1. Chapter 7:
Cognitive Aspects of
Personality
Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

2. Roots in Gestalt Psychology
Human beings seek meaning in their
environments
We organize the sensations we receive
into meaningful perceptions
Complex stimuli are not reducible to the
sum of their parts
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3. Kurt Lewin’s Field Theory
Life space
◦ All internal and external forces, and their
relationships to one another
◦ e.g., family, religion, work, etc.
Contemporaneous causation
Behavior is caused at the moment of its
occurrence by all the forces acting at that moment
How affected you are by the environmental
forces and context of the situation is your
level of “field dependence”
field = the forces/context around you at a given
moment that can affect your behavior
See table 7.1 in textbook

4. Schema Theory
Schema
◦ A cognitive structure that organizes knowledge and
expectations about one’s environment
◦ Determines how we think and act
◦ Different experiences lead to different ways of
“seeing things”
◦ We may often expect others to share our schemas
Script
◦ Schemas for familiar events
◦ e.g., eating at a restaurant
◦ What if your dinner partner has a different script for this? They
eat pizza with a fork, don’t usually leave a tip, take 20 minutes to
choose something from the menu, and order dessert & coffee.
While you use your hands, always tips, make choices quickly, and
leave as soon as you are done eating.

5. Categorization
 We tend to organize events, objects, and people
into categories
 Positive effects of categorization
◦ Quickly understand complex information
◦ Make likely inferences about new things
 Negative effects of categorization
◦ Stereotypes
◦ Overlook individuating characteristics
 One of the first categories we tend to put people
into is gender, male or female.
When it is ambiguous, we feel uncomfortable and
confused because our normal categorization process
isn’t working and our scripts fail us
On the other hand, if we frequently came into contact
with gender ambiguity, we would develop a schema,
scripts, and a probably a different categorization process

6. George Kelly
Personal Construct Theory
◦ People actively endeavor to understand
the world and construct their own
theories about human behavior
◦ “Every man is, in his own particular way,
a scientist” — Kelly
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7. Kelly: The Role Construct Repertory
Test
Assesses personal construct systems
Think of:
◦ A teacher you liked
◦ Your boss
◦ A successful person you know
Which two are similar? How?
Who is different? How?
Over many triads, the test-taker’s constructs
emerge by identifying common themes in your
assessment of a “type” of person
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8. Social Intelligence
Knowledge and skills relevant to
interpersonal situations
◦ Including: empathy, compassion, humor,
etc.
◦ Emotional intelligence
◦ Emotion knowledge
Similar to Howard Gardner’s “multiple
intelligences” theory
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9. Explanatory Style
A characteristic way of interpreting life events
Optimism and Pessimism
◦ Optimistic style is generally associated with better outcomes
◦ Implications for achievement
Learned Helplessness (Seligman)
◦ Repeated exposure to unavoidable punishment leads to the acceptance
of avoidable punishment
Cognitive intervention can reduce the
depressive effect of pessimism
Positive Psychology (Seligman)
◦ New ways of thinking can be trained
◦ Learned Optimism
◦ http://youtu.be/Q-Vhjmdp4nI (Interview with
Seligman)

10. Julian Rotter
Behavior depends upon outcome
expectancy and reinforcement value
Outcome expectancy
◦ Person’s expectation that his or her
behavior will be reinforced
Reinforcement value
◦ Value of the expected reinforcer to the
individual
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11. Julian Rotter
Behavior potential
◦ Likelihood that a behavior will be performed in
a particular situation
Generalized vs. specific expectancies
◦ Generalized expectancies apply to categories of
behaviors and situations
 General personality traits & behaviors
 Ex. I don’t enjoy parties as a general rule because I
expect them to be dull and I get nervous talking to
new people
◦ Specific expectancies apply to particular
instances of behaviors and situations
 Ex. I am looking forward to my best friend’s birthday
party

12. Julian Rotter
Six psychological needs
◦ Recognition-status
◦ Dominance
◦ Independence
◦ Protection-dependency
◦ Love and affection
◦ Physical comfort
Secondary reinforcers
◦ Associated with satisfaction of these needs
◦ Subjective value of reinforcers, depending on person
◦ Ex. A promotion at work gives me the ability to have a roof
over my head, eat, and meet basic biological needs (primary).
It also is important to me because I get more recognition at
work, can move into a bigger place to be more comfortable,
and get to be work more independently in my new job
(secondary). These are things I value, therefore I worked
hard to get the promotion.

13. Julian Rotter
 Locus of control
◦ Beliefs about one’s ability to affect outcomes
◦ Stable individual difference
 Internal locus of control
◦ Outcomes are the result of one’s own actions
◦ More achievement-oriented
 External locus of control
◦ Believe events are beyond their personal control
◦ Includes components of chance and powerful others
◦ More likely to suffer stress and depression
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14. Albert Bandura
Self-system
◦ The set of cognitive processes by which a
person perceives, evaluates, and regulates
his or her own behavior so it’s functionally
efficient and appropriate
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15. Albert Bandura
How can new behaviors be acquired in
the absence of reinforcement?
Observational Learning
◦ Vicarious learning and modeling
Learning Aggressive Behavior
◦ Bobo doll experiments
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16. Albert Bandura
Factors that influence modeling:
◦ Outcome expectancy
 People are more likely to imitate behaviors that they
believe lead to positive outcomes
◦ Characteristics of the model
 Age, gender, status, competence, etc.
◦ Characteristics of the behavior
 Simple and salient behaviors
◦ Attributes of the observer
 Self-esteem, dependence, cognitive development
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17. Albert Bandura
Processes underlying observational
learning
◦ Attention
 Got to pay attention when observing
◦ Retention (Symbolic representation)
 Got to commit it to memory
◦ Motor reproduction (Transformation to
action)
 Got to put into practice what you observed
◦ Motivation
 Got to want to learn it
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18. Albert Bandura
Self-efficacy
◦ A belief abut how competently one will be
able to enact a behavior in a particular
situation
Self-efficacy determines:
◦ If we even try to act
◦ How long we persist in our behavior
◦ How success or failure affects future
behavior
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19. Albert Bandura
Self-efficacy is based on:
◦ Past success and failures at similar tasks
◦ Mastery of the skill
◦ Vicarious experiences
◦ Seeing others / Social Modeling
◦ Social/Verbal persuasion
◦ By others
◦ Emotional reactions
◦ How we feel about the behavior
Self-efficacyis specific to the
situation/behavior
◦ Unlike self-esteem, which is global
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20. Albert Bandura
Self-regulation
◦ People’s control over their own achievements
 Setting goals for themselves
 Evaluating their success
 Rewarding themselves
Includesself-efficacy and schemas
Focuses on internal control of behavior
◦ Intrapersonal approach
◦ Close to social psychological approaches
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21. Humans as Computers
People as information processors
◦ Similar to how computers manipulate
information
Shortcomings of artificial intelligence
◦ Turing Test
◦ Personality is difficult to simulate
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22. Cognitive Approach
Limits
◦ Often ignores unconscious and emotional
aspects of personality
◦ Some theories tend to oversimplify complex
thought processes
◦ May underemphasize situational influences
on behavior
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23. Cognitive Approach
View of free will
◦ Free will through active human thought
processes
◦ Individual responsibility for thoughts, feelings,
and actions is emphasized
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24. Cognitive Approach
Implications for therapy
◦ Uses understanding of perception, cognition,
and attribution to change thought processes
◦ Emotion and behavior can be changed by
changing cognitions & perceptions of situations
◦ Ex. Cognitive Behavior Therapy
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