LPI T8 Flashcards
What was crucial to Msetfi and colleagues’ replication of Alloy and Abramson’s method?
Varied intertrial interval
What is at the centre of casual learning?
used a contingency judgment task, establishing the contingency between an action and an outcome, that is, the extent to which the action has a causal relationship to the outcome
What were their results for the long intertrial interval?
No action and no outcome, so the table above cell -> increased contingency because they overlap
What do Kripke, Putnam and Pinker argue about cases in which a definition is found to be incompatible with an item?
Even if it failed the definition, it would remain in a category or be defined by the term it referred to (cats from Mars, lions who are lions)
What is depressive realism?
Being depressed makes for realistic inferences as compared to when you’re not
What is coherent covariation? (p.318)
Consistent co-occurrence of a set of properties across different objects. The concept is distinct from simple correlation in that it generally refers to the co-occurrence of more than two properties. For example, having wings, having feathers, having hollow bones and being able to fly all consistently co-occur in birds.
What is learned helplessness?
a person has learnt to attribute their failures in situations to internal, stable and global (will be there in every aspect of their life and in all situations) factors
What are contingency judgment tasks?
a participant is trying to work out whether the presence of one stimulus or outcome is contingent on another stimulus or action → causal relationship?
Why is contingency judgment important?
People who can accurately judge when outcomes are contingent on their actions can control the occurrence of outcomes or avoid inappropriate behaviour
Optimism and pessimism are
Habits of thinking that reveal personal explanatory style
The core of optimism is
The formation of new beliefs or attitudes
What is explanatory style (Seligman, 1991)?
way that you explain your problems and setbacks to yourself and choose either a positive or negative way to solve them
Learned helplessness
state of affairs where you feel there is nothing you can do to affect what happens to you, and life is uncontrollable is at learned
What are the components to learn about optimism (Seligman, 1991; 1998)?
adversity (A): challenge
beliefs (B): forming beliefs about adversity
consequences (C): of those beliefs
Pessimism
- When is optimism not an ideal way of thinking
- Unrealistic plays into biases and heuristics
What is distraction there for, and what do they allow for?
- Distraction: putting aside the adversity and reevaluating the situation
- Avoid the emotional issues and rumina and disassociate these emotions from the issue
What are the four unrealistic strategies in false hope syndrome?
- Speed
- Ease
- Amount
- Reward
What are Seligman (1991) two specific tactics to combat pessimism (or what he terms learned helplessness)?
Distraction
Disputation
What is disputation there for and what do they allow for?
After distraction: challenging the emotions previously experienced about the adversity that caused feelings of overwhelmed
What is dispositional optimism (Scheier & Carver, 1985)?
as a person’s general predisposition to be optimistic in their mood or their temperament due to genes or personality and not due to learning
What are the three key differences between dispositional and learned optimism?
- DO expect either favourable/unfavourable vs. LO is used to explain future events being either positive or negative due to opt/pes
- DO and DP, therefore, determine whether a person pursues their goals expecting either favourable or poor results and if they keep pursuing them or abandon them
According to Scheier and Carver dispositional optimism affects
General mood or affective experience and are therefore stable traits that are displayed across periods of time
How is dispositional optimism measured?
self-report questionnaire called the Life Orientation Test (LOT)
(Originally, four positively and negatively worded items
Later extended to filler items and three each)
What are the two reactions we have to stress (Folkman, 1984; Lazarus et al., 1966)?
- primary or stress appraisals: to assess whether the stress is harmful or useful to us.
- secondary appraisals or coping strategies:assess whether the stress is harmful or useful to us.
What are the three components of primary appraisals?
- Threat – stressful situation = harm the individual.
- Loss – stressful situation => loss for the person; for example, loss in friendships, health, self-esteem.
- Challenge – refers to seeing the stressful situation as having the potential for growth or benefits for the individual. (potential benefit)
Which primary components trigger secondary appraisals?
Threat and loss
Which seven aspects influence the appraisal of threats or losses (Ferguson et al., 1999)?
- complexity
- the individual’s values
- commitments and goals
- novelty of the situation
- social support
- intensity of the situation
- perceived controllability of the potential threat or loss
What are engaged and disengaged coping mechanisms, aka, emotion-focused and problem-focused coping mechanisms?
- problem-focused coping strategies (sometimes called adaptive or direct coping) are logical coping strategies directed at resolving the stress changing some aspects of the environment and of the self
- emotion-focused coping involves coping attempts that are not directed at the stressful event and instead are directed at decreasing emotional distress caused by the stressful event (Rice, 2000).
What are emotional coping strategies?
wishful thinking, venting and expressing emotions, and seeking social support
What is Situational optimism?
expectations that an individual generates for a particular situation concerning whether good rather than bad things will happen
What’s the difference between dispositional and situational optimists?
- dispositional optimists: more generalised positive beliefs about the future – they expect good things to happen within every aspect of their lives
- situational optimists tend to have specific positive beliefs about certain events – they expect good things to happen within specific areas of their lives
How is situational optimism measured?
assessing expectations about outcomes that are linked to particular contexts (or situations). - items vary from context to context
How does Synder (1994) define hope?
an individual’s expectations that goals can be achieved.
What are the two components of hope in addition to the goal?
Agency and pathways
How are agency and pathways conceptualised in the context of hope?
- agency: an individual’s determination that goals can be achieved
individual’s beliefs that successful plans - pathways: strategies can be generated to reach goals
How are goals defined by Snyder?
mental targets to ourselves that we feel we can achieve that differ in length and importance without any certainty
How do low-hope and high-hope individuals differ?
low-hope individuals usually tend to have only one goal, high-hope about six accompanied by more clarity as they’re better at finding alternative pathways
What are the three qualifiers of a high-hope person?
- many, clearly defined goals
- ability to come up with routes to these goals and this usually involves generating several different routes to achieve the goal (pathways).
- ability to motivate themselves in the pursuit of those goals (agency).
The theory of hope is special because
It considers that people want to execute their goals
What are the three forms of false hope?
- Expectancies that are based on illusions instead of reality
- Inappropriate goals
- Poor strategies to reach the desired goals.
