cognitive approach perceptions interpretations beliefs cato grønnerød psy2600

COGNITIVE APPROACH

PERCEPTIONS

INTERPRETATIONS

BELIEFS

Cato GrønnerødPSY2600

COGNITION AND PERSONALITY

PERCEPTIONS

INTERPRETATIONS

GOALS

Cato GrønnerødPSY1006

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

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

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


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


PERSONALITY REVEALED THROUGH PERCEPTION

Field Dependence-Independence Pain Tolerance and Sensation Reducing-

Augmenting


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)



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



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


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


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


PERSONALITY REVEALED THROUGH INTERPRETATION

Kelly’s Personal Construct Theory Locus of Control Learned Helplessness


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


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


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


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


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


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

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



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



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


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

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

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”

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• ”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”

http://www.des.emory.edu/mfp/self-efficacy.html

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

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


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



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



• 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


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

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

Activating event Belief or thoughtEmotional

Consequence

He’s useless

AngerReferee awards Penalty

WHICH LOGICAL ERROR?

- Invalid allocation of responsibility

- Overgeneralisation- Biased Weighting

- Must or Should Emotional Reasoning



Consequence

My career is over, this is

the end

DepressionBike

Smash

Catastrophisation- More dire than justified- Unjustified negative

prediction

- Overgeneralisation (External attribution)


Consequence

I’ll probably

embarrass myself

AnxiousGoing to a

party


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

cognitive approach perceptions interpretations beliefs cato grønnerød psy2600

Documents

mcgrawhill companies

fielddependence rod

attributing slide

field independent students

field dependent students

field dependent measures

pain tolerance reducers

high pain tolerance