Term
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Definition
Once a goal for behaviour has been evoked, self-regulation reflects a process of feedback control. A reference value (or goal) is compared against present behaviour. If the two differ, behaviour is adjusted, leading to a new perception and comparison. Given that many goals are dynamic and evolving, this view emphasises that self-regulation is a never-ending process. A single feedback loop is too simple to account for the diversity in people's actions alone, but complexity is provided by the fact that feedback systems can be organised in a hierarchy, in which one system acts by providing reference values to the system directly below it.
An intuitive system promotes behaviours that are triggered by cues of the moment; a rational system promotes behaviours that are thought out and intentional. Self-regulation sometimes entails self-control: the prevention of pursuing one goal, in service to another more important goal. |
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Term
| Emotions and self-regulation |
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Definition
Emotions have been viewed within this framework as calls for re-prioritising one's goals. They are viewed as giving a subjective reading of how well you're progressing toward a goal. Emotions thus convey important information which has a strong influence on behaviour.
When people encounter obstacles in their efforts, self-regulation is interrupted, and the people consider whether success or failure is likely. If expectancies are positive enough, the person will keep trying; if not, the person may disengage effort and give up. Disengagement is sometimes the adaptive response, but people sometimes give up too quickly. Sometimes disengagement is only partial—goal substitution or scaling back. This keeps the person engaged, in one way, while disengaging in another. |
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Term
| Attitude (for Intentions) |
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Definition
| For example, you might think that spending money on a Caribbean trip over spring break would result in a lot of fun, and you really want to have that fun.The outcome and its desirability merge to form an attitude about the behavior. Because it stems from your own wants, your attitude is your personal orientation to the act. |
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Term
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Definition
Foundations of intentions. The belief that an act will produce a particular outcome and the per- sonal desirability of the outcome merge to form an attitude (a personal orientation to the act). The belief that other people want you to do the act and the desire to go along with their wishes merge to form a subjective norm (a social orientation to the act). The attitude and the subjective norm are weighted in forming the intention. The intention then influences the behavior
Sometimes you want to do something, but you know others want you not to. In those cases, the intention you form depends on which mat- ters more: satisfying yourself or satisfying the others. |
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Term
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Definition
GOALS - That theme is that people’s goals energize their activities, direct their movements— even provide meaning for their lives
Circumplex formed by relationships among diverse goals, across 15 cultures. Goals vary along the dimension of intrinsic versus extrinsic and separately along the dimension of concerning the physical self versus transcending the self. Source: |
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Term
| Setting Goals (high vs low goal setting) |
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Definition
| Why do higher goals lead to better performance? Three reasons. First, setting a higher goal causes you to try harder. For example, you know you won’t solve 50 problems in 10 minutes unless you push yourself. So you start out pushing yourself. Second, you’re more persistent. A brief spurt of effort won’t do; you’ll have to push yourself the entire time.Third, high goals make you concentrate more, making you less susceptible to distractions. In all these respects, setting a lower goal causes people to ease back a little. The effect of setting high goals is well documented, but it has a very important limitation. In particular, if you’re presented with a goal that’s totally unrealistic, you won’t adopt it and you won’t try for it. If you don’t adopt it, it’s as if the goal doesn’t exist.The key, then, is to take up a goal that’s high enough to sustain strong effort but not so high that it’s rejected instead of adopte |
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Term
| Implementation Intentions and the Importance of Strategies (goal intention vs implementation intention) |
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Definition
A goal intention is the intent to reach a particular outcome. An implementation intention concerns the how, when, and where of the process. It’s the intention to take specific actions when encountering specific circumstances.This linking of context to action is what was described as an if . . . then link (Mischel & Shoda, 1995). Some if . . . then links are habitual and well learned (Brandstätter & Frank, 2002), whereas others need to be formed consciously for specific intended paths of behavior.
Implementation intentions are more concrete than goal intentions.They serve the goal intentions. |
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Term
| Deliberative and Implemental Mindsets (Deliberative mindset + Implemental mindset) |
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Definition
Forming a goal intention requires weighing possibilities, thinking of pros and cons, and juggling options.This is called a deliberative mindset, because the person is deliberating the decision to act.This mindset is relatively open minded, careful, and cautious, in the service of making the best choice
Once the intention has been formed, actually doing the behavior entails a differ- ent mindset. People no longer deliberate. Now, it’s all about doing. This is called an implemental mindset, because it focuses on implementing the intention to act
There’s evidence that these two mindsets may use different areas of the brain. |
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Term
A negative feedback loop has four parts (Feedback Control)
1. Self-regulation |
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Definition
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Term
1. Self-regulation
2. input
3.
4.
(A negative feedback loop has four parts) |
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Definition
self-regulation: a goal, standard of comparison, or reference value for behavior (all of these mean the same thing here).These values can come from many places and can exist at many levels of abstraction. For example, plans, intentions, possible selves, and strategies all are values to use in self-regulation.
2. Input: input, is a perception of your present behavior and its effects. This just means noting what you’re doing and the effect it’s having.. Input perceptions are compared against the goal by something termed a com- parator. If you’re doing what you intended, there’s no discrepancy between the two, and you continue as before. If your behavior differs from what you intended, though, a final process kicks in |
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Term
| Hierarchical Organization |
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Definition
| a feedback hierarchy assumes there are both high-level and low- level goals that relate to each other.You have the goal of attaining a particular possible self, but you may also have the goal of having clean clothes to wear and the goal of making it to your psychology class on time |
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Term
| Hierarchical Organization (1.System Concept, 2. Principle, 3. Program, 4. Output) |
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Definition
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Term
| Hierarchical Organization (1.System Concept, 2. Principle, 3. Program, 4. Output) |
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Definition
1. At the top are very abstract qualities he called system concepts. An example is the broad sense of ideal self. Richard, the person whose behavior is portrayed in Figure 4, is trying to live up to his desired self-image. Doing this resembles the experience of self-actualization. It promotes the sense of personal wholeness and integration.
2. Trying to attain that ideal self means trying to live in accord with the principles it incorporates.They specify broad qualities, which can be displayed in many ways.When they’re active, principles help you decide what activities to start and what choices to make as you do them
3. Principles act by specifying programs (AKA strategies). .A program resembles what we call a script. It specifies a general course of action but with many details left out. |
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Term
| Issues Concerning Hierarchical Organization |
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Definition
| People dont always have to consider all of the hierarchy levels at the same time. e.g. People can go for a very long time without thinking about their ideal selves. Behavior often is guided for long periods by pro- grams.To put it differently, lower levels may sometimes be functionally superordinate. That’s probably what happens when people do the routine “maintenance” activi- ties of life: buying groceries, washing dishes, driving to school. At such times, people may often lose all sight of their higher-order goals. |
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Term
| Issues Concerning Hierarchical Organization 1 |
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Definition
| difficulty at a high level causes a lower level to become functionally superordinate. Using that lower-level identity, the person irons out the problem. As the problem is resolved, the person tends to drift again to a higher-level identification. For example, if you’re in class taking notes and having trouble understanding the lecture, you may stop thinking of your behavior as “taking helpful notes” and start thinking of it as “writing down as much as I possibly can so I can try to figure it out later.” If the lecture gets easier to follow after a while, you may once again be able to start thinking of your behavior in more abstract terms. |
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Term
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Definition
| If a problem arises for some goal, emo- tion pertaining to it arises. If the problem gets big enough, the emotion becomes intense enough to interrupt what you’re doing. For example, If you had decided to put off buying gas until after doing the other things, you might start to feel anxious about maybe being stranded at the beach with an empty gas tank. If the anxiety got strong enough, you’d change your mind (reprioritize) and stop for the gas after all. |
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Term
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Definition
| Sometimes disengagement involves only scaling back from a lofty goal in a given domain to a less demanding one.That’s disengagement, in the sense that the person is giving up the first goal. It’s more limited, in the sense that it doesn’t mean leaving the domain entirely. Partial disengagement keeps you engaged in the domain you had wanted to quit. By scaling back—giving up in a small way—you keep trying to move ahead—thus not giving up in a larger way. |
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Term
| people have goals at various levels of abstraction and the fact that people have many goals at once (and thus many semi-autonomous feedback loops going at the same time). Now we bring up three complications to this picture. |
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Definition
1. Approach and Avoidance
2. Intention-Based and Stimulus-Based Action |
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Term
1. Approach and Avoidance
(three complications for various levels of abstraction) |
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Definition
| By this, we don’t mean disengaging from a desired goal.We mean actively trying to get away (or stay away) from a threat.the self-regulatory model definitely has a place for both approach and avoidance |
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Term
2. Intention-Based and Stimulus-Based Action
(three complications for various levels of abstraction) |
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Definition
Indeed, some of the studies show that goals can be activated by subliminal stimuli: stimuli that are out of one’s awareness
e.g. Some people read many words pertaining to the elderly stereotype; some did not.The outcome of interest was how long it took people to walk down the corridor on their way out.Those exposed to the stereotype of the elderly walked more slowly, as though they were old them- selves |
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Term
| Being similar to others on different Hierarchical Organization levels |
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Definition
| They argued that people with similar traits can differ greatly if they think of their goals at different levels. People who identify their actions at high levels tend to look at the “big picture,” whether they’re socializing, studying, or making music. People who identify their actions at lower levels tend to focus more on the “nuts and bolts” of what’s going on. |
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Term
| means–end analysis 1 of 2 |
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Definition
| A useful way to create choices is called means–end analysis (Newell & Simon, 1972).You start by noting the difference between your present state and your desired state (the end).Then you think of an action that would reduce the difference (a means). At first, the things that come to mind are abstract, involving large-scale goals.You then examine each large step and break it into subgoals. If you keep breaking things down long enough, the means–end paths become complete and concrete enough to get you from here to there.You’ve created a strategy. |
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Term
| Pg. 299 Therapy Is Training in Problem Solving |
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Definition
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Term
| means–end analysis 2 of 2 |
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Definition
| Finally, it’s important to seek accurate feedback about the effects of your actions. If you get accurate feedback, you don’t have to make perfect choices. If you make continual adjustments from the feedback you get, you keep moving in the right direc- tion.This principle, which is basic to the self-regulation approach, yields an important kind of freedom—the freedom from having to be right the first time. |
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Term
| The Self-Regulation Perspective: Problems and Prospects (not sure how important this is..) |
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Definition
1.
One criticism of the self-regulation view derives from the robotics metaphor it sometimes employs. Critics say that artificial systems can’t possibly be good models for human behavior. Humans have free will and make their own decisions. Robots have to rely on the programs they’ve been given to run them.
2. Another criticism sometimes made of this approach (even within the physi- ological metaphor) is that a model based on feedback principles is merely a model of homeostasis (literally,“steady state”). Homeostatic mechanisms exist to control body temperature, the levels of various elements in the blood, and many other physical parameters of the body. |
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Term
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Definition
In self-regulation models, behavior is sometimes specified by interpretive schemas, if an interpretation is closely tied to an action quality. Sometimes, actions follow from intentions: products of a mental algebra in which personally desired outcomes and social considerations are weighed to yield an intent to act or not act
Theory concerning self-regulation emphasizes goals.The goals underlying behav- ior have a variety of labels, including life tasks, personal strivings, personal projects, and current concerns.This view treats the structure of the self as an organization among goals. Some goals are fairly neutral, but others imply a standard of excellence. In the latter case, setting higher goals results in higher performances.This is because committing oneself to a more demanding goal focuses one’s efforts more fully. If the goal is too high, though, people don’t adopt it.
Some intentions concern attaining end goals; others are about implementing action plans to reach those end goals.The latter are important for ensuring that behavior actually gets done. Implementation intentions constitute the linking of strategies to the contexts in which the person wants to engage them. Intentions are formed in a deliberative mindset, but once the person starts to pursue them, he or she is in an implementational mindset |
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Term
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Definition
Once a goal for behavior has been evoked, self-regulation reflects a process of feedback control. A reference value (or goal) is compared against present behavior. If the two differ, behavior is adjusted, leading to a new perception and comparison. Given that many goals are dynamic and evolving, this view emphasizes that self- regulation is a never-ending process.A single feedback loop is too simple to account for the diversity in people’s actions alone, but complexity is provided by the fact that feedback systems can be organized in a hierarchy, in which one system acts by provid- ing reference values to the system directly below it.The concept of hierarchy accounts for the fact that a goal can be attained by many kinds of actions, along with the fact that the same action can occur in service to diverse goals.
Within this framework, emotions have been viewed as calls for reprioritizing one’s goals. Emotions are viewed as giving a subjective reading of how well you’re progressing toward a goal. Emotions thus convey important information that has a strong influence on behavior. |
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Term
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Definition
When people encounter obstacles in their efforts, self-regulation is interrupted and they consider whether success or failure is likely. If their expectancies are posi- tive enough, they will keep trying; if not, they may disengage effort and give up. Disengagement is sometimes the adaptive response, but people sometimes give up too quickly. In some cases, disengagement is only partial—goal substitution or scaling back.This keeps the person engaged, in one way, while disengaging in another.
Although much of this chapter concerns conformity to goals, self-regulation models also include discussions of avoidance. Avoidance means creating distance instead of conformity. Another issue is that some behavior occurs via intentions, but some actions are triggered fairly automatically, even without the person’s awareness. This difference between sources of influence is sometimes dealt with by dual-process models. An intuitive system promotes behaviors that are triggered by cues of the moment; a rational system promotes behaviors that are thought out and intentional. Self-regulation sometimes entails self-control: the prevention of pursuing one goal, in service of another more important goal |
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Term
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Definition
Assessment, from this view, is partly a matter of assessing individual differences in self-regulatory functions, such as self-reflectiveness, self-control, and the level of abstraction at which people view their goals.This view also suggests the value of assessing goals themselves.There are several ways to conceptualize problems from this view.One possibility focuses on conflict between incompatible goals.Another points to a lack of specification of mid level behavioral reference values to guide behavior. Yet another emphasizes that people sometimes are unable to disengage from behav- iors that are necessary for the attainment of higher-order goals.There’s evidence that people who are depressed display an exaggerated inability to disengage.
Just as behavior can be construed in terms of self-regulatory systems, so can the process of behavior change induced by therapy. People in therapy use feedback from decisions they’ve put into practice to make further decisions.They monitor the effects of changes in behavior to determine whether the changes have produced the desired effects. One long-term goal of therapy is to make people better problem solv- ers through techniques such as means–end analysis, so that they can make their own adjustments when confronting new problems. |
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Term
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Definition
- Action identification The way you think of or label whatever action you are performing.
- Attitude A personal evaluation of the likely outcome of an action and the desirability of that outcome.
- Comparator A mechanism that compares two values to each other.
- Deliberative mindset A careful mindset used while deciding whether to take an action.
- Disengage To cease and put aside self-regulation with regard to some goal.
- Feedback hierarchy An organization of feedback loops, in which superordinate loops act by providing reference values to subordinate loops.
- Goal intention The intention to attain some particular outcome.
- Homeostasis Regulation around a constant, steady state.
- Implemental mindset A positively biased mindset that’s used while implementing an intention to act. |
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Term
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Definition
- Implementation intention; The intention to take spe- cific actions in specific contexts.
- Means–end analysis -The process of creating a plan to attain an overall goal (end) by breaking it into succes- sively more concrete goals (means).
- Negative feedback loop A self-regulating system that maintains conformity to some comparison value.
- Principle; A broad, abstract action quality that could be displayed in any of several programs.
- Program; A guideline for the actions that take place in some category of events (as a script).
- Subjective norm; Your impression of how relevant others value an action and your interest in pleasing them.
- Subliminal stimuli; Stimuli presented too quickly to be consciously recognized.
- System concept; A very abstract guide for behavior, such as an ideal sense of self. |
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