Lec 10: Cognitive Perspective
Schemas
How our schemas affect personality
Cognitive models explaining personality
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include info about specific cases called exemplars->members of the category
mental organisations of information
can include many elements
Emotion qualities
perceptual images
Info about time sequence
idealised best member of the category called prototype
Fuzzy set
schema defined in a vague way by a set of criteria that are relevant but not necessary
eg. Mammals have hair, give birth to young & warm blooded BUT got exceptions like platypus & anteater
Effects of schemas
Fill-in info lacking from events from memory->assume what's in schema is true of new event cos it's been true before eg. story about someone sleeping, you would assume the person turned off the lights & slept on a bed
Influence what info is remembered eg what u rmb abt school experience is diff from person to person
Tells us where to look for info eg. buying house->notice things like appliances, location and size of room etc.
can be self-perpetuating
Facilitate coding of new info
more likely to rmb what confirms your expectation than what doesn't eg. fear of snakes->likely only to rmb that they are poisonous but don't rmb that certain snakes are harmless
this makes schema more solid in the future, more resistant to change
suggest what you're going to find
schemas are organisations of memories
Episodic memory
Semantic memory
categories of objects & concepts
eg. schema for boats->what boats look like & words that describe its nature and function
organised by meaning
Elements of the event follow a time sequence
Eg. Boat crash->hear the motor and waves, then crashing of boats, people evacuating from the boat
memory for events & experiences in space & time
Script
used to perceive & interpret a common event
provides a perception with a sense of duration & sense of flow & change throughout the event
schema for a certain class of episodic events
eg. dining at restaurant=wait to be seated, given menu, order food, ask for the bill before leaving
most exp are coded both semantic & episodic at once
eg.conceptual categories (semantic) develop through repeated exposure to regular experiences (episodic)
socially relevant schemas
Self-schemas
social cognition
ppl form cognitive categories STEGS
varies
the process of forming categories that apply to socially meaningful stimuli
Environment
Social situations
Gender roles
Social relations
Types of ppl
diff in content & complexity of schemas from person to person,
eg. some ppl have elaborate mental representations of diversity among wines while others only know of red & white wine
Depends on their amount of experiences in the given domain
compared to other schemas
Effects of self-schemas
Schematic representations of the self
Larger & more complex
Has more emotional elements
Interfere with coding of new info
Can bias recall of past events
Self-perpetuating
eg. family member who thinks she is always right & recall diff of event where she was wrong
cos u spend more time noticing things abt yourself
eg. deep-seated beliefs that SG govt is good.Interfere with coding of info that there are elderly suffering from lack of support
self-schemas abt ability
Incremental views
Entity views
goal is to prove ability
Failure results in distress & desire to quit
ability is fixed, unchanging
Self-complexity
low self-complexity
High self-complexity
ppl keep diff self-aspects distinct from each other->individual is a diff person under diff contexts eg. how u behave in front of parents & friends in school
feelings related to a bad event in one aspect of life tends to spill over into other aspects of the self eg. losing a competition makes u feel bad about your self
doesn't happen for these individuals cos there are separations & boundaries between their self-aspects
Attend to & rmb info concerning consistency
failure seen as opportunity to increase ability
Attend to & rmb info concerning change eg. fall in grades mean need to put in more effort
goal is to extend ability
ability seen as increasing with experience
abstract knowledge
Dual process models
Attribution
causes can be placed on dimension of
Fundamental attribution error
inferring the cause of an event
Locus of causality
Stability
Internal (ability, effort)
External (chance factors)
Stable (fixed)
Unstable (variable circumstances)
self success attributed to stable internal causes eg. won the competition because I was hard working and talented
self failure attributed to unstable causes, bad luck eg. lost the competition because I ate bad food last night and didn't have much time to train anyway
Cognitive Person Variables by Mischel
Conscious processing
Intuitive processing
"cool system", slower, conscious, rational
Evolutionarily newer
effortful reasoning & programs of instruction
Dominates when slow processing is required
"hot system", quick, automatic, experiential
Evolutionarily older
Intuitive problem solving, heuristic strategies, automated process
Dominates when speed is needed
variables ExCESS
Adequate theory of personality must take into account 5 classes of variables that are influenced by learning
Expectancies
Subjective values
Encoding strategies & personal constructs
Self-regulatory systems & plans
Competencies
Diff ppl have diff patterns of competencies
ppl can construe events differently depending on the schema they're using
hence possible that ppl can react to the same situation diff
covers schemas & the unique worldview each person develops
need to know expectancies->an anticipation that one kind of event typically leads to another event
eg. hearing siren is often followed by seeing an emergency vehicle
encoding strategies not enough to know what ppl will do
Behaviour-outcome expectancy
belief that particular acts typically lead to particular outcomes
Eg. entering a restaurant (behaviour) followed by being greeted by a waiter (outcome)
the respective value of each possible outcome of various behaviours
if expected outcome is of no value to the person, expectancies won't matter
ppl set goals,make plans & do the things that need to be done to fulfil their plans
Cognitive-affective processing system
schemas have a conditional quality
we often use hedges to describe others
Ppl develop complex organisations of info abt themselves & world
if...then property
conditions under which we think others act a particular way
ppl normally think in conditional terms about each other
Individuality arises from
ppl differ in accessibility of their various schemas & cues that evoke the schemas
Ppl differ in their if...then profiles eg. someone being unresponsive may be interpreted differently by diff ppl->can be seen as rude, shy, or the person feeling sick
eg. describing Bryan who's extroverted to coursemates but very quiet when meeting new people
diff situations provide diff opp for ppl with diff competencies to take advantage of