personality - social cognitive perspective

Question 1

key researches for social cognitive perspective

Answer 1

Bandura-1925
kelly 1905-1967
mischel-1930-2018
meschel was kellys student

Question 2

origins of social cognitive perspective
behaviourism

Answer 2

-focuses on the idea that all behaviours are learned through interaction with the environment
behaviourism(skinner, watson) says that you can reward people for certain behaviour and they keep doing it, punish people and they stop doing it,
-skinner would say what we call personality is a pattern of learnt responses (so we might say someone studies hard bc they are conscientious however skinner would say you learnt that studying hard payed off)

Question 3

how was Watsons famous quote show he took behaviourism to the extreme level

Answer 3

he essentially believed that he could overrule any innate abilities, just through learning, reward and punishment turn anyone into anything

Question 4

Bandura
-his thoughts on behaviourism
-reciprocal determinism
-what beliefs do humans develop

Answer 4

-thought behaviourism was too extreme (some parts are helpful but that’s not all there is to it)
-reciprocal determinism- persons behaviour is influences and is influenced by personal factors and the social environment (environment influences you and you influence your environment)
-humans develop beliefs about self efficacy and outcome expectations

Question 5

banduras reciprocal determinism explained (the cycle)

Answer 5

-exposed to certain life experiences
-from this we learn certain actions will have consequences
-the reward or punishment consequences from these actions cause us to develop interna system of values and morals ,
-this will guid our actions even in absence of reward and punishment
-we take these internalised values and it makes our behaviour more consistent
-as this guides our actions it makes us seek out different life experiences or seek out certain situations(cycle closes)

Question 6

Banduras definition of personality

Answer 6

-consistency in behaviour caused by being exposed to experiences that give us internal values

Question 7

Kelly
-cognitive view
-what does he argue

Answer 7

-a situation solely does not blindly lead you to act a certain way,
-in fact people process and interpret the situation a certain way and the result is how they act
-we do this based on our experiences ,we develop personal constructs of a situation
-idea that our constructs are essential in leading us to act a certain way-you can really undesrtand someone when you see into their theories and experiences and see why they act a certain way.

Question 8

what does Kelly’s role construct reprtory test (RCRT) do
-how does it work

Answer 8

-help people discover the fundamental constructs they use for perceiving (interpreting) others and their world
-an idiographic tool-used to understand individuals usually in a clinical setting
-list important people in your life in groups of 3
-find 2 in the group with a similarity that the 3rd person doesnt have
-do this until you cant think of more
-those traits you chose are the way you view the world

Question 9

what are the uses of RCRT

Answer 9

-counselling (idiographic use) - psychotherapy, understanding marital problems, maintaining friendships, adjusting to life changes
- nomothetical use - Bannister and Fransella’s (1967) grid test of thought disorder eg whether or not people are like to have schizophrenia
-misdiagnosis was however common, therefore this tool was best used in an idiographic way

Question 10

misschel
what did he look at

Answer 10

-personality paradox - peoples behaviour isn’t very similar situation to situation.
-situation to situation corelation is 0.30 max
-

Question 11

mischel
weak and strong situations

Answer 11

-in a weak situation , the power of the situation to influence your behaviour is minor, so you behave more freely etc at a park
-your own personality can be expressed

in a strong situation , the power of the situation to influence your behaviour is much stronger eg giving a speech to a massive group
-less likely to express
-you see effect od personality a little bit come through differently in diff ways

Question 12

mischel
-how do people develop different personalities

Answer 12

-as they go through experiences people differ in terms of
-competencies and skills (including self regulation)
-beliefs and expectancies
-goals
-evaluative standards
-people develop these overtime as they interact socially

Question 13

mischel
-competencies and skills (including self control)
-SC perspective compared to trait perspective

Answer 13

-believed extroverted and introverted behavior is learned
-introversion - mischel,perspective, and the SC would say this person lacks social skills, however, the trait perspective would say this person has the introversion trait
-so SC perspective is learning-based and trait perspective is biological based

Question 14

competencies are _____ dependent

Answer 14

context
-in different contexts different skills are needed
-eg a person may act more introverted in one context but act extroverted

Question 15

competencies and skills
-self control
-whatdoes mischel argue abpout kids and self control

Answer 15

-mischel argues you can teach kids to have more self control - and delay gratification
-you can help them re interpret the situation
ability to delay gratification depends on
-how children interpret the situation
-qualities of the children themselves

Question 16

there is a _______- between academic and social competence in adolescence and later in life

Answer 16

correlation

Question 17

mischel
beliefs and expectations

Answer 17

-people differ in how they categorise situations
-mischel argued this is the key to personality , they have diff personalities because they differ in how the categorise different situations and how they categorise the situation influences their behaviour
work vs play
thinking vs doing
with others vs alone

Question 18

mischel
goals

Answer 18

-a mental representation of aims in the future- this influences your current actions
-proximal goals influence your behaviour more than distant goals
-through proximal goals you can see expression of someone’s personality

Question 19

mischel
evaluative standards

Answer 19

-similar to bandura
-overtime we learn what our standards are, which after a while become internal
eg whatever your standard you want to achieve is will have a certain outcome eg standard to get to work at 9am, if you get to work you evaluate that you achieved it, you self evaluative reaction is pride, however if you don’t your reaction is anger.
-these evaluative standards influence your behaviour , through our behaviour our personality is expressed

Question 20

summary of the social cognitive perspective

Answer 20

-grew out of behaviourism and cognitivism ,behaviourism as it assumes that environment influences your behaviour, and cognitivism as it assumes that people interpret situations differently and so react differently to them
people
-assumes that people are active agents, using conscious reasoning to guide our behaviour,
-different people behave differently according to the situation
-so therefore shows people can change overtime (so not just biology influences us)
a science of personality that
-combines nomothetic and idiographic research methods
-aims to integrate all areas of psychology
-has practical value too (can apply it to education, how people learn and develop, can apply to clinical settings as its about behaviour change. apply it to rehabilitation programmes (eg people can learn to not react aggressively

Question 21

differences between the social cognitive perspective and the trait perspective

Answer 21

-trait perspective assumes that you can measure someone’s personality by calculating an average,(score on trait questionnaire is average tendency to behave a particular way) however the SC perspective says that averaging behaviour trends is meaningless , as the variations per situation are what personality is
-trait perspective says that traits cause behaviour (biological basis, genetics) but the SC perspective strongly disagrees. it says traits can only describe. Explanation requires looking at cognitive and emotional systems and social contexts
-the trait perspective assumes that traits are stable and you take them with you through life, whereas the social cognitive perspective emphasises that people change and people adapt to circumstances

Question 22

evaluation of social cognitive perspective
-strengths

Answer 22

-theoretical concepts are defined in such a way that you cant test and potentially falsify
-uses a wide variety of research methods ( convergent validity)
-theorists as self critical (as opposed to eysenck)
-SC view of the person as “having a potential to change” makes it relevant to societal issues

Question 23

weaknesses

Answer 23

-its not a unified theory-no assumptions that tie together all of elements-makes it hard to falsify the theory as a whole
-neglects biological forces of maturation (eg puberty,menopause) and tempermant (not fully comprehensive)
-