Social-Cognitive Approach - Personality

origins in behavioural learning traditions, began in the 1950s. human thought processes or cognitive processes are center-point.
1. belief that psychoanalysts overemphasise unconscious thought. social-cognitive say people can grow and develop across the course of life.
  1. behavioural theorists say we are controlled by environmental rewards, punishments, social-cognitive says we are partly "in control"
    1. we are beings who use language to reason. people have unique cognitive capabilities.
2. social-cognitive has employed nomothetic (study of groups of individuals) and idiographic (study of the individual)
BEHAVIOURISM
1. PAVLOV - classical conditioning US - CR.
2. JOHN WATSON - 1910s, operant conditioning, reinforcement behaviour, infants are a blank slate
  1. EXTINCTION - no attention, no longer reinforced.
  2. POSITIVE REINFORCER - after response strengthens behaviour
  3. NEGATIVE REINFORCER - removal of stimulus after response, strengths response, e.g. criticism stops, response hightened
  4. POSITIVE PUNISHMENT - because of its presence, response weakens, e.g. being hit
  5. NEGATIVE PUNISHMENT - removal of stimulus weakens response, e.g. removing TV time.
3. JOSEPH WOLPE - systematic desensitization - if anxiety is learned it can be unlearned, counter-conditioning. heirarchies of anxiety e.g. picture
4. SELIGMAN - learned helplessness, conditioned to shocks, even when could escape, didnt try. model for HUMAN DEPRESSION
COMPETENCIES AND SKILLS - cognitive competencies & skills in solving problems. context specificity - competencies relevant to some situations not all
EXPECTANCIES - what things should be like. EVALUATIVE STANDARDS - mental criteria for evaluating worth of events. GOALS - what one wants to achieve
POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY MOVEMENT - from learned helplessness to learned optimiism
1. COGNITIVE REVOLUTION 1960s. BEFORE - people's thoughts were taboo, people's minds as black boxes. AFTER - focus on thoughts and cognitions, interpret
  1. now there is a focus on observational learning, not trial and error as previously thought!
BANDURA
1. SELF-EFFICACY - BANDURA - 1997. key in human well being. perceived self-efficacy. perceptions of own capabilities in future.
  1. people with higher self-efficacy more likely to choose difficult tasks.
    1. difference between self-efficacy expectations and outcome expectations.
  2. MICROANALYTIC RESEARCH STRATEGY - detailed measures of perceived self-efficacy before a task
    1. self belief doesn't cause success, self-disbelief causes faliure
2. 1969 - fear of light conditioned with fear of shock, after cognitive revolution in 1986 - focus NOT on trial and error, cant with driving, surgeons
3. RECIPROCAL DETERMINISM - Bandura - cause and effect determinism. causality "two-way street".
  1. Bandura rejects the idea that we are controlled by inner forces, instead people responsive to situations & actively constructs & influences situations
4. OBSERVATIONAL LEARNING - MODELLING.
  1. internal mental representation of behaviour they observed and can draw upon this mental representation at any time.
    1. people learn what is acceptable or not in social situations by observing others
      1. IMITATION - exact replication, in modelling people learn general rules of behaviour
        CONCERN is that television often models antisocial behaviour, such as aggression
  2. BOBO DOLL STUDY - 1963, 3 conditions, model rewarded, model punished, no consequences. most likely to imitate when model rewarded.
  3. MODELLING AND FEAR - greater therapeutic change when participant copies model compared to only watching.
  4. VICARIOUS CONDITIONING - learning emotional reactions through observing others.
social-cognitive specifically focuses on beliefs and expectancies, goals, evaluative standards and competencies, understood as distinct thinking.
1. personality is far too complex to be reduced to simple set of scores.
personality can be understood as a Cognitive-Affective Processing System (CAPS). large number of interconnected parts that interact
1. dynamic interactions, give rise to system's complexity, personality is a complex system,
  1. differences in behaviour in different situations. individuals have situation-behaviour relationships called BEHAVIOURAL SIGNATURES
SELF-ESTEEM -- valuations of self worth. ROSENBERG self-esteem scale, e.g. satisfied with self etc... self-efficacy scale.
1. goal selection - higher self-efficacy, higher goals, effort and persistence higher with higher SE. emotion more positive high SE
2. HIGGINS - SELF-DISCREPANCY THEORY - actual, ideal, ought self.
3. ROTTER - LOCUS OF CONTROL
4. MISCHEL - DELAY OF GRATIFICATION
ELLIS - RATIONAL EMOTIVE BEHAVIOUR THERAPY. ABC - activating event, beliefs, consequence. irrational beliefs lead to stress.
1. EVALUATION: CLEAR DESCRIPTION AND EXPLANATION, did ignore processes other than thought.
  1. HIGH IN VALIDITY, EASY TO TEST, has been tested, COMPREHENSIVE THEORY, emotion and genetics assessed. TOO SIMPLISTIC, FEW CONCEPTS
    1. ELLIS RET - becoming popular world-wide, high heuristic value, wide context of use APPLIED VALUE
BECK - COGNITIVE BEHAVIOURAL THERAPY, depression therapy. faulty information processing, negative self, world, future,. therapy corrects beliefs.
EVALUATION
1. DESCRIPTION - classical and operant conditioning useful descriptions of simple behaviours. BANDURA very detailed description.
  1. pavlov and skinner base their theories on animal observations, not good, although skinner said underlying principles same for all things
    1. self efficacy and locus of control also good descriptions
2. EXPLANATION - ignore unconscious processes, learning theories are mostly deterministic, no free will. later theories (bandura, rotter, mischel) do tho
  1. the theories don't explain long-term goals, e.g. we won't necessarily become what our parents wish (environment)
    1. soc-cog theories can't explain why we do unexplained things. critique skinner however says reinforcement does, although writers still write if unpubli
  2. bandura explains intentional processes well, recognises cognitions, rotter says this and notes previous experience. both note ind diff but ignore gene
3. EMPIRICAL VALIDITY - animal data not valid, bandura and rotter use humans but still assume phenomena universal. classical and operant not sufficient
4. TESTABLE CONCEPTS - bandura, rotter, mischel frequently tested, great deal of support, mischel caused change in methodologies
5. PARSIMONY - most soc-cog theories TOO parsimonious, assume small number of principles will apply to all situations
6. HEURISTIC VALUE - classical and operant cond had enormous impact, shaped psych as science, looked at situa and environ, continues to generate research
  1. Skinner controversial. Bandura, self-efficacy and Rotter locus of control stimulated much research
7. APPLIED VALUE - treatments from mental illness, focus on ill persons behaviour led to insight into individuals previous learning.
  1. reinforcement ideas led to the idea that maladaptive behaviours can be unlearned. slef-efficacy and locus of control valuable to behavioural change.
    1. locus of control useful with regards to treatment

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Social-Cognitive Approach - Personality

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	Created by becky.waine over 11 years ago