Cognitive Theories Flashcards
What are the goals of the cognitive approach to the study of personality?
In contrast to other theoretical approaches, the cognitive approach highlights our capacity to overcome drives/instincts and environmental influences through reason
- Goal 1: describe how the mind processes information (i.e. cognitive processing)
- Goal 2: relate individual individual differences in cognitive processing to personality
What is the schematic view of cognitive processing?
What are the goals of the cognitive approach to the study of personality?
Maintains that cognitive processing relies on the use of schemas
What is a schema?
+ schema set
Schema: an organized knowledge structure about a concept, its attributed, and its social relationships to other concepts; a network of associations related to a concept
Components of a schema set:
- Prototypes
- Exemplars
- Fuzzy set
- Feeling quantities
Schemas have several functions:
facilitate recognition, direct attention, enhance encoding of information in memory, provide “default” information to “fill gaps”
How are schemas related to stereotypes?
Schemas act as “cognitive filters”
We have schemas for:
* Occupations
* The sexes
* Social groups
* Personality types
* Relationships (recall internal working models)
* Objects
* Ourselves; Especially those engaging in high self-reflection
Schemas may also take the form of…
- scripts: schematic representation s of temporally organized event sequence
- Like other schemas, scripts act as cognitive filters
How are schemas represented in memory?
Schemas are represented in memory as “association networks” of nodes (i.e. unit of information)
- Nodes are connected; activation of one node increases the likelihood that associated nodes will be activated
- The stronger the association between nodes, the greater the likelihood that activating one will activate the other
- Spreading (partial) activation accounts for priming effects
Cognitive theories: are there distinct modes of cognitive processing?
Research suggests the Dual-processing model of cognitive processing:
* Intuitive processor
* Conscious processor
Intuitive processor:
- Intuitive problem solving
- Automatic/reflexive behaviours
- Outside awareness
- Experiential system
- Quick and imprecise
- Affected by emotions
- Reacting
- Hot processing
- Reflects implicit/unconscious knowledge
- System 1
EX: reaction to angry expression
Conscious processor:
- Effortful reasoning
- Deliberate/controlled behaviours
- Inside awareness
- “rational system”
- Slow
- Uses rules, logic
- Thinking
- Cool processing
- Reflects explicit knowledge
- System 2
EX: reaction to mathematical equation
Can personality be described in terms of “cognitive styles”?
Research has identified a number of cognitive styles that may be used to describe personality:
- Field dependence vs. field independence
- Attributional style
- Self-complexity
- Need for cognition
- Cognitive-affective variables
Field dependence
Field dependence vs. field independence
- Field dependence: refers to a tendency to attend to the context that surrounds a focal object and relationships among objects in the environment; correlated with extraversion
- More likely to be field dependent growing up in dense spaces, urban environment
Field independence
Field dependence vs. field independence
- Field independence: refers to a tendency to separate a focal object from its context and attend to the attributes of the focal object; correlated with introversion
- Field-independent gaze
- More likely to be field independent rowing up in open spaces, non-urben environment
Attributional style
Can personality be described in terms of “cognitive styles”?
- Refers to attributions (i.e. explanations) for events
- Attributions for events vary on 3 dimensions: locus (internal vs external), stability (across time), globality (is the cause likely to manifest across life situations)
EX:
* Locus: exam was easy
* This was one in a million
* Globality: this doesn’t mean I’ll do well in my other courses
Self-complexity:
Can personality be described in terms of “cognitive styles”?
Refers to:
* The number of self-aspects that are used to represent the self in the self schema
* The degree of redundancy among these self-aspects
High vs. low self-complexity
Can personality be described in terms of “cognitive styles”?
- High self-complexity: many self-aspects that are not redundant
- Low self-complexity: few self-aspects that are redundant
Self-complexity and stress
Can personality be described in terms of “cognitive styles”?
Self-complexity buffers against the harmful effects of stress by preventing events that occur in one self-aspect from spilling over and adversely affecting other self-aspects
Need for cognition:
Can personality be described in terms of “cognitive styles”?
Refers to a tendency to engage in and enjoy thinking
Associated with:
* The use of planful, self-regulated study strategies and higher grades
* Less ambivalence about holding conflicting attitudes
* Greater curiosity
* Higher levels of intelligence
* Higher self-esteem
* Lower social anxiety
* Greater life satisfaction
* Higher conscientiousness and openness, lower neuroticism
Cognitive-affective variables:
Can personality be described in terms of “cognitive styles”?
Refer to “person” variables that interact with environmental variables (i.e. situations) to determine behaviour
Reciprocal determinism: BANDURA
Can personality be described in terms of “cognitive styles”?
Back and forth triangle/cycle:
* Behaviour
* Environmental variables
* Cognitive-affective variables
Theorists have identified five cognitive-affective variables that interact with environmental variables to determine behaviour
Can personality be described in terms of “cognitive styles”?
The CAPS system
- Encodings (schemas, e.g., relational schemas, self-schema)
- Expectancies and beliefs (e.g. stimulus-outcome, expectancies, response-outcome expectancies, self-efficacy, locus of control)
- “If..then…”
- Affects: (e.g. negative affect, positive affect)
- Goals and values (e.g. achievement)
- Competencies and self-regulation skills (e.g. self-monitoring, self-reinforcement, attentional skills, cognitive restructuring skills, ability to develop action plans, capacity for delay of gratification, affect-control skills
- These cognitive affective variables operate in a dynamic system
