1. The Social-Cognitive Perspective of Personality
From the unconscious to traits to the effects of thoughts and the environment on personality

2. Social-Cognitive Perspective
Social Learning Theory
People gain personality by watching others (it is learned) and being either reinforced or punished
Albert Bandura
In other words… Monkey See – Monkey Do

3. Reciprocal Determinism
Social-Cognitive theorists believed however that it was more than the environment that impacted personality
Reciprocal Determinism
the interaction between a person’s behavior, cognitions (the way you think about the world) and the environment to create your personality
Bandura also focused on the importance of Self-Efficacy
the belief that you are capable of performing in a certain manner to reach your goals
i.e. = you believe you can do things
Cognition
High SE = confidence in abilities
Environment
Behavior
Low SE = less confidence in abilities

4. How Reciprocal Determinism Can Work
The TV you watch, friends you hang with, music you listen to were all chosen by you (your personal characteristics)
People’s characteristics influence the kind of environment in which they find themselves.
Those environments, in turn, influence and modify people’s personal characteristics.

5. Personal Control (also called locus of control)
Our sense of controlling our environment rather than the environment controlling us
Two Types:
Internal Locus of Control
And
External Locus of Control

6. Internal Locus of Control
The perception that one controls one’s own fate and environmental influences

7. External Locus of Control
The perception that chance or outside forces beyond one’s personal control determine one’s fate.

8. Learned Helplessness
Hopeless feeling when an animal or human can’t avoid repeated bad events
People often perceive control as external and may often eventually give up