Lecture 1- What is personality psychology?

1) Introduction~ What is personality psychology?

1.1. Definition of personality
Includes beliefs, emotions and motivations
 “enduring”: somewhat consistent across time and place
 “distinctive”: differentiate people from one another

1.2. Personality as Structure

Units of analysis-
 “traits”: consistent style of emotion or behavior that a person displays
across situations
o everyone can be measured
o e.g. outgoing, honest
- on average in daily behavior compared to others
 “types”: combination of different personality traits
o types are qualitative different from each other
o More organization and abstraction than trait
o e.g. physique

1.3. Personality as Process

Personality “dynamics”
 Different motivational processes
e.g. tension reduction, self-actualization, biological drives
 Conscious VS unconscious thinking
 Emotional experiences
e.g. pride, guilt

1.4. Personality as Growth & Development

 Developmental patterns: a fixed pattern shared by everyone in their
respective stage in life (stage theory)
 Genetic factors
e.g. temperament: biological based emotional & behavioral tendencies
seen in early childhood
 Environmental factors
e.g. culture, social class, birth order

1.5. Personality as Intervention

Tool to understand people in trouble
 psychopathology and behavioral change
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2) Scientific Study of People
2.1. LOTS of data
L-data: life history  marriage, crime
O-data: observers  friends, parents  can check on observer reliability
with self-ratings
T-data: experiments / standardized testing
[participants cannot guess the research purpose  implicit measures of
personality unbiased] reaction time task
S-data: self-report data  questionnaires filled by self

 Data may not agree with one another

e.g. S-data VS O-data

2.2. Fixed VS Flexible measures

Fixed [nomothetic] Flexible [idiographic]

Measures Same items administered on Unstructured personality tests
all subjects  open-ended Qs
Results Standardized computations Qualitative data
 score
Limitations  Limited coverage of
personality issues
 Some items may not be
relevant

2.3. Goals of research

2.3.1 Reliability- the extent to which the observations can be replicated
Classical test theory **optional
X = T + E,
X is the observed score of personality [e.g. dream analysis score]
T is the true score of an item to be measured [e.g. self-esteem score]
E is the error [systematic / random]
σ 2X ¿ σ 2T +¿ σ 2E
 Internal consistency- intercorrelations of questionnaire items
 Test-retest reliability- correlations of personal ratings across time

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 2.3.2 Validity- the extent to which observations actually reflect the
phenomenon of interest in a given study

2.4. Three general approaches to research

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 Lecture 2- Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory of Personality
1. Sigmund Freud: A view of the theorist
 Neurologist and physician
 Inspired by mechanistic view of human thought and behavior
 human mind can be decomposed by principles in natural sciences
 The mind is driven by unconscious thought
 unconscious conflicts drive psychological problems
 Experimented with therapeutic techniques
e.g. hypnosis, free association [weakens the defensive system],
interpreting dreams

2. Freud’s view of the person

2.1. The mind as an energy system
A metaphor only!!
1. The mind is a closed system  limited amount of energy
2. Energy conserves  does not disappear but appears in different
ways
3. The mind can only be quiet down by satisfying drives
e.g. eat when hungry

2.2. Case study

Symptoms
Partial paralysis, blurred vision, persistent cough, difficulty in conversing
in her native tongue (German)
Treatment
Catharsis: releasing repressed negative emotions/energy through talking
Anna O Conclusion
Past events can influence people unconsciously

3. Freud’s theory of personality

3.1. Structure
Level of consciousness-
 Conscious [secondary process thinking] fully aware of action
 Preconscious  retrieve information to the conscious mind
 Unconscious [primary process thinking]  mental contents that we
are not aware of unless under special circumstances [dreams, slip of
tongue] e.g. sexual drive
 Transition from primary process to secondary process thinking
o Transit from id to the ego and the superego

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 Theory Patton: Psychoanalytic Bargh: Cognitive unconscious
unconscious
~Freud**
Explanation o The unconscious carries o Automation of information to
conflicting information of save up effort of the conscious
the mind mind
o Painful experiences, hidden
motivations
o e.g. eating disorder is linked
with feeling of abandonment

**lack of empirical support

Dreams
 (1) Manifest content- the storyline of the dream with many symbols
 (2) Latent content- unconscious ideas, emotions and drives that are
manifested in the dream

 Ultimate purpose: Wish-fulfillment

 fulfill unconscious, undesirable wishes in disguise
 evidence on the unconscious- subliminal perception

Another model of mind: Id, Ego and Superego

 Id- pleasure principle
 natural drive that seek release of excitation or tension, out of
consciousness
 Superego- moral principle
 internal ethical standards through socialization
 internal rewards & punishments
 Ego- reality principle (self)
 temporarily delay gratification of instincts to satisfy moral principle
according opportunities and constraints in reality world
 satisfy BOTH id and superego

3.2. Process [motivation]

 Human behavior is driven by life [libido] and death instincts (id)
 preservation and reproduction of life

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  self-harm, aggressive instinct directed to others
 Blocked drives are channeled to other behaviours
 e.g. sexual instinct  affection
aggression  sarcasm
 Anxiety arises from conflict between the push of id and the threat of
punishment by superego
 Defense mechanisms*******
o Fending off anxiety by distorting reality or excluding feelings
i. Repression
 Unconsciously pushing out negative emotions from the
conscious mind, but still affect behaviour
 e.g. the ego repressed memory of being abused by
parents, but may have difficulty in forming close
relationships later in life
ii. Denial
 Refusal to accept reality of facts to avoid damage to
the ego due to guild or anxiety
 E.g. A student denied his failure in exam for his
unpreparedness instead blamed the difficulty
iii. Projection
 Attributing their own undesirable (for superego)
motivations and thoughts to another person
 E.g. believing someone you hate hates you
 E.g. accusing your partner of not listening to you but
you are the bad listener
iv. Reaction formation
 Conscious behaviors to compensate for anxiety from
socially unacceptable ideas
 Satisfying the id while keeping ego in ignorance of true
motives
 E.g. A mother who bears an unwanted child might act
over-protective to convince herself that she is a good
mother
 E.g. men who are prejudice against homos are making
defence against their own homo feelings by adopting a
harsh anti-homo attitude to convince themselves of
their hetereo
v. Sublimation
 Satisfying an impulse with a substitute object
 E.g. putting aggression into sports

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 3.3 Growth and development
 Early life events (<5 years) determine later personality
 disturbances during stages may cause fixations in the future
 Freud: 5 stages of psychosexual development (libido=sexual instinct)
i. Oral stage (birth-1) sucking, eating
ii. Anal stage (1-3)  bodily processes [expelling and retaining
feces] [id VS superego]
& interpersonal relations (the struggle of wills over toilet
training)
iii. Phallic stage (3-6)  sex difference in the genital
 Children will compete with same-sex parent for the
affection of the opposite-sex parent
 boys experience oedipal complex (competition with father for
mother)  abandoned because of castration anxiety (fear of
losing penis)
 girls experience penis envy (blame the mother and imagine
restoring lost organ with father)
 for healthy development, the child has to identify with the
same-sex parent and integrate his/her qualities into own
functioning
(all the action in personality development occurred by the end of phallic
stage)
iv. Latency stage (6-puberty) decrease in sexual urges
v. Genital stage  puberty, back to dependency feelings

 Erikson: (not merely psychosexual), psychosocial development

o Oral stage is significant  not only because of the localization of
pleasure in the mouth  a relationship of trust/mistrust is
developed between mother & infant
o Anal stage  not only change in the nature of the erogenous
zone  toilet training for children to develop a sense of
autonomy/shame/self-doubt
o Phallic stage  pleasure VS guilty about sex differences and
other aspects
o Latency stage  industry VS inferiority
o Adolescence  ego identity & role diffusion  if unsuccessful,
people will be confused of who they are, where they are heading
to in the future  e.g. struggle in a choice of career during
college years

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 o Early adulthood  failure to establish intimate relationships 
people remain isolated from relationships, live purposelessly,
focus on past failures and future death
(conflicts may have roots in childhood conflict, but not always + have significance
on their own)

Lecture 3- Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory of Personality (CON’D)

1. Psychodynamic personality assessment
o Challenges:
i. Unconscious nature of the mind  difficult to reveal drives
consciously
ii. Defense mechanism

o Projective tests- ambiguous stimuli for respondents to interpret  bypass

defenses
i. Allow projection of true unconscious psychodynamics
ii. Unstructured / semi-unstructured test items
 Rorschach Inkblot Test
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  Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

o Rorschach Inkblot Test

i. Interpretations by how the response, or percept is formed, and
reasons for the response, symbolization
ii. Realistic, structured percepts VS Unrealistic, bizarre percepts
iii. Systematic scoring
 Whole score- all content is interpreted
 Form score- the contour of the shape
 Movement, content score- animal? In action?

o Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) 看圖說故事

i. Scoring schemes
 Vectors (e.g. on, toward, with)
 Levels (e.g. description, behavior, thought)
 Qualifiers (e.g. Past, present or future tense; causality)
 can be scored on an impressionistic basis
 can be scored objectively as well

o Validity of projective tests

i. Lack of inter-rater reliability  same percepts may be interpreted
differently by different assessors
ii. Lack of test-retest reliability  different percepts yield each time
taking the test
iii. Lack of standard scoring system
iv. Lack of an objective validity criterion  cannot tell if conscious
mind or personality is being measured
v. Lack of ecological validity  unrealistic stimuli/situation

SO, extensive use is not recommended

o General weakness in psychoanalytic theory
 Lack of validity and reliability in testing
 Inconsistent prediction
 Unfalsifiable constructs for scientific testing

2. Psychopathology and treatment

Freud’s analysis of pathology-
 Pathology emerges from psychosexual fixations
 Too much or too little gratification during a stage of development
 fixation/regression  staying/returning to a stage
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  Fixations may result in three personality types:
1. Oral- [I get]
 Themes of taking or asking things for oneself
 Do not treat others as separate & valuable entities
 Usually narcissistic

2. Anal- [I control]
 Emphasizes clean & order; holding on power & resources;
control & dominance over others

3. Phallic- fixation during Oedipus complex [I am a

man/woman]
 Male: (phallic male must deny all possible suggestions of
his castration) assert his masculinity and potency 
exhibitionistic, competitive
 Female: (identifies to an excessive extent with her mother
& femininity) Hysterical personality  naïve, seductive,
idealize romance & life

 Conflict and defense

 Unsuccessful defensive attempts in resolving fixated intra-
psychic conflicts [wish VS ego (anxiety caused by sense of
danger)]
 energy associated with unconscious drives may express itself
in pathological symptoms
 Psychological change
 Free association and free analysis
 Less intimidating environment to bypass the defense
 Transference relationship between patient & analyst  seeing the
analyst as significant others in real life  project attitude in old
conflicts

3. Neo-Freudian theorists
 Criticism of Freud
 Childhood experiences are as important as other experiences
 Social-cultural forces, not only instincts, also shape personality
 People have control over their personality
 Alfred Adler: greater emphasis on social urge and conscious thoughts
 Strived for overcoming one’s inferiority

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  Parental influence on personality development
 Firstborns get dethroned by later-borns  develop strong
inferiority
 Last-borns are pampered throughout childhood and
develop dependent personality  vulnerable to strong
inferiority feelings
 Carl Jung: libido as general life energy not sexual instinct; personality
as forward movement; the collective unconscious
 Collective unconscious
 Cultural universality inherited in evolution, in archetypes
e.g. the wise old man, the hero
 Struggle with opposing forces within people
 Individuals strive to find unity in the self
 Self is an aspect of the collective unconscious that
functions as an organizing center
 Karen Horney: emphasized social and cultural factors in neurosis;
neurotic functioning (self-defeating interpersonal behavior  anxiety of
children)
 Neurotic interaction styles to fend off anxiety
 Moving toward: seek dependence, acceptance, approval 
short-lasting relationships
 Moving against: hostility to relationships  not genuine
friendships
 Moving away: self-sufficiency to relationships 
unrewarding, shallow relationships

Relevant theories
 Object relations theory
 Drives are directed to people (objects) for tension reduction
e.g. feeding and mother
 Experience with important others in the past shape the self &
mental representations of relationships in the present and future

 Self Psychology & narcissism

 Narcissism—excessive investment of mental energy in the self
 Narcissistic personality  great sense of self-importance;
preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success and power

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  Relationships with others  exaggerated feeling of being entitled
to things from others; seek romantic partners who admire instead
of care for them; lack empathy for others
 Anger to perceived threat to self-image  vulnerable to blow to
self-esteem
 Attributing successes to own abilities and blame others for
failures

 Bowlby’s Attachment theory

 Attachment behavioral systems (ABS)—innate psychological
system specifically dedicated to parent-child relationships
 Motivation for proximity with parents  provides secure
base for explorations of the environment
 Create symbolic mental representations involving the self
and caregivers, called internal working models
 contains (long-lasting) beliefs & expectations about
significant others
 Types of attachment:
 Secure: sensitive to departure of mother but greeted with
joy upon her return
 Avoidant: little protest over separation from mother and
avoid her upon her return
 Anxious-ambivalent: has difficulty in separation from the
mother & reuniting with her upon her return
 can vary with cultures
 Attachment styles in adulthood
 Love relationships:
 Secure—associated with experiences of happiness,
friendship, trust
//stable
 Avoidant—fears of closeness, emotional highs and
lows, jealousy
//skeptical of long-lasting love
 Anxious-ambivalent—obsessive preoccupation,
desire for union, extreme sexual attraction,
emotional extremes, jealousy
//easy to fall in love but hard to find true love
 Work:

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  Secure—approach their work with confidence;
relatively unburdened by fears of failure; do not
allow work to interfere with relationships
 Avoidant—avoid social interaction; are less
satisfied with work comparing to secure objects
 Anxious-ambivalent—influenced by praise and fear
of rejection at work; allow love concerns to
interfere work
 Attachment patterns can be defined in terms of 2 dimensions:
internal working model of the self and internal working model of
others
 4th type of attachment—dismissing
 they are not comfortable with close relationships and prefer
not to depend on others; but retain a positive self-image

4. Contemporary scientific evidence

 Freud’s Project for a Scientific Psychology
 Animalistic drive in human emotion
 in the subcortical brain
 defense as false memory  damage in the frontal cortex
 dreams are constructed in the cortical brain which remains
active during sleep
 Evaluation of Freud’s theories
 Rich database from clinical observations
 Systematic connections between structures (id, ego, superego)
and processes
 Lack of standardized, generalized observations
 Untestable theories
 Comprehensive

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 Lecture 4- Carl Rogers’ Phenomenological Theory
1. Rogers’ view of the person
The subjectivity of experience
 Only subjective construction of the reality instead of absolute
reality
 Authenticity: individual experiences; primary sensory &
visceral reactions  Freud saw gut feelings as animalistic
impulses (id) that needed to be tamed
 Positivity of human motivation: we can realize and actualize
our positive potentials  Freud saw our basic instincts as
aggressive and sexual
The phenomenological approach
 Investigates conscious experiences of the subjective reality
lead to problems
 Genuinely accept this subjectivity without judgement can solve
one’s problems
 Freud saw psychotic symptoms as fixated psychosexual drives
in childhood

2. Personality structure of Rogers

The Self
 a conscious phenomenological experience
 individual perception of objects and experiences  attach
meanings
 an organized and consistent pattern of perceptions of the
individual  determine actions
 Actual self /VS/ Ideal self

Q-sort technique

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  Participants are given cards that contains a statement
describing a personality characteristic
 a scale labeled “most characteristic of me” on one end and
“least characteristic of me” on the other end
 balance between fixed and flexible measures
 can be administered more than once to assess both the
actual self and ideal self a
3. Personality process of Rogers
Self-actualization
 forward-looking tendency toward personality growth
 grow from simple to complex, dependence to independence,
rigidity to freedom of expression
 e.g. self-acceptance (congruent self-concept), sense of
autonomy, openness to new experiences, trusting relationships
with others
Self-consistency and congruence
 Self-consistency: behave in ways that are consistent with self-
concept (value systems)
 Self-congruence: congruence between self & experience (e.g.
ideal self & actual self)
o Discrepancy leads to anxiety
 subception: unconscious awareness of conflicting
experiences with self
 motivates the defense system
 1) distortion (of meaning of experience)
2) denial (of existence of experience)
 to maintain consistency and congruence in the self

The need for positive regard

 the need to be accepted and respected by others
 Conditions of worth: give up self-actualization for other’s
expectations and love  detachment from actual self
 Unconditional positive regard  no need to deny or distort
self-concept and experiences

4. Clinical applications

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 Psychopathology
 Distress comes from incongruent experiences that are followed
by defensive behaviors
 Defensive behaviors: fantasy, denial, rationalization (so that
self is in congruence with experience)
Client-centered therapy
 Congruence or genuineness
 Unconditional positive regard
 Empathic understanding

5. Related theoretical conceptions

The human potential movement
 Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
 Self-actualizing individuals

The positive psychology movement

 Virtues of positive emotions: courage, justice, humanity,
temperance, wisdom and transcendence
 Flow:
o Match between personal skills and environmental
challenge
o High level of focused attention
o Enjoyment
o Loss of self-consciousness
 Broaden-and-build theory

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 o E.g. emotion of pride motivates one to continue the
creative or achievement activities

Existentialism
 Terror management theory
o Awareness of death generates higher identification to
religions (e.g. afterlife)
o Higher identification with the ingroup and rejection of
outgroup (e.g. stereotypes or prejudice)
o Motivation to distinguish humans from animals

6. Development in research
Higgin’s Regulatory focus theory
 Self, ideal self and ought self
o Ought self: self-concept that concerns with duties,
responsibilities
I. Discrepancy between self & ought self
 agitation like fear, threat, anxiety
o Ideal self: self-concept that concerns with personal
hopes, ambitions and desires
I. Discrepancy between self & ideal self
 dejection like disappointment, sadness
Fluctuations in self-esteem
 Contingencies of self-worth based on subjective perception of
events

Self-determination theory
 Three basic psychological needs in human nature
o Autonomy- prefer intrinsically motivated / self-
determined instead of coerced tasks  the quality of
being freely chosen
o Competence
o Relatedness

7. Contemporary developments

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 Personality systems interaction (PSI) theory
Analytical thinking system
o process material in a logical, step-by-step manner
Holistic thinking-and-feeling system
o Parallel processing system
o Thinking outside of consciousness
o interconnectedness
Intuitive behavior control system
o Allows you to engage in behavior without paying attention to
each step
Discrepancy detection system
o Sensitive to differences between sensory experiences and prior
expectations

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 Lecture 5- Trait theories of personality: Allport, Eysenck and Cattell
1. How to measure personality
Validation criteria
Freud
o Assessment developed with theory
o Lack of testable validation criteria and objective data
Rogers
o Theory is not data-driven
o Not all constructs were measured
Trait theorists
o Accurate measurement precedes formal theorizing

2. The Trait Concept

Connotations
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 Consistency
o The trait describes a regularity in the person’s behavior
o In specific type of social context
Distinctiveness
o Psychological characteristics in which people differ
---Traits are derived from behaviors---

3. Scientific functions of trait constructs

Description
 Summarize and describe a person’s typical behavior
 Personality taxonomy: a scheme of classifying people according to their
characteristic
 Theorize the found traits, e.g. personality processes

Prediction
 Traits can be used to predict everyday behavior and aspects or
personal environments
Practical use: predict on-the-job performance [prediction does not necessarily
mean causation!!!]

Explanation
 Some trait theorists are confined to description and prediction [which is
useful enough]
 Reductionism: reducing identified traits to biological causal agents
o E.g. brain structure, neurotransmitters

4. Basic perspectives shared by trait theorists

Assumptions
a. People possess broad dispositions, traits, to respond in particular
ways
e.g. higher on trait A, stronger tendency to behave in ways of A
b. Direct correspondence between the person’s overt behavior and
underlying traits
e.g. people who act in a more extraverted manner possess more of
the traits of extraversion
c. Human behavior and personality can be organized into a hierarchy

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 5. Allport’s trait theory
Assumptions
 Traits actually exist
 Traits are based in the nervous system

Idiographic approach (individuals’ unique combinations of traits)

 Traits, (internal) states and (external) activities
 Cardinal trait
o A dominating disposition in a person’s life that every act is
traceable to its influence
o E.g. Ah-Q mentality, Machiavellianism (lack of empathy,
morality, thirsty for power)
 Central trait
o A disposition that cover a more limited range of situations
o E.g. honesty, kindness
 Secondary dispositions
o The least generalized and consistent trait

Functional autonomy of human motives

 Adult motives become independent of earlier tension-reducing motives
(VS Freud—early childhood drives adult behaviors)
o E.g. desire for parents’ approval become own’s pursuit of
excellence
o Extrinsic motives become intrinsic

Comment on Allport
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  Did little empirical research on processing of trait concepts
o E.g. biological basis of traits
 The idiographic method conflicted with science’s search for general
laws
o The nomothetic approach is dominant, where large numbers
of individuals are described in terms of a taxonomy of
personality traits

Comparison of Allport with Freud

 Allport: biological basis // Freud: animalistic drives
 They both agree on internal contributing factors to personality

6. Factor analysis
i. People give quantifiable responses (behavioral record, survey
items)
ii. These responses correlate with each other (they co-occur)
iii. Factor analysis seeks to explain the covariation pattern
between observed variables by inferring latent factors
iv. Interpretation of the content of latent factors (e.g. personality
traits) is up to individual psychologists

7. Cattell’s trait theory

Surface and source traits
 Hierarchical relations among trait concepts
 Surface traits are behavioral tendencies that can be observed
 Source traits are latent psychological structures that cause
intercorrelations between surface traits  latent factor!!!
o He identified 16 source traits in three categories
I. Ability traits-- skills and abilities that allow one to
function effectively
II. Temperament traits-- emotional life & stylistic quality
of behavior
III. Dynamic traits—striving, motivational life

Source of data
 L-data (life-record data)  yields 15 factors
o Behavior in actual everyday situations like school
o Can be difficult to obtain
o Reliance on secondary sources such as others’ report

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  Q-data (self-report questionnaire data)  yields the 16th factor
o E.g. The Eysenck personality inventory
o Subjected to motivated distortion and self-deception
 OT-data (objective-test data)  ultimate form of personality
assessment
o Behaviors in situations that the subject is unaware of the
purpose
o Universal Indexes obtained from factor analyzing these OT
responses
 Various sources of data increase external validity of the results

Stability and variability in behavior

 Traits, states and roles influence social behaviors
 States
o Emotion and mood at a particular time
 Roles
o Social roles
o E.g. people shout at football games but not in churches
 implication: traits provide consistency/stability to the prediction of
behavior, but not constancy [unchanging]
Comment on Cattell
 Data-driven theory  combining statistics with personality theory
 Emphasis on measurement  16 PF
 Limitations
o Theory is purely based on measurement
o Possible construct under-representation
o Too many factors

8. Eysenck’s trait theory

Superfactors
 Secondary factor analysis to form fewer orthogonal (uncorrelated)
factors
 Two orthogonal factors:
o Introversion-extraversion  organizes low-level traits such
as sociability, activity, liveliness and excitability
o Neuroticism (emotional stability VS instability) organizes
traits such as anxious, depressed, shy and moody

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  The use of orthogonal factors:
o Explain unique parts of the same person
o Understand personality in 2-dimensional space
o Nomothetic approach  everyone can be described to
possess a certain level of extraversion and neuroticism

 Connections drawn between the four quadrants from Ancient Greece

o Melancholic: introverted + unstable
o Phlegmatic: introverted + stable
o Choleric: extraverted + unstable
o Sanguine: extraverted + stable
 shows that traits (with biological basis) transcend time
and space

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  A third dimension: Psychoticism  to address clinical symptoms
[psychopathology  abnormal behavior]

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 Measurement
 Questionnaire measures
 Objective measures
o Lemon drop test  how much saliva is produced on the
subject’s tongue  biological differences between introverts
and extraverts
o Persistence test  length of time during which leg is held in
uncomfortable and fatiguing position
o Personal tempo test  speed of writing 2,3,4 repeatedly for
trials of 15 seconds each

Biological bases of the theory

 Biological link for E score
o Introverts drool more in the lemon drop test
 introverts experience more cortical arousal  highly
intense social stimuli (e.g. loud party) make them over-
aroused  more inhibited
o In learning, introverts are more influenced by punishments
while extraverts by rewards
o Partly hereditary

 Biological link for N score

o Biological basis: the limbic system [subcortical brain] & the
autonomous nervous system [ANS]
o Neurotic people’s ANS responds more slowly to the presence
and absence of stress than non-neurotics

 Possible biological link for P score

o Testosterone / dopamine-based neural activity

fMRI research of E and N scores

 Extroverts showed lower arousal in the cerebellum, but higher arousal
in insular
 Neurotic participants showed greater arousal in the prefrontal cortex,
not the limbic system
o Biological basis: the limbic system [subcortical brain] & the
autonomous nervous system [ANS]

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 Psychopathology and therapy
 Diagnosed neurotic patients tend to have high N and low E scores
 Criminals and anti-social persons tend to have high N, low E and high P
 Dispositional influences can be overcome by environmental input

Comment on Eysenck
 Evidence- and measurement-based theory of personality
 He popularized the factor-analytic approach
 Measures did not align with theory
 Underestimated complexity of the brain

Lecture 6- Trait theory: The Five Factor Model and Applications

1. Strong rationale and evidence

 Traits are revealed in natural language (everyday language people use)
 not scientific terms like superego
 Concurrent validity with other trait theories and assessment tools
 Cross-cultural research—different languages reveal the same
personality structure (universal terms)
o Fundamental lexical hypothesis: importance traits are
encoded in single words in all languages

2. Measurement of the Big Five

 The Neo-PI-R (Personality Inventory-Revised) of Costa and McCrae
o Each factor is divided into 6 narrower facets  more specific
components that make up the factors

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 o Inter-rater reliability (consistency in peer-rating & self-rating
& spouse-rating)
o Cross-validation with other tools
I. Integration of Cattel’s model
II. Integration of Eysenck’s model,
e.g. Psychoticism = low Agreeableness and low
Conscientiousness

o Biological linkage hypotheses and findings (DeYoung, 2010)

I. **Extraversion is related to reward system  approach-
oriented amygdala, medial orbitofrontal cortex
II. **Neuroticism is linked to proneness of negative affect 
avoidance-oriented amygdala, anterior cingulate cortex
(ACC), medial prefrontal cortex (PFC)
III. Agreeableness is related to social orientation  empathy
 superior temporal sulcus, posterior cingulate cortex
(PCC)
IV. Conscientiousness is related to self-regulation, inhibition,
delayed gratification  medial prefrontal cortex
V. Openness is related to flexibility in processing abstract
ideas  working memory, attention control  prefrontal
cortex, anterior parietal cortex
 no clear association was found!!!!
Volumes of different brain regions were found to correspond to self-
report personality traits

o Self-ratings and observer ratings

 Observers agree reasonably well with each other, with spouse
rating more agreeable with self than peer rating
 For implicit traits like Neuroticism  S-data is more accurate
than O-data

3. Growth and development

Age differences throughout adulthood
 Personality factors of the theories are capturing personality qualities
that are substantially stable
 But there are age-linked changes
 E.g. adults have lower N, E, O; higher A, C comparing to teenagers

4. Applications of the Big Five Model

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  Workplace
 Predict suitable career, workplace performance
 E.g. high O-score should prefer and excel in artistic and
investigative occupations
 Health outcomes
 Higher C-score predicts long lives
 less likely to die from violent deaths
 less likely to smoke or binge drink
 Clinical diagnosis and treatment
 Compulsive behavior— extremely high on C and N
 Anti-social behavior--- extremely low on A and C
 Design specific therapy according to traits
 E.g. openness  talk about dreams

5. Structure of Five Factor Theory

 Five factors are basic dispositional tendencies that are possessed

universally  causal structure
 Have biological basis
 E.g. behavioral differences linked to the Big Five are determined
by genetic influences on neural structures, brain chemistry, etc.
 multiple genes are assumed to contribute to each trait
 Culture/environmental influences the form of trait expression, but
not basic structure of traits

6. Problems of the Five Factor Theory

29
 i. Dynamic processes are not specified
 biological and psychological mechanisms associated with the
trait structures are unspecified
 traits are tendencies
ii. Claim that traits are not affected by social factors
 contradicts with research findings
iii. Claim that the five factors underlying the personality of each
individual

7. The Six Factor Model (HEXACO)

 Honesty-humility
 Emotionality (~Neuroticism)
 Extraversion
 Agreeableness
 Conscientiousness
 Openness to experience

8. Cross-cultural research
Methodological issues
 Inaccurate translations- some languages may lack one-to-one translations 
traits in English may be distorted in other languages
e.g. German word for aggressive means hostile rather than assertive
 Pre-selected items are imposed to another culture  confirmatory bias

Alternate approach—Indigenous approach

 Extract trait items from the indigenous language
 Big Three (EAC) is cross-culturally recurrent
e.g. CPAI  a 6th factor: Interpersonal Relatedness (IR)

9. Contemporary developments in trait theory

Limitations of the classic trait perspective
 Top-down approach
 High-level factors will not correspond to psychological structures that
individuals actually possess

Reinforcement sensitivity theory

 Bottom-up trait theory  first identify fundamental properties of brain
behavioral systems  relate variations in these systems to known measures of
personality traits

30
  Identify the neural systems (for emotions)
 Behavioral Approach System (BAS)
 Responds to appetitive stimuli that immediately fulfill those
needs e.g. when you are hungry, BAS would become active if
you smell foooooood
 Fight-Flight-Freeze System (FFFS)
 Responds to aversive stimuli that are potentially harmful
e.g. react fearfully when confronted with dangers
 Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS)
 Resolves goal-conflicts (from BAS and FFFS) by generating
anxiety and defensive approach

10. The person-situation controversy

 Longitudinal consistency
o Central trait tendency of FFM is longitudinally consistent
 Cross-situational consistency
o People discriminate between situations and vary their behavior
accordingly
 Trait approach failed to address variability in personality
o Within-person variability

11. Critical evaluation

 Scientific observation with strong and diverse database
 Testable research
 Great applications
 Lack of comprehensiveness  absence of personality processes, lack of
attention to individuals (inner mental life of individuals)
 Not so systematic explanation  no ties to dynamic processes

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 Lecture 7- Biological foundations of personality
1. Constitution and temperament: early views
 Hippocrates posited variations in psychological characteristics as
variations in bodily fluids
 Four humors (blood, black bile, yellow bile, phlegm), each
corresponds to a temperament: sanguine, melancholic, choleric,
phlegmatic
 Gall’s phrenology: specific areas of the brain are responsible for
specific emotional and behavioral functions  based on post-
mortem inspections of brains
 The case of Phineas Gage  frontal lobe damage caused profound
changes in his personality
o Modern neuropsychology shows that the brain works on
synchronized action of multiple regions

2. Constitution and temperament: early research

 Babies react to stimuli differently with the lack of environmental
input  strong biological basis of initial differences (temperament)
 Longitudinal research (NYLS by Thomas and Chess, 1977)
o Three temperament types in infants
I. Easy  playful and adaptable
II. Difficult  negative and unadaptable
III. Slow-to-warm-up  low in reactivity & mild in their
responses

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 o Difficult babies tend to experience more difficulties in later
adjustment
o Environmental input like parenting is important
(interactionist model of temperament)
 Longitudinal research (Buss & Plomin, 1984)
o Four dimensions of temperament from parental ratings
i. Emotionality
ii. Activity
iii. Sociability
iv. Impulsivity
o Stable across time
o Twin data suggests these temperaments are influenced by
heredity
o Limitations
i. Reliance on parental self-reports
ii. Lack of biological systems

3. Contemporary research
 Inhibited & uninhibited children: Kagan and colleagues
o Laboratory observation (T-data)
i. Inhibited children are uncomfortable with novel
stimulation
ii. Uninhibited children enjoy novel stimulation very much
o Hypotheses
i. Infants inherit and exhibit these biological differences
early in life  4-month old infants
ii. Inherited differences tend to be stable during
development  high-reactive infants become inhibited
children  higher heart rate, blood pressure and fearful
behavior
 environmental input is possible but limited
 fMRI study by Schwartz et al. (2003)
o the amygdala is more reactive in inhibited adults (children) in
seeing novel stimuli
o Careful with interpretations!!!
 Amygdala is not specifically dedicated to the emotion of
fear but to positive emotions too

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  Amygdala is NOT the ONLY biological mechanism in fear
responses  people who has damaged amygdala could
still experience
 The environment (e.g. social support) interact with
genetic factors

4. Evolutionary psychology, and personality

 Proximate causes—biological processes operating in the
organism at the time of the behavior
 Ultimate causes—why and how does such biological process
emerge?
 Darwinian evolution
o Evolved psychological mechanisms are the result of evolution by
natural selection  problem-based to adapt biological
mechanism to survival and reproductive success
o Domain-specific VS trait theories  context-free factors

 Social exchange and the detection of cheating

o the ability to detect cheating has survival value for social living
o People are better at solving cheating problems when they are
framed in a social context  if the problem is decontextualized,
there is no survival value

 Sex differences: evolutionary origins?

o The core idea is biology determines sex differences

Male-female mate preferences

1. Parental investment theory
 Women has high parental investment  physical costs + limitations
during pregnancy  find a resourceful and supportive mate
 Men has low parental investment  lower costs and limitations in
reproduction  find young and fertile mate to spread their genes
2. Parenthood probability theory
 Men are less sure about the origin of their offspring
 men have greater concerns about sexual rivals and place greater
value on chastity in a potential mate
 causes of jealousy: men has greater distress on partner’s sexual
infidelity while female has greater distress on partner’s emotional
attachment to a rival

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  VS bio-social view: sex differences reflect interactions between
biological qualities and social factors (e.g. gender equality)

5. Genes and personality

 Biological functions as mediators  no “extraversion gene” 
genes direct biological functioning of the body & interact with
environmental influences
Three pillars of behavioral genetics (the study of genetic contributions to
behavior)
i. Selective breeding studies
 Study the effects of genetic differences & environmental factors
on the observed behavior of animals
ii. Twin studies
 A naturally occurring environment with known variations in
degree of genetic similarity
 Comparison of MZ (identical twin) VS DZ (fraternal twin) to
determine magnitude of influence of genetics
 Evidence: MZs raised apart were about as similar as MZs raised
together
iii. Adoption studies
 Similarities of adopted children to their biological parents……
2
Heritability Coefficient (h )
 Proportion of trait variance attributed to genetics
2
 No genetic effect h = 0

2
 Complete genetic effect h = 1

 A statistical concept (not determinant of traits)

 estimation of the population parameter
 variation exist
 no correspondence to individual differences
 Recent estimates of the overall heritability of personality traits
coverage on roughly 40%

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 Molecular genetic paradigms
Example—aggressiveness!!!!
 MAOA (Monoamine Oxidase A)
 An enzyme that inhibits the activity of neurotransmitters
(norepinephrine, serotonin, dopamine) related to aggression
 MAOA deficiency correlates with higher aggressiveness
Example—anti-social behavior!!!!
 Childhood maltreatment increases antisocial behavior
 High MAOA mitigates such as effect
Example—Depression!!!
 Individuals who are genetically predisposed to have lower levels
of serotonergic activity + experienced stressful life events
 more prone to depression

6. Gene-environment interactions
Shared and non-shared environments
 Shared environments  environmental influences that make
siblings more alike (5% variations)
 Non-shared environments  individual experiences of siblings
that make them less similar  have large effects on personalities
(35% variations)
Three kinds of nature-nurture interactions
 the same environmental experience may have different effects
on individuals with different genetic constitutions
 “passive recipient” of environmental events
e.g. same parenting on children with different temperaments
 Individuals with different genetic constitutions may evoke
different responses from the environment
e.g. difficult temperament evokes more authoritarian parenting

36
  Individuals with different constitutions select and create
different environments
e.g. extraverts seek out different environments than introverts

7. Mood, emotion and brain

Hemispheric dominance
(EEG studies)
 Left hemisphere—approach-related emotions, mostly positive
emotions
e.g. more left-sided prefrontal activation leads to more positive
affect
e.g. decreased left anterior cortical activity are found in depressed
people

 Right hemisphere—withdrawal-related emotions, mostly

negative emotions
e.g. infants with greater distress show greater right-sided
prefrontal activation
Neuroticism
 Anxiety during task VS worrying prior to task
 Worrying is associate with stronger left-frontal brain
activation than is anxious arousal
 worrying is a unique emotional state!!!!!!
 Anger is associated with left-brain activation
 approach-related (to confront the anger)
Neurotransmitters and temperament
 Dopamine—reward system (pleasure)
 Serotonin—mood regulation
 Cortisol—stress responses
Three dimensions of temperament: PE, NE, DvC
 PE (positive emotionality)— associated with high dopamine
level (approach motivation) & left-hemispheric dominance
 DvC (disinhibition versus constraint)—associated with low
serotonin level, high hormone testosterone level
 NE (negative emotionality)—association is not clear!!! May be
low serotonin levels & right hemispheric lateralization &
excessive sensitivity of amygdala
 no one-to-one correspondence between biological processes and
personality traits, only associations!!!!!!!!

37
8. Plasticity in the brain
 Multi-directional of biological systems and psychological
experiences  biology can be modified by experience
 Socio-economic status shapes personalities

Lecture 8- Behaviorism and the learning approaches to personality

1. Behaviorist view of the person
 Persons can be viewed as collections of machine-like mechanisms
 Environmental determinism
o There are general laws of behavior that are causally determined
 people do not have free will to act
 Potential situational specificity  people’s behaviors vary
significantly from one environment to another (VS stability in trait
theories)

2. Behaviorism’s view of the science of personality

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  Personality is a set of behavioral tendencies [including feelings, thoughts]
 must be explained in terms of casual influence of the environment on the
person
 Emphasis on laboratory research  observable variables on animals 
simple systems
 Psychopathology and therapy as behavioral modifications

3. Watson, Pavlov and Classical Conditioning

Principles of classical conditioning
i. Before conditioning: US  UR
ii. Before conditioning: neutral S  no R
iii. During conditioning: neutral S + US  UR
iv. After conditioning: CS  CR
 Conditioning withdrawal
o Learn to avoid stimulus that initially is neutral (same process as
above)
 Generalization
o The conditioned response would become associated with similar
stimuli e.g. other bell sounds
 consistent response across similar stimuli
 Discrimination
o the subject recognizes differences among stimuli
 when repeated trials indicate that only some stimuli are followed
by the unconditioned stimulus

 Extinction
o Undoing or progressive weakening of the conditioning by not
associating the neutral stimuli with the unconditioned stimuli

Psychopathology and change

 Disorganized behavior is caused by poor cues
 lead to a condition of acute neurosis
 Conditioned emotional reactions
 e.g. Little Albert’s is conditioned to fear white rat  and generalized to
white, flurry things
 Unconditioning learned fear
 through extinction of problematic responses by behavior therapy

39
  or direct conditioning—presenting a pleasant stimulus (e.g. food)
whenever the feared object is shown
 Systematic desensitization
 persistent reactions of anxiety as a learned response can be un-learned
through counterconditioning
I. Construction of anxiety hierarchy
II. Relaxation skills training
III. Counterconditioning—relax while imagining all stimuli in the
anxiety hierarchies
 behaviorists: no symptom is caused by unconscious conflicts, there is only
maladaptive learned response

4. Recent developments
 Conditioning of attitudes and preferences
o Classically conditioned on a subliminal or unconscious basis
o E.g. prejudice may be a conditioned aversive reaction learned in
childhood
 Self-esteem
o Increasing self-esteem by associating positive emotions (smiling
pictures) with self (words that are self-relevant)

5. Skinner’s theory of operant conditioning

His theory of personality
 Deemphasizing psychological structure
o Freud: Id, ego, superego
o Rogers: self, ideal self
o Allport, Cattell, Eysenck: traits
 all inferred existence of psychological structure in the mind of
individual to account for the consistent styles of emotion & behavior
 behaviorists: 1) behavior as adaptation in situational forces 
situational specificity 2) a theory should be based on observable variables
that could be verified

 Personality can be understood as patterns of responses

o Operants—responses that are elicited by the organism [as opposed to
reflexes], but not environmental [a puff of air to the eye]
o Reinforcer—a stimulus that follows an operant and increases the
probability of the operant

40
  Reinforcement as the universal law of personality
o Two modifiers
I. Schedule of reinforcement
 time-based: reinforcement appears after a period
regardless of number of responses
 response-based: reinforcements appear only after a certain
number of responses

II. Fixed schedule VS variable schedule

 fixed: lead to periodic responses with intermittent pauses
e.g. monthly income
 variable: lead to high rates of responses
e.g. slot machines in casino

 Complex behavioral patterns are shaped through successive approximations

o Step-by-step shaping of behavior until it matches a desired response
 training a rat to run in circles by step-by-step reinforcements

 Value of positive reinforcement in shaping behavior is emphasized

o Negative reinforcement: removal of unpleasant stimulus to increase
behavior
o (positive) Punishment: adding aversive stimuli after a response to reduce
likelihood of the response
o Negative punishment: remove reinforcer after an undesirable response to
reduce future responses

Growth and development

 Role of reinforcement  children learn more and more responses as a result of
naturally occurring reinforcement experiences
 Contingency [delayed reinforcement]
 parents should reinforce good behavior immediately after it occurs

Psychopathology
 Individuals are not sick, they merely do not respond appropriately to stimuli:
o Failed to learn a response  behavioral deficit
e.g. socially inadequate due to lack of reinforcement
o Learn a maladaptive response
e.g. superstitious behavior because of accidental relationship between a
response and reinforcement

41
Behavior assessment
 Accurate assessment—the ABC assessment [antecedent conditions of the
behavior; the behavior itself; consequences of the behavior]
 ABA research design—measure behavior at a time [A]; introduce reinforcer
and measure behavior again at another time [B]; take away reinforcer to see if
behavior returns to original level
 Sign approach—seeing test response as indicator of some inner characteristics
of individual
e.g. trait theories
 VS Sample approach—seeing behavior as a sample of behavior
 no additional inferences about unseen psychological structures in the mind
of individual
 can identify reinforcers in the environment

Behavior change
 Token economy
o Reward desirable behaviors with tokens
 reinforcement is made contingent on performance of desired responses

6. Skinner’s take on free will

 An operant is instrumental that it allows the organism to gain reinforcement
 We are under subtle environmental influences of reinforcements and
punishments that shape our choices

7. Evaluation of behaviorism
 Scientific observation
o Reliance on objective, observable behavior (VS Freud)
o Deemphasizing the phenomenal field of people to view people as
causes of behavior
o Address causes of behaviors rather than describing behaviors (VS
traits)
 but overlooked unique human strengths like self-determination,
flow
 Systematic

42
 o Use simple mechanisms to explain various human phenomena
 Not testable unless in laboratory setting with animals
 lack of ecological validity
 Comprehensive in different fields

Lecture 9- Personal Construct Theory of Personality

1. Kelly’s view of the science of personality
Constructive alternativism
 Scientists attempt to construe events (to interpret phenomena in order to
make sense of them)
 there is no “correct” theory, only useful theories (universal traits VS
personal constructs)
 there are always alternative scientific constructions available from which
to choose
 Emphasizes the utility of theory
o to develop scientific construct systems that are useful in predicting
events
o theory as a tentative expression of what has been observed and of
what is expected
o range of convenience—boundaries of phenomena the theory can
cover
o focus of convenience—points within the boundaries where the
theory works best
o Theories are modifiable and ultimate expendable

2. Kelly’s view of the person

 Person-as-scientist
o Both scientists and laymen develop unique constructs that enable
them to predict events
 people are oriented toward the future

43
 o Individuals can develop alternative theoretical formulations and try
on different constructs
 devise novel strategies for dealing with the challenges in life
 Free will & determinism
o People have the capacity to think constructively about the
environment and construe the world actively
 free will!!!!
o One’s construct system is still deterministic of his thinking

3. Personality theory of George Kelly

Structure
 Personal construct
o A concept used to interpret, or construe the world  usually an
automatic process
o A person anticipates events by observing patterns and regularities
[using personality constructs]
 construing of a similarity and a contrast leads to formation of a
construct [bipolar ideas]
o How to form a construct
 At least 3 elements
 2 elements that form similar pole of the construct
 1 element different from the two forms the contrast pole of
the construct
 Not dimensional!!
o Subtleties or refinements in construction of events are made through
the use of other constructs
e.g. constructs of quality & quantity
o Idiographic

Constructs and their interpersonal consequences

 People reveal aspects of their own personality in the constructs they use to
describe others
 Differences in construct systems  failures in communications between
groups
 Or failed to recognize the commonalities in construct systems

Types of construct and the construct system

 Verbal constructs [can be expressed in words]
VS preverbal constructs [learned before the person use language]

44
  Submerged constructs—problems with verbalizing one pole of the construct
 Range of convenience VS Focus of convenience of constructs
 Core constructs [basic to a person’s functioning, can only be changed with
great consequences]
e.g. religion, assumed you have strong belief
VS peripheral constructs [less basic, can be altered without serious
modification of the core structure]
e.g. art, assumed you have weak belief
 Constructs form construct systems
o Constructs are inter-related  behavior expresses the construct
system rather than a single construct
o Constructs of similar importance but incompatible qualities lead to
conflicts in decision making
o Construct system is organized hierarchically:
 Superordinate constructs—broadest & most inclusive
constructs (e.g. animals)  include middle-level constructs
(e.g. dogs)
 Subordinate constructs—even more narrow constructs (e.g.
poodle)

Assessment: The Role Construct Repertory (REP) Test

 Assessment is closely tied to his theory :D  obtain personal meanings by
including person triads (their constructs)
 The theory believes people cannot be fit into any simple taxonomy of
personality traits or types (e.g. Five Factor)  the test is highly flexible
 Idiographic personal construct procedure reveals half of unique information
that is NOT captured by nomothetic 5-factor model

Cognitive complexity/simplicity
 Predicting others’ behavior
o People with a cognitively complex and non-overlapping construct
system are more accurate in predicting  ability to recognize
differences between themselves and others & think flexibly
 Handling inconsistent information about a person
o High-complex persons try to use the inconsistent information to form
an impression
 better able to understand and take on the role of others
 complexity is related most strongly to “openness to new
experiences”

45
 o Low-complex persons rejects all information that is inconsistent with
their “consistent” impression
 Self-complexity
o High-complex persons may be involved in numerous life roles and
possess different skills and personal tendencies
 Buffer against stress
o High-complex persons seemed emotionally better off when things
were particularly stressful in our lives
 other life roles seemed to serve as a useful cognitive distraction
that helped avoid prolonged negative mood
 Social-identity complexity
o People living in a multicultural society may recognize complex
interrelations among multiple group identities

Process
 Motivation is redundant and inaccurate
o Freud—animalistic instincts
o Rogers—self-actualization
o Behaviorists—reinforcement/punishment
 people do not need motivation to behave as they are born to construe the
world
 Anticipating events
o Fundamental postulate of personal construct theory = people’s
psychological processes are channeled by the ways in which they
anticipate events
o People apply their personal construct system to construe events
 seek validation
o People modify constructs when prediction fails
 expand the construct system and its range of convenience
 Anxiety, fear and threat
What if the construct system fails to explain experience?
o Anxiety—when an experience lies outside of the range of
convenience
 response: may broaden a construct and permit it to apply to a
greater variety of events
Or, may narrow their constructs and focus on minute details
o Fear—when a new construct appears to be about to enter the
construct system
 response:

46
 o Threat—awareness of imminent comprehensive change in one’s core
structure
 involves a drastic change in one’s core constructs
 response: may give up the adventure to regress to old constructs to
avoid panic
New dimension to Kelly’s view of human functioning
 Involves interplay between the wish to expand the construct system & the
desire to avoid the threat of disruption of that system
 Individual always seek to maintain and enhance their predictive systems
 But they may rigidly adhere to a constricted system in face of anxiety and
threat

Growth and development

 Kelly did not explicitly state the origins and developments of construct systems
o Preverbal constructs in infancy and culture for learned expectations
 Later research found….
o Construct complexity increases with age
o Children increase no. of constructs
o Children make finer differentiations and show more hierarchical
organization
o Children become more empathic as they are aware of the construct
systems of others
 Factors contributing to the complexity
o Variety of cultural backgrounds exposed in childhood
o Parental style
 Cognitively complex children are found to be more likely to have
parents that grant autonomy and less authoritarian

4. Clinical applications
Psychopathology
 Disordered functioning of a construct system
o Anxiety to reestablish the sense of being able to anticipate events
with repeatedly failed predictions with the construct system
o Threat
o Disordered responses:
 Submerge one end of a construct
 Suspend elements that do not fit well into a construct
(=repression)

47
Change and fixed role therapy
 The client to assume a new role so that new construing takes place
 The therapist writes a fixed-role sketch (set in the motion processes) to be
adhered to by the client for two weeks
 The new experience allows the client to reconstruct the self (not believing
yourself as a new person)
 Exhortation and construct formation [therapist identify with the client]
 Controlled elaboration [verbally validate or invalidate the construct system
through experimenting various situations]

5. Critical evaluation
 Scientific observation
o REP test is objective in assessing personality attributes
o Clinical-oriented assessment like Freud and Rogers
o Lack of cultural diversity
 Highly systematic
o Sets of well-defined corollaries and terms
o Personality phenomena and clinical practices are discussed based on
these premises
 Quite testable
o Theory and assessment well-defined
o Assumptions not really e.g. person-as-scientist
 Not really comprehensive
o Personality processes not well-defined
o Lack of discussion on biology on the construct system

Lecture 10- Social-Cognitive Theory

48
1. Relating social-cognitive theory to the previous theories
Their weaknesses Social-cognitive theories
Psycho- Over-emphasizes Emphasize on conscious self-
analytic unconscious forces & reflection & developments
theory childhood experiences throughout the life course

Trait theory Over-generalized personality Personality is revealed in both

into average tendencies average levels of behavior and
patterns of variability in action

Behaviorism Rejects the behavioristic People have capacity, i.e.

argument that environmental cognitive capabilities for active
stimuli control behavior self-control & modelling even
without reinforcement

2. Social-cognitive theory’s view of the person

 Emphasizes on unique human cognitive capacities
i. People reason about the world using language
ii. People contemplate not only present circumstances, but also past and
hypothetical future events
iii. People actively reflect on themselves and their own thinking

3. Social-cognitive theory’s view of the science of personality

 Synthesize knowledge from diverse fields (of science) into a coherent
portrait of human nature and the differences among persons
 Emphasis on uniqueness of the individual  employ idiographic methods
 Pursued applications of theories  practical tools that benefit human
welfare

4. Social-cognitive theory of personality

Structure
I. Competencies and skills
 Individual differences reflect variations in people’s skill in executing
different types of action
o E.g.1 Extrovert/introvert—social skills
o E.g.2 Neuroticism—emotional regulatory skills

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  Competencies involve both: ways of thinking about life problems &
behavioral skills in executing solutions to them
o Procedural knowledge—cognitive and behavioral capabilities
o Declarative knowledge—knowledge that can be stated in words
 Implications of competencies
o Context specificity
 Responsive patterns across different contexts that defines
a person [rejects context-free variables]
o Competencies can be acquired through social learning
 Modelling/observational learning
 Therapy as skills acquisition

[Three different ways of how people may think about the world]
II. Beliefs and expectancies—What the world actually is like / what things
probably will be like in the future
 Context-specific  people discriminate among situations
 Behavior is explained in terms of people’s expectations about reward
& punishment in the environment /= behaviorism
 Idiosyncrasy based on life experience

Perceived self-efficacy
 People’s perceptions of their own capabilities for action in future situations
 People with a higher sense of self-efficacy are likely to:
 Decide to attempt difficult tasks
 Persist in their efforts
 Approach in better moods (Be calm rather than anxious) during task
performance
 Organize their thoughts in an analytical manner
 Better able to cope with stress and disappointments
 Self-efficacy VS self-esteem
 Not a sense of self-worth, but a judgement of what one can do
 Not a global belief, but is context-specific
 Is generally a better predictor of performance than self-esteem
 Self-efficacy VS outcome expectations
 Outcome expectations: beliefs about rewards & punishments that will
occur if one performs a behavior
 Self-efficacy expectations: beliefs about whether one can perform the
behavior in the first place

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  Is generally a more important determinant of behavior than outcome
expectations
 Assessment of self-efficacy
 Microanalytic approach [variability]
i. Anchoring manipulations—anchoring people’s self-efficacy
 experimented self-efficacy affects people’s behavior!!

III. Evaluative standards—Mental criteria for evaluating the goodness or worth

of events
 Internalized personal standards from observing performances of others,
guided by self-evaluative responses
 Evaluative standards often trigger self-evaluative reactions (e.g. pride,
dissatisfaction) as internal reinforcers  maintain behavior over time
 Disengagement of evaluative standards for immoral behaviors
(e.g. for personal advantage)
 VS Behaviorism—evaluative standards are determined by the
environment and experienced directly

IV. Personal goals—what one wants to achieve in the future

 Self-regulatory process
 Organized in hierarchical systems  but not rigid or fixed
 Individual differences—different goals and different perception of the
meanings
o Proximal (coming soon) VS Distal goals
 proximal goals have bigger influence on current behavior
o Performance VS Learning goals
 Higher perceptions of self-efficacy often set higher goals and remain
more committed

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Process
General theoretical principles
i. Reciprocal Determinism
 Causality is reciprocal—Behavior (B), personality characteristics (P)
and the environment (E) are causes of another
 Other theories: psychoanalysis—inner conflicts; phenomenological
—motivation for self-actualization;
Behaviorism—external environment only; traits—genetically
determined dispositions

ii. Cognitive-affective processing system (CAPS)

 Cognitive & emotional personality variables are complexly linked to
one another

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 o The 4 personality structures + affective responses
o People have different activation patterns among these
cognitive and affective variables
 Different “situational features” activate subsets of the cognitive-
affective units
 Behavior changes across situations not because of inconsistent self;
but caused by system’s responsiveness to situational features
 Assessment: if-then profiles (behavioral signatures)  distinctive
profiles of situation-behavior relationships of individuals

Growth and development

 Social-cognitive theory addresses two psychological functions
(1) Acquiring new knowledge and skills thr observational
learning
(2) Regulate own actions and emotional experiences thr vicarious
conditioning
 Observational learning
o Most people do not acquire behavior/cognition thr trial & error as it is
too costly and ineffective
o Modelling—people can form mental representation of the behavior they
have observed to draw upon at a later point in time
o Different from imitation or mimicry
 No exact replica; modification is common
 People learn general rules of behavior instead  self-direct later
o Different from identification
 Behavior-based, not person-based
o The model has not to be physically present  media
o Acquisition VS Performance
 Behavior can be learned regardless of reinforcers
 But whether or not behavior is performed depends on rewards &
punishments (incentives/consequences)

o Vicarious conditioning
 Emotional reactions such as fear and joy, can be conditioned on a
vicarious basis

 Self-regulation and motivation

o Self-referent thinking  people are motivated through their thinking
processes

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 o Self-regulation  monitoring goal pursuit thr setting internal goals to
meet expectations and evaluating the progress
 Goals and performance feedback facilitate effortful performance
through mediating factors
 High self-efficacy judgement [achievable goal]
 Low self-evaluative judgement [challenging goal]
 Performance feedback [you don’t get motivated if you don’t know
why you are doing good]and self-efficacy judgements help
develop intrinsic interest

 Self-control and delay of gratification

o Self-control as doing something [goal setting]
o Self-control as not doing something [impulse control/delay of
gratification]
o Modelling  modelled behavior is opposite to children’s
predispositions
o Mischel’s Delay of Gratification Paradigm [Marshmallow test]
 Availability for attention has huge effect on delay abilities, more
than physical existence of immediate reward
 Cognitive strategies, e.g. mental representation of rewards,
are effective in lengthening the delay through reducing the
reward’s availability
 Children with high delay in gratification are found more able to
control their emotions, have higher SAT scores, and less likely to
become overweight

Lecture 11- Social-Cognitive Theory and its Applications

1. Cognitive components of personality: Beliefs, goals and evaluative standards
 Beliefs about the self and self-schema
o Self-concept: a set of beliefs about one’s primary personal qualities and
aspirations
 Working self-concept—different situational cues may cause
different self-schemas to enter working memory
o Self-schema: highly developed, elaborate knowledge structures than
contain knowledge of one’s own personal qualities

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  Markus’ Reaction time study—people who possess a
schema made schema-consistent judgements  shorter
reaction times
 e.g. sexual self-schema  those who have positive sexual
self-schemas are more sexually active, more able to involve in
romantic love relationships
 Schemas contribute to experiences that could create a self-
confirming bias that re-confirm the original schemas
o Self-based motives:
 Self-enhancement—people often are biased to maintain a
positive view of themselves, by overestimating their positive
attributes
 Self-verification—people obtain info that confirms one’s own
self-concept [even seek to verify negative qualities]
 Goals
o Mental representations of the aim of an action or set of actions
o People can have different goal levels and types of goals
o Learning goals VS Performance goals
 Learning—striving to increase ability and achievement
 Performance—aiming to perform well for evaluations
- Often create “test anxiety”

o Implicit personality theories

Entity theory Incremental theory [variable]
[fixed]
Intelligence  Intelligence level is fixed  Intelligence is acquired
 Tend to set performance gradually and naturally changes
goals over time
 Tend to set learning goals
Implication: one should be able to reduce test anxiety & boost their
performance by shifting to incremental theory
 Intervention can change social-cognitive personality structure
Emotion  Emotions are fixed and  Emotions are malleable and
uncontrollable controllable
 Better able  Better emotion regulation
 Receive more social support
 More positive mood
 Better levels of adjustment

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  Higgins’ Standards of evaluation
o Ideal self—standards of achievement that people ideally would like to
reach  types of behavior that one values positively
o Ought self—standards of achievement that people should achieve 
duties & responsibilities
o Self-discrepancies  contribute to emotional experience
 Discrepancies with different standards trigger different emotions
 E.g. Ideal self-discrepancies  dejected
 E.g. Ought standards discrepancies  agitated & anxiety
 E.g. failing to meet one’s ideal standards  sadness
 E.g. possibility of not achieving obligations  threatened
 Cause higher levels of neuroticism; decreased effectiveness in
immune system
o Motivation
 People who evaluate their actions thr ideal standards tend to have
promotion approach  focus on positive outcomes
 People who evaluate on ought standards tend to have prevention
approach  preventing occurrence of negative outcomes

 Addressing the person-situation controversy

o General principles approach
o Personal knowledge is an enduring structure of mind that contributes to
behavioral consistency
o different situations activate different aspects of knowledge 
situational variability

2. Contemporary developments in personality theory: The KAPA Model

Limitations of social-cognitive theory
 Failing to distinguish between personality structures and processes
 Problems in assessment
 Cross-situational inconsistency

Cervone’s KAPA Model

 Knowledge structures & appraisal processes
o Knowledge—enduring mental representations e.g. self-knowledge
o Appraisal—shifts rapidly over time; ongoing evaluations of the relation
between oneself and the surrounding environment
o Systematically related
 knowledge structures influence appraisal process

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  especially when situations are ambiguous

 Social-cognitive personality assessment

o Assess knowledge & appraisal contextually
o Sensitive to idiosyncrasy  KAPA assessments allow people to
describe themselves in their own words

 Cross-situational coherence in self-appraisals

o Self-schemas can produce cross-situational consistency in personality
o Patterns of cross-situational consistency may vary idiosyncratically 
unique set of beliefs of each individual

 Self-schemas & self-efficacy appraisals

o People are found to have higher appraisals of self-efficacy in those
situations in which their positive self-schemas come into mind

 Testable model
o Priming procedures to activate one aspect of self-knowledge

3. Clinical applications
Psychopathology
 no latent, underlying cause
 important role of behavioral experiences
e.g. observational learning, vicarious conditioning
 viewed as results of distorted, maladaptive cognitions concerning the self,
others and events of the world
 problematic feelings and behaviors [role of behavioral experiences] and
cognitions
 Cognitive therapy  replace them with more realistic, adaptive cognitions
 Dysfunctional expectancies
o Negative expectations may create outcomes that one hope to avoid
 Dysfunctional self-evaluations
o e.g. perfectionistic standards for evaluating oneself

Self-efficacy, anxiety and depression

 Low self-efficacy for coping with threats  high anxiety arousal
 Self-defeating cycle in depression
 perceived inability to achieve desired outcomes creates sense of loss

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  contribute to diminished performance that lead to further depression &
problem behaviors
 Discrepancy between performance & standard
 high motivations when people believe they have the efficacy to accomplish
the goal
 apathy when people believe the goals are beyond one’s capabilities as they
will abandon the goals
 depression when people feel ineffective in relation to a reasonable goal that
one must continue to strive

Self-efficacy and health

The four structures:
o Knowledge of health risks and benefits of various health practices
o Perceived self-efficacy that one can control one’s health habits
o Outcome expectancies about the expected costs and benefits of different
health practices
o Health goals people set for themselves
 Self-efficacy beliefs affect both the likelihood of developing illnesses &
process of recovery
 High self-efficacy beliefs buffer the effects of stress & enhance functioning of
immune system e.g. T cell levels

Modeling and guided mastery

 Modeling  client observes therapist to display a desirable skill
 Guided mastery  client assists in performing the behaviors themselves
 Mastery experience  self-efficacy  behavioral change!!!
e.g. women mastered physical skills to defend unarmed sexual assailants
 decreased avoidant behavior

Stress-vulnerability signatures
 Situational stress of individuals (Highly Repeated Within Person HRWP
approach)
 Cognitive-affective stress management training (C-ASMT)
o Alter maladaptive cognitions through cognitive restructuring and
relaxation

4. Stress, coping and cognitive theory

 Primary appraisal  self-evaluation of potential threat or danger

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  Secondary appraisal  self-evaluation of the person’s resources to cope with
potential harm
 Problem-focused coping  by altering features of a stressful situation
 Emotion-focused coping  by improving one’s internal emotional state
 Planful problem solving VS escape avoidance
 Stress inoculation training  teach clients the cognitive nature of stress 
instruct new stress-reducing ways of thinking

Rational-emotive therapy
 ABC model (Activating event with Beliefs lead to emotional Consequences)
 Irrational beliefs
o Faulty reasoning
o Dysfunctional expectancies
o Negative self-views
o Maladaptive attributions
o Memory distortions
o Maladaptive attention
o Self-defeating strategies

Beck’s cognitive therapy for depression

 Systematic misevaluations of ongoing & past experiences  depression
 Negative views of the self, the world, the future
 Cognitive therapy is to identify and correct distorted conceptualizations and
dysfunctional beliefs

5. Critical evaluations

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