Cognitive Aspects of Personality

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Cognitive Aspects of Personality

• Theories of Personality
• Prepared by Jim Messina, Ph.D.

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Cognitive Theorists

• Emphasis on cognitive structures or concepts,
  perceptual processes employed-attend, comprehend,
  conceptualize. Human perception and cognition is
  core of personality
• Kurt Lewin
• Jean Piaget
• George Kelly 1905-1967
• Julian Rotter 1916-
• Albert Bandera 1925-

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Gestalt Psychology

• Human beings seek meaning in environment
• We organize our sensations from environment into
  meaningful perceptions
• Complex stimuli are not reducible to their sum of
  their parts
• Configuration of a complex stimuli is its essence

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Field Theory-Kurt Lewin-1935

• Life Space-Internal external forces that act on
  an individual-and structural relationships
  between the person environment-determined by
  Boundaries between each life space
• Contemporaneous Causation-momentary condition in
  the individuals mind at the time at any moment

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Field Dependence as Personality Variable

• Field Dependent Very influenced in problem
  solving by salient but irrelevant aspects of the
  context (or field) in which the problem
  occurs-influence by externalized aspects of
  problem solving-Field Independent more
  analytical-complex restructuring in problem
  solving-influenced by internalize aspects of
  problem solving

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Field Independent Persons
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Cognitive Style

• Cognitive approach or style based on demands on
  individual from group raised in
• Women-Field Dependent-social sensitivity
  contextually bound moral reasoning
• Hunter-gathers Field Independent-to find game
  keep track of locations-more analytical
• Farmers Field Dependent-elaborate systems of
  socialization conformity to group norms

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Schemas and Scripts-Jean Piaget 1952

• Children progress thru series of cognitive stages
  as they mature
• Schemas new cognitive structures which build on
  structures acquired earlier-when activated major
  determinant of persons expectations, inferences,
  actions
• Script schema for a familiar event-specifies
  roles, actions, props setting

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Stages of Cognitive Development - Jean Piaget

• 1. Sensorimotor Stage Birth to 2 years old - no
  thinking structures
• 2. Preoperational Stage 2-7 years old - develop
  language skills cognitive structures prelogical
• 3. Concrete Operational Stage 7 years to
  Adolescence - Begins to question life. Solves
  problems but haphazardly
• 4. Formal Operations Stage  Adolescence and
  onward - capable of sophisticated logical
  thought. Can think both abstract hypothetically
  and solve problems using the logic of combinations

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Later Theorists have added Fifth Stage

• Dialectical Reasoning - stage beyond logic where
  critical thinking lies. Ability to perceive the
  frequent paradoxes in life and question and
  analyze the assumptions that underlie logic. 
• Being able to look at two sides of an argument or
  problem to get a broader, deeper, more
  reasonable perspective on the issues being
  addressed

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Impact of Piaget

• Understanding unfolds in logical order
• New cognitions build on older cognitions
• Good teachers do not directly teach or
  reinforce-but guide learners to their own
  discoveries
• Distinctive view of human nature

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Categorization

• Tendency to organize experience by assigning
  events, objects people encountered into
  categories-influences interpretations and
  expectations
• Always present and happening-Automatically
  occurs-based on personal experiences
• Is foundation of negative stereotypes, prejudices
  (premature judgment)-more likely to attend to
  information which supports expectations

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Personal Construct Theory George Kelly 1955

• Personal Construct Theory or Constructivism
  People construe or understand the world and
  construct own versions of reality-personal system
  of explaining human behaviors
• Each of us tries to understand the world and we
  do so in ways that are different
• A persons processes are psychologically
  channeled by ways in which he anticipates events
• Every man is, in his own particular way, a
  scientist

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Role Construct Repertory Test

• Assessment evokes personal construct system
• Persons understanding of personality emerges
  through making comparisons
• Comparison of triads to get hierarchy of
  constructs used for understanding and predicting
  behavior

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Social Intelligence

• Level of mastery of the particular cluster of
  knowledge and skills relevant to interpersonal
  situations
• People vary in their abilities to understand and
  influence other people

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Multiple Intelligences-Howard Gardners concept

• Seven different intelligences-ways of knowing the
  world through
• Language
• Logical-mathematical analysis
• Spatial representations
• Musical Thinking
• Bodily Kinesthetic intelligence (body)
• Understanding of self
• Understanding others

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Explanatory Style

• Set of variables that captures a persons
  habitual means of interpreting events in life
• Optimism focus on positive potential vs
  Pessimism focus on negative potential

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Learned Helplessness-Martin Seligman 1975

• Situation in which repeated exposure to
  unavoidable punishment leads organism to accept
  later punishment even when it is avoidable-Learn
  they are helpless so give up trying to escape or
  avoid it
• Depression-depressive schema-generate more and
  more depressive thoughts

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Julian Rotter 1972

• Took into account people work to attain goals
  both because of the consequences (rewards)
  thoughts and perceptions about outcomes and its
  likelihood
• Outcome expectancy positive result
• Reinforcement value how much we value the
  expected reinforcement

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Behavior Potential

• Likelihood that a particular behavior will occur
  in a specific situation
• Specific expectancy-follow a behavior in a
  particular situation
• Generalized expectancy-related to group
  situations
• Use more generalized expectancies in new
  situations and use specific when situations
  become familiar

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Rotters Psychological Needs arising out of
Biological Needs

• Recognition status (need to achieve, seen as
  competent, positive social standing)
• Dominance (need to control, have power
  influence)
• Independence (need to make decisions for oneself)
  
• Protection-dependency (need to have others give
  one security and help one achieve goals)
• Love Affection (need to be liked cared for)
• Physical comfort (need to avoid pain, seek
  pleasure, enjoy physical security well being

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Rotters Psychological Situation

• Behavior potential, outcome expectancy
  reinforcement potential
• Power of situation in behavior
• What is important is individuals unique
  combination of potential behaviors and value to
  person
• Persons expectations values interact with
  situational constraints which exert influence on
  behavior

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Internal vs External Locus of Control Rotters

• Internal locus of control generalized expectancy
  that individuals actions will lead to desired
  outcome-achievement oriented and high achievers
• External locus of control belief that things
  outside of individual determine whether a desired
  outcome will occur based on-less independent,
  depressed, stressed-hand over control to
• Powerful others
• Luck or Chance

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Albert Bandura Self-System

• Set of cognitive processes by which a person
  perceives, evaluates, and regulates personal
  behavior so that it is appropriate to the
  environment and effective in achieving the
  individuals goals.
• Observational learning inner person demands
  of situation combine to determine behaviors

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Social Learning Theory Albert Bandura

• Allows for the cognitive process to mediate
  between environment and behavior
• Bandura believed that people cognitively
  represent the behavior of others and then
  sometimes adopt this behavior themselves
• His model shows a reciprocal influence of
  behavior, personal and cognitive factors, and
  environment

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Banduras Model of Reciprocal Influence

• B Behavior
• P(C) Personal Cognitive Factors (such as
  intelligence, skills self-control)
• E Environment
• The arrows reflect how relations between these
  factors are reciprocal rather than
  unidirectional.

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Observational Learning

• How new behaviors are acquired in absence of
  reinforcement
• Observational learning-vicarious learning- gained
  second hand by watching the experience of another
• Modeling person forms self in image of another

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Outcome Expectancy

• Expected consequence of the behavior is most
  significant influence on whether an observer will
  reproduce an observed behavior
• Individuals are more likely to imitate behavior
  that they believe leads to positive outcomes.
• Outcome expectancy is based on both consequences
  of rewards and punishments and on anticipated
  consequences

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Four Components of Observational Learning

• Attention influenced by characteristics of the
  model situation
• Retention influenced by cognitive ability of
  observer and ability to encode the
  behavior-images or verbal representation
• Motor reproduction turn mental representation
  into physical action-mentally rehearse the
  behavior
• Motivation most influences actual performance of
  the behavior which has been observed-valued vs
  negative outcomes

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Self-Regulation

• Individuals internal processes of goals,
  planning, self-reinforcement result in
  self-regulation of behavior
• Self-punishment feelings of self-disgust, shame
  or withhold desired object
• Internal standards used to measure own success or
  failure-gained by both observation and past
  behavior acting

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Self-Efficacy

• An expectancy or belief (expectation) about how
  competently one will be able to enact a behavior
  in a particular situation
• Positive belief will be able to perform
• Determines if we try, how long we persist, how
  results influence future behavior

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Self-Efficacy results from four types of
information

• Our experiences trying to perform the behavior
  (failure or success)
• Watching others perform same or similar behavior
  (vicarious)
• Verbal persuasion (encouragement)
• How we feel about the behavior (emotional
  reactions)

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Resilience

• Ability to absorb failure and disappointment and
  still believe in oneself
• Take the hard knocks and survive to be justified
  by success in ones life
• Stuff that overcomes adversity
• Bolstering ones self-efficacy against all types
  of challenges to succeed in the end

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Turing Test by Alan Turing

• A test to see if computer programs can adequately
  simulate a human well enough to fool a human
  judge
• Shows it is dangerous to apply to computers
  characteristics of humans and vice versa!