Lecture 8: Cognitive Topics in Personality

Question 1

What is the cognitive experiential domain?

Answer 1

• memories, thoughts, cognitive experiences

- Differences in personality based on processing information

Question 2

Am I driven by my mental activities?

Answer 2

• Answer: yes and no
• When we are conscious we are driven by conscious processes, but we are also driven by unconscious
• Self concept is relatively stable over time. Those cognitive representations of ourselves play a central role in how we perceive information and process it. These patterns can be gleaned from personality differences.

Question 3

What does cognition refer to?

Answer 3

• Cognition refers to awareness and thinking, as well as to specific mental acts such as perceiving, interpreting, remembering, believing, anticipating
• All of these mental activities transform sensory input into mental representations (information processing)
• We process information uniquely even though reality is objective

Question 4

What 3 levels of cognition are personality psychologists interested in?

Answer 4

1. Perception: process of imposing order on information received by our sense organs
   - Human perception not only describes what you see but how you process it (beyond what meets the eye). The process of imposing order on what we see
2. Interpretation: process of making sense of, or explaining, events in the world
   - Gives us info about human personality
3. Conscious goals: standard and goals people develop for evaluating themselves and others
   - Guiding future actions
4. And an additional domain related to cognition
   Intelligence

Question 5

How is personality revealed through perception?

Answer 5

• We all perceive reality through our own lens (mental representation). Based on our sensory and perceptual systems.
• Individual differences in perceptual style: Field dependence-independence. Pain tolerance and sensation reducing augmenting.

Question 6

What is field dependence?

Answer 6

Field dependent people see big picture more readily than details; more focused on surrounding context (see patterns; they are dependent on the field)

Question 7

What is field independence?

Answer 7

Field independent people have the ability to focus on details despite the clutter of background information

Question 8

What measures are used to assess field dependence-independence?

Answer 8

• Rod and frame test (RFT)
• Embedded figure test (EFT)
• Field dependent and independent people vary along a continuum, it is not categorical.
• Measure show this is stable over time

Question 9

Describe Wilkin’s rod and frame test?

Answer 9

• Conditions: darkroom, glowing rod
• Task: keep rod upright using dial
• Manipulation: adjust tilt of rod, frame (square box around it), chair
• Field independence: ignoring external cues around rod (i.e., the frame, not distracted by tilting of the frame) and use body orientation as guide
• Field dependence: adjust rod in the direction of tilted frame
• Quite time consuming and difficult to set up

Question 10

Describe the characteristics of field-dependent vs. independent people

Answer 10

• Field independent people are better able to attend to task relevant cues. Less distracted by extraneous details and More analytic approach to problem-solving
• Field dependent people do not perform as well as field independent people in situations marked by unusual degrees of novelty or lack of structure. Strong social skills –> More attentive to social context (attending to cues, body language, tone of voice, environment, i.e., reading the room)

Question 11

Field dependence-independence and life choices

Answer 11

• Education: Field independent people favor natural sciences, math, engineering, whereas field dependent people favour social sciences and education
• Interpersonal relations: Field independent people are more interpersonally detached, whereas field dependent people are attentive to social cues, oriented toward other people.

Question 12

What is the current research on field dependence-independence

Answer 12

• Information and focus on a task: Study of police officers (making shooting decisions, 100 police officers. They found that field-dependent police officers made more mistakes than field-independent police officers. They removed distractions in their environment and made more correct shooting decisions.). Better at paying attention to detail and filtering out what is not relevant
• Field independent students learn more effectively than field-dependent students in multimedia-based instructional environments (e.g., graphics, sound, and video). Embedded points, selective attention
• One isnt better than the other necessarily, and you can practice or train the skills to be one or the other

Question 13

What is Aneseth Petrie’s reducer-augmenter theory of pain tolerance?

Answer 13

1. People with low pain tolerance (augmenters) have a nervous system that amplifies or augments subjective impact of sensory input
2. People with high pain tolerance (reducers) have a nervous system that dampens or reduces effects of sensory information
   i. Reducers seek strong stimulation, perhaps in order to compensate for lower sensory reactivity (i.e., thrill-seeking, parachute jumping)
   ii. Reducers may use substances (nicotine, caffeine, alcohol, other drugs) to artificially ‘lift” their arousal level
   iii. Reducers listen to their music louder and find boredom really unpleasant

Question 14

How is personality revealed through interpretation?

Answer 14

• Locus of control (LOC)
• Learned helplessness
• George Kelly’s theory
• Walter Mischel CAPS theory

Question 15

What is locus of control?

Answer 15

• Locus of control describes a person’s interpretation of responsibility for events in his/her life
• Internally vs. externally: where does responsibility lie for your success/failures

Question 16

What are generalized expectancies?

Answer 16

• People base their expectations about what will happen in new situation based on relatively stable expectancies about their ability to influence events
• External locus of control: Generalized expectancies that events are outside of one’s control (luck, fate) e.g., eeyore
• Internal locus of control: Generalized expectancies that reinforcing events are under one’s control and that one is responsible for major life outcomes e.g., Ghandi

Question 17

What is learned helplessness?

Answer 17

When subjected to unpleasant and inescapable circumstances, animals (and us too) become passive and accepting of a situation, in effect learning to be helpless
- Uncontrollable bad events –> perceived lack of control–>
Generalized helpless behaviour

Question 18

Describe Seligman’s experiment on learned helplessness

Answer 18

Part 1:
- Condition 1: inescapable shock
- Condition 2: escapable shock (Press nose to button to stop)
Part 2:
- Put in shuttle box
- Light dimmed
- 10 seconds later, dogs got shocked unless they jumped to safe side. Condition 1 dogs responded with agitation at first but then eventually laid down and endured the shock, the dogs in condition 2 quickly learned that they could escape the shocks by jumping to the safe side.

Question 19

What is the version of seligman’s learned helplessness experiment that is done on humans?

Answer 19

Do this kind of research with humans too, not with shocks. Conditon 1 told that the correct pattern/combo of buttons will make annoying sound stop, condition 2 is told the same thing but nothing works and the sound doesn’t stop. The ones that were taught to be helpless didn’t even try to stop the noise in different environment (part 2)

Question 20

How has the research on learned helplessness been extended?

Answer 20

• Research exploring explanations we give to events, especially unpleasant ones
• Explanatory style: trait-like ways we can explain the causes of events
• Significant stability over time
• Learned helplessness by exposure

Question 21

What are the 3 dimensions of explanatory styles?

Answer 21

3 broad dimensions of causal attributions/explanations for unpleasant situations

• External or internal: cause of event as within oneself or outside oneself (my fault vs. beyond my control vs.)
• Stable or unstable: cause of event is unchangeable or changeable (permanent vs. temporary)
• Global or specific: cause of event is far reaching or isolated

Question 22

What is the optimistic explanatory style?

Answer 22

• Emphasizes external, unstable (temporary) and specific causes of bad events
• For example, my gf just broke up with me: External (she broke up with me bc her parents forced her), unstable (she broke up with me because she needs to devote time to
  the charity drive which only last a month), specific (she broke up with me because I dated Julie last week).

Question 23

What is the pessimistic explanatory style?

Answer 23

• Empathizes internal, stable (permanent), and global cause for bad events
• Associated with feelings of helplessness and poor adjustment:
• internal (my girlfriend broke up with me bc I suck), stable (and global

Question 24

How is personality revealed through goals?

Answer 24

• People differ in their goals, and these differences reveal and are part of personality
• Focus here is on intention (what you want to happen/achieve)
• Variety of terms used in research and theory: Personal strivings, Current concerns, Personal projects, Life tasks

Question 25

What is Kelly’s personal construct theory?

Answer 25

• People are like little scientists, generating hypotheses about the world, make predictions and test them.
• People need meaning in their lives: Predict future and Anticipate what’s next
• Personal constructs: the set of rules and ideas that we use to understand and interpret the world
• Personality differences: differences in these personal constructs i.e., lazy-hard working, altruist-egoist
• Anxiety: when our personal constructs do not help us understand unpredictable events. i.e., too rigid (little cognitive flexibility)
• George Kelly was a clinician, very influential in both personality and clinical settings

Question 26

What is the background of Walter Mischel’s: cognitive social learning theory?

Answer 26

• Number of modern personality theories expand on the idea of personality being expressed in goals
• These cognitive social learning theories emphasize cognitive and social processes whereby people learn to value and strive for certain goals over others
• Walter mischel (marshmallow guy) and cognitive affective personality system (CAPS)

Question 27

What is Walter Mischel’s CAPS theory?

Answer 27

• Critical of view that personality is a collection of static traits
• Redefined personality system as stable network of cognitive and affective processes that influence how one responds to different kinds of situations
• Processes: mental activities including construals (views), goals, expectations, beliefs, feelings, self-regulatory ability, plans, strategies.
• Acquired through learning history, cultural influences, genetics, biology
• People differ in the organization of their cognitive and affective processes- different situations activate CAPS differently
• Personality expressed in “if…then…” propositions: if situation A, then enact behavior X; if situation B, then person does Y.
• We respond to situational ingredients, which is why behavior varies in seemingly similar situations

Question 28

What is the widely accepted definition of intelligence and the types?

Answer 28

• Achievement vs. aptitude views of intelligence (IQ testing)
• “g” (general intelligence) vs. domain-specific intelligences
  (SAT, GRE, GMAT)
• Widely accepted def’n of intelligence: Application of cognitive skill and knowledge to solve problems, learn and achieve goals valued by the individual and the culture

Question 29

What is Gardner’s theory multiple intelligence?

Answer 29

• Verbal-linguistic (verbal skills; reading, writing, memorizing)
• Logical-mathematical (logic, abstraction, critical thinking, reasoning, numbers)
• Spatial-visual (spatial judgment, visualization ability)
• Bodily-kinesthetic (ability to control body movements, handle objects skillfully)
• Musical (sensitivity to sounds, rhythms, tones, and music; good pitch)
• Interpersonal (sensitivity to others’ moods, temperaments, motivations; cooperation)
• Intrapersonal (introspective and self-reflective capacity)
• Naturalist (attuned to nature, nurturing, interested in other species)

Question 30

What has the theory of multiple intelligences been used for?

Answer 30

Schools curriculum designed on theory of multiple intelligence

Question 31

What is emotional intelligence?

Answer 31

• Anybody can become angry - that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way - that is not within everybody’s power and is not easy” Aristotle
• Emotional intelligence (EI; Salovey and Mayer)
• Traditional measures of intelligence predict school performance, but not outcomes later in life, such as occupational attainment, salary, marital quality
• EI strongly predicts these life outcomes

Question 32

What five specific abilities does emotional intelligence include?

Answer 32

1) Awareness of own feelings and bodily signals
2) Ability to regulate emotions (esp. unwanted emotions)
3) Ability to control impulses, 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 or resentment

Question 33

What did Goleman suggest about EI and life?

Answer 33

Goleman suggested that EI may explain why some people with scholastic intelligence don’t have practical intelligence (e.g., interpersonal abilities, adaptable).

Question 34

What is the flynn effect?

Answer 34

Within populations, increased of 1 IQ point every 5 years

Question 35

What are the life outcomes associated with an internal locus of control?

Answer 35

• better academic achievement
• better interpersonal relations
• greater efforts to learn
• positive attitudes to exercise
• lower cigarette smoking
• lower hypertension & heart attacks

Question 36

What are the life outcomes associated with an external locus of control?

Answer 36

• more resigned to conditions as they are
• lower efforts to deal with health
• lower levels of psychological adjustment but in non responsive environments
• greater sense of satisfaction