Personality & The Environment: A Unidirectional Model

Question 1

The unidirectional model; behaviour is seen as?

Answer 1

A reflexive and automatic function of the environment [B=f(E)].

Question 2

What is the most popular unidirectional model?

Answer 2

Behaviourism

Question 3

According to Thorndike, learning is the result of associations forming between?

Answer 3

Stimuli and responses (S-R bonds)

Question 4

Unidirectional model (Thorndike): these associations or habits (or S-R bonds) become strengthened or weakened by?

Answer 4

The nature of the S-R pairing.

Question 5

What was the classic example of Thorndike’s S-R theory?

Answer 5

Cat learning to escape from a puzzle box to reach a dish of food just outside the door.

Question 6

What is essential in order for S-R bonds to become strengthened or weakened?

Answer 6

The consequences must be immediate.

Question 7

Thorndike’s Law of Effect refers to?

Answer 7

The strengthening or weakening of a connection between a stimulus and a response as a result of the consequences of the response.

Question 8

According to Thorndike, what is a satisfying state of affairs and what is an annoying state of affairs? Give an example?

Answer 8

Satisfying state of affairs (reward) - the cat pushes the lever and the door immediately opens to reveal the yummy smelling fish.
Annoying state of affairs (punishment) - the cat pushes the lever which immediately activates an electric shock.

Question 9

Cats in the puzzle box consistently demonstrated a gradual decrease in time to solution as a function of successive trials, leading Thorndike to conclude what?

Answer 9

Learning is always incremental rather than insightful.

Question 10

According to the unidirectional model, behaviour is directly strengthened and weakened by its immediate consequences. Learning is always automatic, mechanical and not …?

Answer 10

Mediated by thinking and reasoning.

Question 11

Social cognitive theory was born out of the social learning theory of Bandura. Bandura rejected the notion that all behaviour , no matter how complex, could be reduced to ..,,?

Answer 11

Simple, mechanical stimulus-response bonds.

Question 12

Social cognitive theory states that mediational processes occur between stimulus and response. Mediational processes include?

Answer 12

Memory, thinking, problem solving etc

Question 13

From the perspective of social cognitive theory, external consequences (extrinsic reward and punishment ) are only one kind of outcome that can regulate human behaviour. What 3 regulatory systems does Bandura propose?

Answer 13

• external consequences
• vicarious consequences
• self-produced consequences

Question 14

Bandura argued that external consequences determine behaviour largely through their …?

Answer 14

• Informative value (expectations)
• Motivational vale (incentives)

Question 15

Bandura’s external value: informative value - in the course of learning, people do not only perform responses but also ….. ?

Answer 15

Notice the effects they produce.

Question 16

Bandura’s external value: informative value - by observing the different outcomes of their actions, ….. ?

Answer 16

People develop hypotheses about which responses are most appropriate in which settings.

Question 17

Bandura’s external value: informative value - these hypothesised or predicted consequences ….. ?

Answer 17

Then serve as a guide for future action ( they enable foresight).

Question 18

Bandura’s external value: informative value - This capacity for reflective thought, foresight and intentional action is grounded in symbolic activity.
Through verbal, numerical, imaginal and other symbols people process and preserve in memory experiences in representational forms. Provide example

Answer 18

By manipulating symbols that convey relevant information, one can gain understanding if causal relationships, create new forms of knowledge, solve problems, and deduce consequences without actually performing any activities.

Question 19

External consequences: motivational value - once people discern the existence of conditional relationships between situation, actions and outcomes, they can convert predicted consequences into current motivators of behaviour. Give example.

Answer 19

• They fear and avoid things that have been associated with aversive experiences, but like and seek out those things that have had pleasant associations.

Question 20

External consequences: motivational value - therefore most actions are under the control of …. ?

Answer 20

Anticipatory incentives rather than being controlled by immediate consequences.

Question 21

Vicarious consequences: according to social cognitive theory, most learning phenomena occur on a vicarious basis by observing and modelling the behaviour of others. Response consequences experienced by others convey ….. ?

Answer 21

Information to observers about the types of actions that are likely to be rewarded and the types of actions that are likely to be punished.

Question 22

Vicarious consequences: the capacity to learn by observation enabled people to …. ?

Answer 22

Acquire large integrated patterns of behaviour without having to form them gradually by tedious trial and error.

• Imagine, how many times would we need to crash a car in order to incrementally strengthen the S-R bond so that we learn to stop at a red light!?!

Question 23

What are Self produced consequences?

Answer 23

Refers to a motivational process in which individuals set certain standards of behaviour for themselves and respond to their own actions in self-rewarding ways or self punishing ways.

Question 24

Social cognitive theory emphasises the importance of forethought, goal setting and personal standards in directing human behaviour. Our expectations of personality efficacy around these goals are central to Bandura’s theory. What is perceived self-efficacy?

Answer 24

Refers to the beliefs we hold about our ability to achieve our goals and overcome the obstacles that come our way in life.

Question 25

Our sense of ourselves as being capable and able to overcome obstacles is programmed through 4 sources of information according to Bandura. What are these 4 sources of information?

Answer 25

• Performance accomplishment
• Vicarious experience
• Verbal persuasion
• Emotional arousal

Question 26

Explain the self-efficacy program, performance accomplishments

Answer 26

Our efforts to overcome obstacles to solve problems are either successful or unsuccessful. Successes raise our mastery expectations, while repeated failures lower them. Especially if the failures occur early in the course of events.

Question 27

Explain the self-efficacy program, vicarious experience.

Answer 27

Watching someone else attempt to overcome obstacles can create efficacy expectations in the observer. If I watch someone else succeed in their efforts, then I might be able to persuade myself that I can do it too. Although it helps if the observed person is similar in ability.

Question 28

Explain the self-efficacy program, verbal persuasion,

Answer 28

Is the most freely available information source but as Bandura notes, it is also the least effective. “Jade, I have a feeling you are going to ace this test “. My performance accomplishments are more likely to have a great impact on my expectations.

Question 29

Explain the self-efficacy program, emotional arousal.

Answer 29

If I am walking out onto the dance stage and I feel my heart beating, my hands sweating, etc. these arousal messages might lower my feelings of self-efficacy. But emotional arousal can have the opposite effect. Feeling wired and tense might indicate to me that I am focused and in the zone.

Question 30

How does Bandura’s perceived self-efficacy have some parallels with Adler’s notion of the mastery motive?

Answer 30

The need to become a better adaptation.
The basic human motivation according to Adler is to strive from a felt minus situation to a felt plus situation.

Question 31

According to Bandura perceptions of self-efficacy are largely, generalised or domain specific? Explain.

Answer 31

Domain specific
- “Because competencies and evaluative standards vary for different activities, performance in dissimilar areas (eg, school, social and athletic) are likely to produce different self evaluations” Bandura.
- vary Across situations rather than manifest uniformly.

Question 32

Although Bandura generally argues self-efficacy perceptions are largely domain specific, some individuals maintain that the concept of trait self-efficacy has some utility for predicting behaviour. Give an example.

Answer 32

Schwarzer (1995) - General self-efficacy scale - the strength of an individual’s belief in his/her own ability to respond to novel or difficult situations and to deal with any arising obstacles and setbacks.

Question 33

What evidence is there in support of the idea that perceived self-efficacy contains a dispositional quantity?

Answer 33

Field of quantitative genetics:
- Dispositional self-efficacy
- 1394 adolescent twin pairs
- 75% of the variance in a measure of generalised self-efficacy due to genetic factors.
- non shared environment accounted for the remaining 25% of the variance

Question 34

If self-efficacy expectations do have some trait like features where might generalised self-efficacy sit within the FFM?

Answer 34

Meta-analysis by Judge et al (2007) showed generalised self-efficacy population effect size:
N (p = -.35)
E (p = .33)
C (p = .22)
O (p = .20)

Question 35

What domain specific measures of self-efficacy have been linked to the FFM?

Answer 35

Studies have found;
C & E positively predict career efficacy
N linked to inefficacious career beliefs
C, E & N explained much of the variance in self-efficacy for participating in self/managed work groups

Question 36

Today most social cognitive theorists account for personality in terms of the person’s distinctive …….?

Answer 36

Cognitive affective processing system ( CAPS)