W.2 Individual differences: cognitive ability, personality, and emotional intelligence Flashcards
Freud’s psychoanalytic theory
Inner psyche comprised of 3 parts:
- The Id → primal desires for pleasure, basic nature, (wild child, eg infant, unconscious impulsive part)
Doesn’t reflect on what it needs just wants - Ego→ enables us to reason and practice self-control
- Superego → quest for perfection, influenced by philosophical and spiritual ideals, culturally influenced, tells us what we should & shouldn’t do, punished if we do something bad
If the Id, Ego and Superego aren’t in harmony what results?
If these aren’t in harmony there’s tension
Why is Freud’s psychoanalytic approach criticised?
Criticised as being unscientific, no support in scientific research
Behaviourism
BF Skinner → reinforcement theory
BF Skinner’s Behaviourism & reinforcement theory: key determinants of behaviour are
Stimulus- external factor tirggering behavioural response
Response- action/behaviour caused by the stimulus
Reward- (positive reinforcement) something of value a person receives after performing a desired response (encourages repetition of desired response)
Could be a punishment (negative reinforcement)
criticisms of behaviourism
Not this simple, ppl behave in different, complex ways, lots of possible responses
Exert more effort, alter one’s goals
Fails to explain range of human behaviours that are possible, but also mental events (thoughts, feelings & goals which influence our behaviour)
Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory Holds that a person’s behaviour is influenced by:
his or her environment and their personal characteristics, including their personality, values, goals, etc.
Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory is what type of model?
Triadic
- personal factors, (environment & behaviours)
- Environmental factors
- Behavioural factors
What is the model that most people subscribe to and why?
as has greater explanation and recognition of factors
Behaviourism and B. F. Skinner’s reinforcement theory
(operant conditioning) SRR model of reinforcement
- Stimulus (triggers a behavioural response)
- Response
3a) reward (+Ve reinforcement to promote repetition of desired response)
3b) punishment (-ve reinforcement to distinguish undesirable response)
Cognitive Ability
capacity to learn, reason, problem solve, plan, think abstractly, and comprehend complex ideas (Arvey et al., 1995)
What’s the hierarchical model of cognitive ability
- General cognitive ability
2. Broader cognitive abilities (numerical, verbal reasoning, abstract reasoning, etc)
Frank schmidt & john hunter looked at individual differences & job performance and found cognitive ability was
the single strongest predictor of performance
Individual differences in personality
Personality refers to a person’s unique and relatively stable
set of characteristics or patterns of behaviour, thoughts, and
emotions (Funder, 2012).
There are three basic beliefs underpinning personality theories:
- Personality traits, characteristics, and dispositions are relatively stable and enduring.
- They are major determinants of one’s behaviour.
- They are likely to influence behaviours across a wide variety of situations.
Are situational or personal factors more influential?
Depends on the strength of personal traits or situation
There’s a continuum (extrovert - introvert which determines the strength of the personality trait in response to a situation)
In strong situations, people act similarly (like a funeral)
Weak situations personality is more apparent, since there are less social constraints
behaviour is a product of what?
of person & situation acting together
trait based models of personality
- Conscientiousness- degree to which someone is well organised & uses disciplined ways to achieve goals, think before acting
- Emotional stability- can easily handle stressful situations, slow to anger, rarely becomes discouraged
- Extraversion- degree to which someone enjoys being around others
- Agreeableness- degree to which individual is easy going & tolerant, willing to help others, dislikes conflict, sensitive to feelings of others
- Openness to experience- extent to which they think creatively, appreciation of art and beauty, broad intellectual curiosity
how is personality linked to career success?
Influencing jobs selected
Job performance
Interactions at work
emotional intelligence
ability to monitor one’s own and others’ emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use the information to guide one’s thinking and actions
three main assumptions underpinning the concept of EI:
Emotions play an important role in life and work.
People vary in their ability to perceive, understand, use, and manage emotions.
These differences affect individual adaptation in a range of contexts, including the workplace
characteristics of EI
Strong self awareness,
Awareness of own emotions
Accurately detect emotions in others
Uses this to manage interactions with others
models of EI
Mixed models → ei seen as broad construct including personality traits & ability
Ability based model→ sees EI as ability in its own right, focuses on the notion that we vary in aptitude to processing affective or emotion based info
4 main EI abilities (each ability builds on the previous one)
- Self-awareness (understand emotions, strengths & weaknesses, what, why makes you feel)
- Self-management → Ability to generate use and feel emotions you need
- Social awareness
- Relationship Management
