COGNITIVE APPROACH PERCEPTIONS INTERPRETATIONS BELIEFS Cato Grønnerød PSY2600

COGNITION AND PERSONALITY PERCEPTIONS INTERPRETATIONS GOALS Cato Grønnerød PSY1006

INTRODUCTION  Cognitive approaches to personality focus on differences in how people process information  Cognition refers to awareness and thinking as well as to specific mental acts such as perceiving, interpreting, remembering, believing, anticipating, attributing

THREE LEVELS OF COGNITION  Perception Process of imposing order on information received by our sense organs  Interpretation Process of making sense of, or explaining, events in the world  Beliefs and desires Standards and goals people develop for evaluating themselves and others © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

PERSONALITY REVEALED THROUGH…  Perception Field Dependence-Independence Pain Tolerance  Interpretation Explanatory Style / Attributions Automatic Thoughts Personal Constructs  Beliefs and Desires Outcome Expectations Self-Efficacy Long-Term Beliefs © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

PERSONALITY REVEALED THROUGH PERCEPTION  Field Dependence-Independence  Pain Tolerance and Sensation Reducing- Augmenting © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

FIELD DEPENDENCE- INDEPENDENCE  Field independent people Have the ability to focus on details despite the clutter of background information (relative to field dependent)  Measures used to assess field-dependence Rod and Frame Test (RFT) Embedded Figures Test (EFT) © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

FIELD DEPENDENCE- INDEPENDENCE  Field independent persons Favor natural sciences, math, engineering More analytical, sees and favors complexity More interpersonally detached  Field dependent persons Favor social sciences and education More holistic, intuitive and contextual Attentive to social cues, oriented toward other people © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

FIELD DEPENDENCE- INDEPENDENCE  Field independent people Better able to screen out distracting information and focus on a task Police officers better at filtering out distracting info and deciding when to shoot  Field independent students Learn more effectively than field dependent students in hypermedia-based instructional environment © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

PAIN TOLERANCE  Aneseth Petrie’s reducer-augmenter theory of pain tolerance and Sensation Reducing- Augmenting People with low pain tolerance have a nervous system that is amplified or augmented to subjective impact of sensory input People with high pain tolerance have a nervous system that is dampened or reduced effects of sensory information © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

PAIN TOLERANCE  Reducers seek strong stimulation, perhaps in order to compensate for lower sensory reactivity  Reducers may use substances (nicotine, caffeine, alcohol, other drugs) to artificially “lift” their arousal level © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

PERSONALITY REVEALED THROUGH INTERPRETATION  Kelly’s Personal Construct Theory  Locus of Control  Learned Helplessness © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

SOSIAL-KOGNITIVT PERSPEKTIV  Kontrollokus (Rotter) Generalisert forventning om personlig kontroll Indre lokus Livsomstendigheter er stort sett under personlig kontroll og avhengig av egen atferd Ytre lokus Livsomstendigheter er stort sett styrt av ytre faktorer som skjebne, hell, tilfeldigheter, mektige andre personer

LOCUS OF CONTROL  Rotter’s “expectancy model” of learning behavior Learning depends on the degree to which a person values a reinforcer—its reinforcement value People differ in their expectations for reinforcement— some believe they are in control of outcomes, whereas others do not © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

LOCUS OF CONTROL  Locus of control describes person’s interpretation of responsibility for events  External locus of control Generalized expectancies that events are outside of one’s control  Internal locus of control Generalized expectancies that reinforcing events are under one’s control, and that one is responsible for major life outcomes © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

LEARNED HELPLESSNESS  Animals (including humans) when subjected to unpleasant and inescapable circumstances, become passive and accepting of a situation, in effect learning to be helpless © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

EXPLANATORY STYLE  Tendency that some people have to use certain attributional categories when explaining causes of events  Three broad categories of attributions External or internal Stable or unstable Global or specific © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

EXPLANATORY STYLE  Pessimistic explanatory style Emphasizes internal, stable, and global causes for negative events Associated with feelings of helplessness and poor adjustment  Explanatory style is stable over time r=.54 for questionaire and coding from diaries 52 years later © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

EXPLANATORY STYLE  Explanatory Style and Depression Internal: Everything is my own fault Stable: This is how it’s always been and always will be Global: This is how my life is, I’m not good at anything  Cognitive therapy will try to change these attributions © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

AUTOMATIC THOUGHTS  Automatic thoughs precede and cause emotions Automatic apprisals of situations Specific and discrete Rapid and immediate Tied to depression Modifying the thought will change the emotion

KELLY’S PERSONAL CONSTRUCT THEORY  Human Nature Search for meaning Lack of meaning creates anxiety  Humans-as-scientists People attempt to understand, predict, and control events  Personal constructs Constructs person uses to interpret and predict events © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

KELLY’S PERSONAL CONSTRUCT THEORY  Fundamental Postulate “A person’s processes are psychologically channelized by the ways in which he anticipates events”  Commonality corollary If two people have similar construct systems, they will be psychologically similar © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

KELLY’S PERSONAL CONSTRUCT THEORY  Post-modernism An intellectual position grounded in notion that reality is constructed, that every person and every culture has unique version of reality, with none having privilege  Sociality corollary To understand a person, must understand how she construes the social world © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

KELLY’S PERSONAL CONSTRUCT THEORY  Clinical application Wanted to demonstrate to his clients that the constructs are hypotheses, not facts Problem reformulation Role Construct Repertory Test (Rep Test) Assess similarities and differences in triads of important people in a persons life Fixed-Role Therapy The client plays a role with characteristics different from them selves

PERSONALITY REVEALED THROUGH GOALS  People differ in their goals, and these differences reveal and are part of personality  Personal Projects Analysis  Self-Efficacy  Mastery Orientation  Regulatory Focus  Cognitive-Affective Personality System © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

PERSONAL PROJECTS ANALYSIS  Personality is what structures a person’s daily life through the selection of goals and desires, that then determine specific strategies that people use  Emphasizes the “doing” of personality over the trait approach’s “having” of personality  Emphasizes active nature of personality  Happiness is related to feeling of control over one’s projects

SOSIAL-KOGNITIVT PERSPEKTIV  Mestringstro (Self-Efficacy, Bandura) Tro på eller tilllit til egen evne til å utføre en spesifikk oppgave eller gjennomføre en konkret atferd for å oppnå et ønsket mål Situasjonsavhengig

EXPECTATIONS  Cognitions than explicitly anticipate future events  Outcome expectations An estimate that a given behavior will lead to a particular outcome  Self-Efficacy / Efficacy Expectations The belief that one can execute a specific course of action to achieve a goal

SELF-EFFICACY (BANDURA)  High self-efficacy beliefs often lead to effort and persistence on tasks  Self-efficacy and performance mutually influence one another  Will affect goal setting  ”Whether you think you can or you can’t, you’re usually right”

SOSIAL-KOGNITIVT PERSPEKTIV  Hva øker egen mestringstro? Egen erfaring Konkret erfaring med relevant atferd Observasjonslæring Å se andre lykkes Verbal oppfordring Å bli fortalt at man kan Lav emosjonell aktivering Engstelse og/eller utmattelser senker mestringstro

SELF-EFFICACY  What increases self-efficacy? Own experience Hands-on experience of relevant behaviour Observational learning To see others succeed Verbal encouragment To be told that one is able Low emotional activation Worries, stress and/or exhaustion decreases self-efficacy

SELF-EFFICACY  Information on Self-Efficacy Information on Self-Efficacy ”It is our duty as human beings to proceed as though our limits of our capabilities did not exist” ”Whether you think you can or you can’t, you’re usually right” “Confidence is what you have before you understand the problem”

LONG-TERM BELIEFS  It is a dire necessity to be loved or approved by virtually every significant other person in the community  One should be thoroughly competent, adequate and achieving in all possible respects in order to be worthwile  It is awful and catastrophic when things are not the way one would very much like them to be

LONG-TERM BELIEFS  Human unhappiness is externally caused, and we have little or no ability to control our own sorrow  Our past history is an all-important determinant of our present behavior; if something once strongly affected our life, it should always have a similar effect  There is invariably a right, precise and perfect solution to human problems, and it is catastrophic if this solution is not found

MASTERY ORIENTATION (DWECK)  ”Entity” theory of intelligence View their intelligence as unchangeable and fixed Having to work hard is perceived as evidence of low intelligence  ”Incremental” theory of intelligence Intelligence can be increased through effort and persistence Not threatened by failure

REGULATORY FOCUS (HIGGINS)  Promotion focus Concerened with advancement, growth and accomplishments Eagerness, approach and ”going for gold”  Prevention focus Concerened with protection, safety, prevention of failure Vigilance, caution, prevention

SOSIAL-KOGNITIVT PERSPEKTIV  Kognitivt-affektivt personlighetssystem (Mischel & Shoda) Innkodingsstrategier Vi oppfatter og kategoriserer situasjoner forskjellig Påvirker igjen hvordan vi reagerer Forventninger og oppfatninger ”Hvis-så-ellers”-konstruksjoner av atferd og utfall

SOSIAL-KOGNITIVT PERSPEKTIV  Kognitivt-affektivt personlighetssystem (Mischel & Shoda, forts.) Mål og verdier Forskjellige mål og verdier påvirker atferd Affekter Kan virke selvforsterkende Nevrotisisme Kompetanse og selvregulering Evne til selvregulering og kontroll Evne til å belønne seg selv

COGNITIVE-AFFECTIVE PERSONALITY SYSTEM (MISCHEL)  Personality is an organization of cognitive and affective activities that influence how people respond to certain kinds of situations  Focus on process more than traits  Mental activities such as construals, goals, expectations, beliefs, feelings, self- regulation, abilities, plans, and strategies

COGNITIVE-AFFECTIVE PERSONALITY SYSTEM (MISCHEL)  People differ in the distinct organization of their cognitive and affective processes, and in their accessability of these processes  ”If … then”-propositions IF situation A THEN X, IF situation B THEN Y  The psychological situation organizes behavior

INTELLIGENCE  Achievement versus aptitude views of intelligence  “g” or general intelligence versus domain- specific intelligences  Widely accepted definition of intelligence (Gardner, 1983) Application of cognitive skill and knowledge to solve problems, learn, and achieve goals valued by the individual and the culture  Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE  Goleman  Traditional measures of intelligence predict school performance, but not outcomes later in life, such as occupational attainment, salary, marital quality  Emotion intelligence strongly predicts these life outcomes © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE  Emotional intelligence includes a set of five specific abilities 1. Awareness of our own feelings and bodily signals, being able to identify our own emotions, and make distinctions 2. Ability to regulate emotions, especially negative emotions, and to manage stress © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE 3. Ability to control one’s impulses, direct attention and effort, delay gratification, and stay on task toward goals 4. Ability to decode social and emotional cues of others, empathy 5. Ability to influence and guide others without incurring anger, resentment © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

SUMMARY AND EVALUATION  Cognitive approaches to personality focus on differences in how people process information  People differ in how they think, perceive, interpret, remember, believe, desire, and anticipate events in their lives.  Personality psychologists are interested in these differences as well as characteristics of cognition that all humans share © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

COGNITIVE THERAPY  In the 1950s behavioural theory and therapy (Skinner etc.) was prominent  In the 1960s other theorists (esp. Aaron Beck) proposed the importance of thoughts/cognitions  Albert Ellis added the emotional dimension and the “rationalisation” of thoughts and feelings  Since then, many other theorists and models

MAIN ELEMENTS IN COGNITIVE THEORY  Negative automatic thoughts  Negative schemas/negative schema content Leads to process of logical errors/cognitive distortions  Content negative with respect to Self World Future

SCHEMAS  Are permanent  Long term reference material about things in the world  A schema is like a box that contains the results of previous experiences as interpreted by the person Outcome expectations  The content of the schema can be positive or negative or a mixture

COMMON NEGATIVE SCHEMA CONTENT  Nature of self: I am no good  Integrity of self: I am unsafe/will come to harm  Nature of social world: I am or will be alone  Nature of the world: The world is bad/against me  Nature of others: Other people are bad/against me

STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS (Includes awareness of sensations) ACTIVATING EVENT SCHEMAS AUTOMATIC THOUGHTS Emotional Response Behavioural Response SCHEMA PROCESS

LOGICAL ERRORS  Errors in making conclusions from sensory input  Also known as “cognitive distortions”  Not errors in perception, but errors in interpretation  Misinterpretation or non-objective interpretation

TYPES OF LOGICAL ERRORS  Catastrophization More dire than justified Unjustified negative prediction  Overgeneralization  Personalization Invalid assumption of responsibility Mind-reading

TYPES OF LOGICAL ERRORS  Selective abstraction Biased weighting Not considering all the facts Black & white thinking False absolutes  Arbitrary thinking “Shoulds” Emotional reasoning

A ctivating event B elief or thought Emotional C onsequence He’s useless Anger Referee awards Penalty WHICH LOGICAL ERROR? - Invalid allocation of responsibility - Overgeneralisation - Biased Weighting - Must or Should Emotional Reasoning

WHICH LOGICAL ERROR? A ctivating event B elief or thought Emotional C onsequence My career is over, this is the end Depression Bike Smash Catastrophisation -More dire than justified -Unjustified negative prediction - Overgeneralisation (External attribution)

A ctivating event B elief or thought Emotional C onsequence I’ll probably embarrass myself Anxious Going to a party WHICH LOGICAL ERROR? Catastrophisation - More dire than justified - Unjustified Negative Prediction - Biased Weighting

WHAT GOES WRONG?  We make logical errors in our childhood  We develop early maladaptive schemas  We make logical errors after Activating (Critical) Events Have frequent negative automatic thoughts  We believe in and use dysfunctional strategies

GOALS OF THERAPY  In the Moment Change logical errors to appropriate logic Reduce the frequency of automatic thoughts Change the balance of schema content from negative to positive Help the client change their behaviour

GOALS OF THERAPY  Later in Therapy Change logical errors to appropriate logic in more pervasive way Change schema content Build new schema content Revise memories Change meta-cognitions regarding behavioural strategies