Social-Cognitive Approach - Personality

Social-Cognitive Approach - Personality

1. origins in behavioural learning traditions, began in the 1950s. human thought processes or cognitive processes are center-point.

   • belief that psychoanalysts overemphasise unconscious thought. social-cognitive say people can grow and develop across the course of life.
     • behavioural theorists say we are controlled by environmental rewards, punishments, social-cognitive says we are partly "in control"
       • we are beings who use language to reason. people have unique cognitive capabilities.
   • social-cognitive has employed nomothetic (study of groups of individuals) and idiographic (study of the individual)

2. BEHAVIOURISM

   • PAVLOV - classical conditioning US - CR.
   • JOHN WATSON - 1910s, operant conditioning, reinforcement behaviour, infants are a blank slate
     • EXTINCTION - no attention, no longer reinforced.
     • POSITIVE REINFORCER - after response strengthens behaviour
     • NEGATIVE REINFORCER - removal of stimulus after response, strengths response, e.g. criticism stops, response hightened
     • POSITIVE PUNISHMENT - because of its presence, response weakens, e.g. being hit
     • NEGATIVE PUNISHMENT - removal of stimulus weakens response, e.g. removing TV time.
   • JOSEPH WOLPE - systematic desensitization - if anxiety is learned it can be unlearned, counter-conditioning. heirarchies of anxiety e.g. picture
   • SELIGMAN - learned helplessness, conditioned to shocks, even when could escape, didnt try. model for HUMAN DEPRESSION

3. COMPETENCIES AND SKILLS - cognitive competencies & skills in solving problems. context specificity - competencies relevant to some situations not all

4. EXPECTANCIES - what things should be like. EVALUATIVE STANDARDS - mental criteria for evaluating worth of events. GOALS - what one wants to achieve

5. POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY MOVEMENT - from learned helplessness to learned optimiism

   • COGNITIVE REVOLUTION 1960s. BEFORE - people's thoughts were taboo, people's minds as black boxes. AFTER - focus on thoughts and cognitions, interpret
     • now there is a focus on observational learning, not trial and error as previously thought!

6. BANDURA

   • SELF-EFFICACY - BANDURA - 1997. key in human well being. perceived self-efficacy. perceptions of own capabilities in future.
     • people with higher self-efficacy more likely to choose difficult tasks.
       • difference between self-efficacy expectations and outcome expectations.
     • MICROANALYTIC RESEARCH STRATEGY - detailed measures of perceived self-efficacy before a task
       • self belief doesn't cause success, self-disbelief causes faliure
   • 1969 - fear of light conditioned with fear of shock, after cognitive revolution in 1986 - focus NOT on trial and error, cant with driving, surgeons
   • RECIPROCAL DETERMINISM - Bandura - cause and effect determinism. causality "two-way street".
     • Bandura rejects the idea that we are controlled by inner forces, instead people responsive to situations & actively constructs & influences situations
   • OBSERVATIONAL LEARNING - MODELLING.
     • internal mental representation of behaviour they observed and can draw upon this mental representation at any time.
       • people learn what is acceptable or not in social situations by observing others
         • IMITATION - exact replication, in modelling people learn general rules of behaviour
           • CONCERN is that television often models antisocial behaviour, such as aggression
     • BOBO DOLL STUDY - 1963, 3 conditions, model rewarded, model punished, no consequences. most likely to imitate when model rewarded.
     • MODELLING AND FEAR - greater therapeutic change when participant copies model compared to only watching.
     • VICARIOUS CONDITIONING - learning emotional reactions through observing others.

7. social-cognitive specifically focuses on beliefs and expectancies, goals, evaluative standards and competencies, understood as distinct thinking.

   • personality is far too complex to be reduced to simple set of scores.

8. personality can be understood as a Cognitive-Affective Processing System (CAPS). large number of interconnected parts that interact

   • dynamic interactions, give rise to system's complexity, personality is a complex system,
     • differences in behaviour in different situations. individuals have situation-behaviour relationships called BEHAVIOURAL SIGNATURES

9. SELF-ESTEEM -- valuations of self worth. ROSENBERG self-esteem scale, e.g. satisfied with self etc... self-efficacy scale.

   • goal selection - higher self-efficacy, higher goals, effort and persistence higher with higher SE. emotion more positive high SE
   • HIGGINS - SELF-DISCREPANCY THEORY - actual, ideal, ought self.
   • ROTTER - LOCUS OF CONTROL
   • MISCHEL - DELAY OF GRATIFICATION

10. ELLIS - RATIONAL EMOTIVE BEHAVIOUR THERAPY. ABC - activating event, beliefs, consequence. irrational beliefs lead to stress.

    • EVALUATION: CLEAR DESCRIPTION AND EXPLANATION, did ignore processes other than thought.
      • HIGH IN VALIDITY, EASY TO TEST, has been tested, COMPREHENSIVE THEORY, emotion and genetics assessed. TOO SIMPLISTIC, FEW CONCEPTS
        • ELLIS RET - becoming popular world-wide, high heuristic value, wide context of use APPLIED VALUE

11. BECK - COGNITIVE BEHAVIOURAL THERAPY, depression therapy. faulty information processing, negative self, world, future,. therapy corrects beliefs.

12. EVALUATION

    • DESCRIPTION - classical and operant conditioning useful descriptions of simple behaviours. BANDURA very detailed description.
      • pavlov and skinner base their theories on animal observations, not good, although skinner said underlying principles same for all things
        • self efficacy and locus of control also good descriptions
    • EXPLANATION - ignore unconscious processes, learning theories are mostly deterministic, no free will. later theories (bandura, rotter, mischel) do tho
      • the theories don't explain long-term goals, e.g. we won't necessarily become what our parents wish (environment)
        • soc-cog theories can't explain why we do unexplained things. critique skinner however says reinforcement does, although writers still write if unpubli
      • bandura explains intentional processes well, recognises cognitions, rotter says this and notes previous experience. both note ind diff but ignore gene
    • EMPIRICAL VALIDITY - animal data not valid, bandura and rotter use humans but still assume phenomena universal. classical and operant not sufficient
    • TESTABLE CONCEPTS - bandura, rotter, mischel frequently tested, great deal of support, mischel caused change in methodologies
    • PARSIMONY - most soc-cog theories TOO parsimonious, assume small number of principles will apply to all situations
    • HEURISTIC VALUE - classical and operant cond had enormous impact, shaped psych as science, looked at situa and environ, continues to generate research
      • Skinner controversial. Bandura, self-efficacy and Rotter locus of control stimulated much research
    • APPLIED VALUE - treatments from mental illness, focus on ill persons behaviour led to insight into individuals previous learning.
      • reinforcement ideas led to the idea that maladaptive behaviours can be unlearned. slef-efficacy and locus of control valuable to behavioural change.
        • locus of control useful with regards to treatment