Social Cognitive approaches to personality

1. Social Cognitive approaches to personality Themes and assumptions: • People are active agents • Combines behavioral and humanistic approaches • Emphasizes cognitive processes • Emphasizes social processes • Behavior is situation specific • Reciprocal determinism • Mutual effects of person and environment

2. Julian Rotter’s locus of control • Behavior depends on • Outcome expectancy • Expectancies = implicit judgements about our behavior • Reinforcement value **reinforcement value depends on our psychological needs

3. Rotter’s psychological needs • Recognition/status • Dominance • Independence • Protection/dependency • Love and affection • Physical comfort

4. Rotter • Generalized expectancies • Specific expectancies • http://www.ballarat.edu.au/ard/bssh/psych/rot.htm • Locus of control • Internal locus of control • External locus of control

5. Scoring • Score one point for each of the following: 2.a, 3.b, 4.b, 5.b, 6.a, 7.a, 9.a, 10.b, 11.b, 12.b, 13.b, 15.b, 16.a, 17.a, 18.a, 20.a, 21.a, 22.b, 23.a, 25.a, 26.b, 28.b, 29.a. • A high score = External Locus of Control • A low score = Internal Locus of Control

6. Henry Stack Sullivan • Emphasized the social self • Personality changes as a function of our relationships with other people • Illusion of individuality = there is not single, fixed personality • personality is combo. of individual inclinations and social situation • “chums”

7. Interpersonal Circumplex Axes: • Control • Affiliation • Closer types are more related than those further away Comlimentarity • correspondence along affiliation axis • Reciprocity along dominance axis

8. Mischel’s critique • Traits do not predict behavior • Used correlation coefficient r • Several problems with his analysis: • Don’t expect traits to be perfect predictors of behavior • Assumption that r = .3 or .4 is not meaningful • Mischel was wrong

9. Mischel’s modified attempt • Shoda, Mischel, & Wright (1994) • observations of children at camp • Found considerable differences in behaviors across situations • behavioral signatures

10. Structure • expectancies (beliefs) • self-system • efficacy expectancy = self-efficacy • effort and persistence • mood • Coping What leads to self-efficacy? • Persuasion and verbal support • Vicarious reinforcement – watching models perform successfully • Personal success • Physiological cues (how your body is feeling) Note: self-efficacy is usually task specific

11. Structure continued • Goals- desired future events that motivate the person • Competencies/skills

12. Process • anticipated consequences • internal standards • self-reinforcement

13. Growth & Development • Observational learning AKA: vicarious learning modeling 4 factors that impact observational learning: • attention for encoding • retention • production • performance

14. Famous Observational Learning Studies • Bobo Doll Study (Bandura, 1965; 1977) • Group1 = aggression rewarded • Group2 = aggression punished • Group3 = aggression no consequences **acquisition vs. performance difference • Learning delay of gratification: Bandura & Mischel, 1965; 1986

15. In-class Assignment • Given the evidence concerning observational learning, what would one expect to be the effects of watching television on children? On adults? Which characteristics of television might be important? Why? Is it likely that altruistic behavior would be modeled as readily as aggressive behavior? Why or why not?

16. Modeling of aggression • observational learning • promotes belief that aggression is appropriate • desensitizes observers • E.g. Study • Positive modeling examples

17. Psychopathology & Behavior Change • Role of dysfunctional expectancies • Anxiety and self-efficacy • Depression and self-efficacy • Therapy/Change: • Modeling and Guided Mastery