapter Twelve Flashcards
locus of control
describes a person’s perception of responsibility for life events (whether people tend to locate that responsibility internally or externally, like fate or chance
rotter’s expectancy model
- the idea that people fail to see the link between their behaviour and reinforcement
- the expectancy of reinforcement refers to characteristics that distinguish specific individuals (ie. a person expecting that acting in an assertive manner will get her what she wants to get a raise. another person may have the opposite expectation in that acting like that will be counter productive. they have differences in their expectations of whether a certain behaviour will bring reinforcement.
external locus of control
a generalized expectancy that events are outside of one’s control
internal locus of control
a generalized expectancy that reinforcing events are under one’s control and that they are responsible for the major outcomes in life
specific expectancies
emphasis is on locus of control in discrete areas of life (ie. health and whether it depends on people’s actions; expectations about academic extent to which children expect their classroom behaviour to influence praise/good grades from teachers)
beginning of research in learned helplessness
- psychologists studying avoidance learning in dogs and subjected them to shocks
- first dogs would try to escape harnesses but eventually accepted the shocks, knowing they could not escape
reformulation of learned helplessness in explanatory style
- focuses on the cognitions/thoughts a person has that may lead to feelings of helplessness, the explanations that people give for events in their lives, particularly the unpleasant events
causal attribution
refers to a person’s explanation of the cause of an event
explanatory style
refers to the tendencies some people have to frequently use certain explanations for the causes of events
three types of explanations for events
- events can be internal or external (ie. poor grade due to my lack of skill or the professor being a tough grader)
- whether the cause of the event is stable or unstable (ie. dog eating homework as unstable or my writing skills being stable cause)
- whether the cause is global or specific (ie. i’m bad at writing papers or i am just unable to write period)
pessimistic explanatory style
puts a person at risk for feelings of helplessness, emphasizing internal, stable, and global causes for bad events
optimistic explanatory style
emphasizes external, temporary and specific causes of events
self-efficacy
refers to the belief that one can execute a specific course of action to achieve a goal (ie. a child who believes she can hit most balls pitched to her has high self-efficacy)
entity theory of intelligence
students who view their intelligence as unchangeable and fixed internal characteristic
incremental theory of intelligence
students who believe that their intelligence can be increased through effort and persistence
