What are the distinguishing features of social-cognitive theory?

-Emphasis on people as active agents.

-Emphasis on social origins of behavior

-Emphasis on cognitive (thought) processes

-Emphasis on both average behavioral tendencies and variability in behavior

-Emphasis on the learning of complex patterns of behavior in the absence of rewards

His central interest is in the ways in which these thinking processes give people the capacity for personal agency, that is, give them the capacity to contribute to their own experiences, actions, and personal development.  

About what was Mischel skeptical?

Found that global trait measures did a poor job of predicting performance, which increased skepticism concerning the utility of traditional personality theories that emphasize stable and broadly generalized personality characteristics

What are the 3 psychological qualities that are essential defining features of persons

1.    Persons are beings who can reason about the world using language

2.    Persons can reason about not only present circumstances but also events in their past and hypothetical events in the future.

3.    This reasoning commonly involves  reflection on the self—the being who is doing the reasoning

According to social-cognitive theorists, even if we experience unconscious emotional or environmental forces, what do humans have the ability to do?

People can overcome environmental influences and animalistic emotional impulses and to gain control over the course of their lives.

What are 3 features of the social-cognitive view of personality science?

-Theorists try to capitalize on scientific advances in other sciences that study human nature. They believe that personality psychology should integrate knowledge from diverse branches of psych—developmental, social, cognitive, cultural, etc.—into a coherent portrait of human nature and the differences among persons

 -It emphasizes the study of individual persons.  (“nomothetic” and “idiographic” research methods)

-The bottom line for evaluating a theory is whether it yields practical tools that benefit human welfare.

What are competencies?

-structural units in social-cognitive theory reflecting the individual’s ability to solve problems or perform tasks necessary to achieve goals.

in what cognitive competencies and skills are social-cognitive theorists interested?

-interested in cognitive competencies and skills in solving problems and coping with the challenges of life. 

-Involve both ways of thinking about life problems and behavioral skills in executing solutions to them.

-Competencies involve what two types of knowledge?

-Declarative and Procedural Knowledge 

knowledge that we can state in words

-cognitive and behavioral capacities that a person may have without being able to articulate the exact nature of those capacities; the person can execute the behavioral; “procedure” without being able to say how he or she did.

-What is context specificity?

-Refers to the fact that psychological structures that are relevant to some social situations, or contexts, may be irrelevant to others, natural feature of skills.

-How are competencies acquired?

through social interaction and observation of the social world

Can a person’s competencies change?

-People who are lacking skills in an area of life can change. They can engage in new interactions and new observations of the world and thereby acquire new competencies.

beliefs about what the world actually is like and what things probably will be like in the future—when the beliefs are directed to the future

Thoughts about what things should be like mental criteria (standards) for evaluating the goodness or worth of events.

thoughts about what one wants to achieve in the future

In the social-cognitive approach, what is a key point when people form expectancies?

people may group together situations in ways that are highly idiosyncratic (personal and weird).

-Example: One person may group together situations involving school vs. social life and have high expectations in one domain and low in the other

-Where does the essence of personality lie?

Lies in these differing ways in which unique individuals perceive situations, develop expectations about future circumstances, and display distinct behavior patterns as a result of these differing perceptions and expectations

-How does the concept of expectancies differentiate social cognitive theory from behaviorism?

-In behaviorism, behavior was understood as being caused by rewards and punishment in the environment.

-In social-cognitive theory, in contrast, behavior is explained in terms of people’s expectations about rewards and punishments in the environment.

-What is perceived self-efficacy? Why is it so important?

-to cope with specific situations—people’s perceptions of their own capabilities for action in future situations.

It is important because self-efficacy perceptions influence a number of different types of behavior that in turn, are necessary for human achievement

What are the 4 behavioral mechanisms associated with high self-efficacy perceptions?

1.    People with a higher sense of self-efficacy are more likely to attempt difficult tasks (Commit yourself to college admission)

2.    To persist in their efforts (Persist in studying to achieve high grades)

3.    To be calm rather than anxious during task performance

4.    Organize their thoughts in an analytical manner

-How does perceived self-efficacy differ from self-esteem?

-Self-esteem refers to people’s overall (or global) evaluation of their personal worth.

-Self-efficacy, in contrast, refers to people’s appraisals of what they are capable of accomplishing in a given setting.

-Differs in two ways:

-1.  Perceived self-efficacy is not a global variable; instead, it is recognized that people commonly will have different self-efficacy perceptions in different situations. 

-2. Perceived self-efficacy is not an abstract sense of personal worth but a judgment of what one can do.

-Example: Imagine you have a big math exam coming up and you have a perfectly high sense of self-esteem, at the same time you have a low sense of self-efficacy for getting a high grade on the exam.  Social cognitive theory would predict that you would be anxious about the exam, even though you have a high sense of overall self-esteem.

beliefs about the rewards and punishments that will occur if one performs a give type of behavior

are beliefs about whether one can perform the behavior in the first place.

Which is more important as a determinant of behavior?

-Social-cognitive theory contends that efficacy expectations generally are more important than are outcome expectations as a determinant of behavior

detailed measures of perceived self-efficacy is taken before performance of behaviors in specific situations

What is an “anchoring manipulation?”

refers to a thinking process that comes into play when people try to figure out the answer to a problem

-Does the anchoring manipulation affect perceived self-efficacy?

Findings indicated that the anchoring manipulation affected perceived self-efficacy; participants exposed to high and low random numbers had high and low self-efficacy perceptions

-What effects do perceptions of self-efficacy have on experience and action (i.e. selection, effort, emotion & coping)?

Self-efficacy influence the goals individuals select (higher self efficacy select challenging goals)

Individuals with high self-efficacy beliefs show greater effort and persistence, and perform better relative to individuals with low self-efficacy beliefs.

-Individuals with high self-efficacy beliefs approach tasks with better moods

-Better able to cope with stress and disappointments than are individuals with low self-efficacy beliefs. Bandura summarizes: Human betterment has been advanced more by persisters than pessimists. Self-belief does not necessarily ensure success, but self-disbelief assuredly spawns failure.

A goal is a mental representation of the aim of an action or course of actions. Goals guide us in establishing priorities and in selecting among situations

-How are goal systems organized?

they are understood as having a hierarchical structure.

-How do people’s goals on a task differ (book lists 3)?

-One obvious variation is in the level of challenge, or difficult.

-Involves the nearness, or proximity, of goals.  (Proximal goals have bigger influences)

-Differ in a manner that involves the subjective meaning of an activity. (435)

How do goals relate to social-cognitive personality construct expectancies? 

Expectancies influence the process of goal setting. When selecting goals, people generally reflect on their expectations about their performance

What is a mental standard?

a criterion for judging the goodness, or worth of a person, thing, or event.

What are self-evaluative reactions?

when we evaluate our own actions and then respond in an emotionally satisfied or dissatisfied way toward ourselves as a result of this self-evaluation:

-When might we

Selectively “disengage” our moral standards? 

People know Stealing or using plagiarized material is wrong but they cope by selectively disengaging their moral standards when it is to their personal advantage to do so

-What are the two ways social-cognitive theory addresses the dynamics of personality processes?

-The first involves general theoretical principles, reciprocal determinism and the CAPS model.

-The second way is by analyzing psychological functions that are of particular importance in scientific analysis of personality and individual differences.

What are 2 theoretical principles we should use when analyzing dynamics of personality processes?

-Reciprocal determinism and Cognitive-Affective Processing System (CAPS)

What is reciprocal determinism?

the mutual, back and forth effects of variables on one another; in social cognitive theory, a fundamental causal principle in cognitive theory, a fundamental causal principle in which personal, environmental, and behavioral factors are viewed as causally influencing one another.

What are the 3 factors to consider when analyzing a person’s behavior?

the person, his or her behavior, and the environmental setting in which the person acts

What is causality, according to Bandura?

-Causality is a “two-way” street, it is reciprocal. All three factors are determinants of one another.

Social-cognitive theorists emphasize that personality should be understood as a system? How do social-cognitive variables operate?

Social-cognitive variables do not operate in isolation from one another. Instead, the various cognitions and affects interact with one another in and organizes fashion; resulting in an overall coherence to personality functioning

-What is the CAPS model of personality?

A theoretical framework developed by Mischel and colleagues in which personality is understood as containing a large set of highly interconnected cognitive and emotional processes; the interconnections cause personality to function in an integrative, coherent way, or as a “system

-What are the 3 essential features of the CAPS model?

-First, cognitive and emotional personality variables are seen as being complexly linked to one another.

-Second, the social environment. Different aspects of social situations activate subsets of the overall personality system.

-Third, follows naturally from the second one.  If different situational features activate different parts of the overall personality system, then people’s behavior should vary from one situation to another.

-What is the most distinctive feature of the CAPS model?

-The third feature, situational features that activate one vs. the other should produce, in the individual, entirely different patterns of emotion and action.

What were Mischel’s findings at the summer camp (using the CAPS approach)?

-Found clear evidence that individuals have distinctive, stable profiles of expressing particular behaviors in specific groups of situations.

-What are behavioral signatures?

Individuals that have distinctive profiles of situation-behavior relationships

How did Bandura succeed in explaining the shortcomings of behavioral theory? What is observational learning?

Bandura detailed that people can form an internal mental representation of the behavior they have observed and then can draw upon that mental representation at a later time. Learning by modeling is evident in innumerable domains of life.

acquisition

-learning of new behaviors viewed which is seen as dependent on reward.

performance

-the production of learned behaviors, which is seen as independent on reward.

What is vicarious conditioning?

the process of learning emotional reactions through observing others. 

-What is self-regulation?

personality processes that involve the self-directed motivation of behavior. People have the capacity to motivate themselves and set personal goals.  Getting started and avoiding environmental distractions and emotional impulses.

How do goals and feedback affect motivation? How can self-efficacy affect motivation?

Self-efficacy judgments mediate between goals and goal-directed effort.

Which models are going to encourage children to limit their own self-rewards?

The performance of observed behaviors clearly is influenced by the observed consequences to the model.

What is the critical experimental manipulation? How did this affect children’s delay abilities?

this setting is whether children can see the reward. This experiment proved to have a huge effect on children’s delay abilities.