Personality psychology chapter12 the cognitive

Schemas and Their Development• Schema—a mental organization of information – Perceptual images – Abstract knowledge – Feeling qualities – Time sequence information • Includes information

Chapter Twelve

The Cognitive Perspective

Schemas and Their Development

• Schema—a mental organization of information

– Perceptual images

– Abstract knowledge

– Feeling qualities

– Time sequence information

• Includes information about:

– Exemplars (specific examples)

– General characteristics

• Theories of Formations

– Generated around construct of prototype (best actual or

idealized member)

– Represent a composite of characteristics that are relevant,

Effects of Schemas

• Facilitate coding of new information

• Fill-in information lacking from events

• Influence what information is remembered

• Can be self-perpetuating

– Schemas guide what is remembered

– What you remember confirms schema

– Schema continues to guide what is

remembered

Organization of Memory

Schemas are organizations of memories

• Semantic Memory—organized by meaning

• Episodic Memory—organized by

sequence of events (space and time)

• Script—schemas for episodic events

– Results from multiple episodes of a given type

Socially Relevant Schemas

• Social Cognition—cognitive processes focusing

on socially meaningful stimuli

• People form cognitive categories for:

– Types of people

– Gender roles

– Environments

– Social situations

– Social relations

• Social cognitions differ in content and complexity from person to person, depending on experience

• Schematic representation of the self

• Larger and more complex than other schemas

• Has more emotional elements

• Effects of self-schema:

– Makes it easier to remember things that fit it

– Provides default information

– Identifies where to look for new information

– Can bias recall of past events

– May be used as a default for strangers

Entity and Incremental Schemas

• Entity views—abilities seen as unchanging

– Goal of task performance is to prove ability

– Failure results in distress and desire to quit

– Attend to and remember information concerning

consistency

• Incremental views—abilities seen as increasing with experience

– Goal of task performance is to extend ability

– Failure seen as opportunity to increase ability

– Attend to and remember information indicating change

• Inferring the cause of an event

• Provides information important to understanding

– Indicates kind of event

– Hints at likelihood of future occurrence

• Schemas assist in making attributions beyond

information that is available

• Self success attributed to stable internal causes

(ability)

• Self failure attributed to unstable causes, bad luck,

or too little effort

Activation and Memories

• Memory is organized in a network of interconnected nodes (areas of storage)

• Information from activated memory nodes is

represented in consciousness

• As a node is activated, partial activation spreads to related (linked) nodes

• Partial activation makes it easier for information to move into consciousness

– Priming—activation of a node of information in a task prior

to a task of interest (experimental uses)

• Schematic information varies in the ease of

activation depending on frequency of use

• Representations exist in patterns of activation across a neural network, rather than in nodes

• Patterns reflect simultaneous satisfaction of

multiple constraints

• Particular relevance to social perceptions and decision making

– Requires selection of one possibility from many

– Output takes the form of only one representation at a given time

• Organization of patterned network can be

Dual Process Models

• Two kinds of thought involved in cognition

– Conscious processing—effortful reasoning and

programs of instruction

• Implements rules and carries out logical steps of inference and action

• “Cool system,” slower, conscious, rational, evolutionarily newer

• Explicit knowledge

– Intuitive processing—intuitive problem solving, heuristic strategies, automated processes

• “Insights” often shake out of the system

• “Hot system,” quick, automatic, experiential, evolutionarily older

• Implicit knowledge

Cognitive Person Variables

• Adequate theory of personality must take into

account 5 classes of variables that are influenced

by learning (Mischel)

– Competencies—social skills and problem-solving strategies – Encoding strategies and personal constructs—schematic influences on individualized perspectives of the world

– Expectancies—important for understanding actions

• Expectancies involving sequential continuity in experience

• Behavior-outcome expectancies — connections suggesting causal influence

– Subjective values—reflected by the outcomes a person

wants

– Self-Regulatory Systems and Plans—setting goals, making

Cognitive-Affective Processing System

• People develop complex organizations of information about themselves and the

world

– These organizations have a conditional quality (hedges), which link behavior and affect to

situations

– Conditional qualities vary from person to

person

• Focused on identifying cognitive tendencies and contents of consciousness

• Procedures include:

– Think-aloud procedures—used during problem solving – Thought/experience sampling—reports of thought and actions at scheduled or random times

– Event recording/self-monitoring—reports of behavior, emotions, and thoughts associated with specific event types

• Important to contextualize assessment—allows identification of if…then… contingencies for

Problems in Behavior

• Difficulties arise from:

– Deficits in information-processing abilities

(encoding, attention)

– Faulty schemas of the world

– Negative schemas about self (cognitive triad)

• Overgeneralization of bad outcomes

• Arbitrary inferences—jump to negative conclusions without supporting evidence

• Catastrophize

• Cognitive Therapy—abandon faulty

schemas and build new ones

– Cognitive restructuring—identify automatic

self-defeating thoughts and replace with new self-talk

– Reality testing—challenge automated thought patterns to be tested against evidence