The Social-Cognitive Perspective

1. The Social-Cognitive Perspective Unit 10 Personality

2. Locus of Control Test http://www.mccc.edu/~jenningh/Courses/documents/Rotter-locusofcontrolhandout.pdf Do-Now

3. Social-Cognitive Perspective • Proposed by Albert Bandura (1925-today) • Emphasizes the idea of personality as the combination of our traits, mental processes, and environment. • Conditioning, modeling behavior, observing others • Thinking about a situation • Interpreting and responding to external events • How do you and your environment interact?

4. Albert Bandura • Canadian/American Psychologist • Most well-known for creating the social learning theory, the social cognitive theory, and performing the Bobo Doll experiment. • Emphasized Self-Efficacy, or one’s beliefs in one’s ability to achieve goals.

5. Reciprocal Influences • Reciprocal Determinism: The interacting influences of behavior, internal cognition, and the environment. • Our personalities are both the products and the creators of our environments.

6. Biopsychosocial Approach to Personality

7. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFmFOmprTt0 (teacher) http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/how-seligmans-learned-helplessness-theory-applies-to-human-depression-and-stress.html#lesson (Seligman) ACTIVITY

8. Personal Control • Personal Control: The extent to which one believes they have control over their environment. The extent to which they are not helpless. • Learned Helplessness- When a person or animal feels as though they have no control over events, and come to feel helpless and hopeless.

9. Personal Control • External Locus of Control: When you believe that chance or forces outside of your control determine what happens to you. • Tend to be more depressed, less successful, and less independent. • Internal Locus of Control: When you believe that you control what happens to you. • Tend to achieve more, have better health and be less depressed.

10. Julian Rotter • American Psychologist • Best known for his ideas on social learning theory and creating the Internal-External Scale. • Theorized that one’s expected outcome of a behavior affected their motivation to participate in that behavior.

11. Roy Baumeister • American Psychologist • Studied Self-Control: The ability of a person to control their actions and experience delayed gratification. • Found that exerting control over impulses takes energy and must be strengthened through “exercise”.

12. Optimism vs. Pessimism • How one explains positive and negative events can affect or demonstrate how in control or helpless they feel. • Students who are pessimistic would say that, after failing a test, they did so because “I’m stupid” or that “there’s nothing I can do about it”. (Lack of control, helplessness) • Students who are optimistic would say they failed a test because “I needed to study more” or “I didn’t make enough of an effort”. (In control of situation.)

13. Positive Psychology • Positive Psychology: The scientific study of optimal human functioning. Has 3 pillars. • Positive Emotions: • Pursuing happiness and satisfaction with life. • Positive Character: • Creativity, courage, compassion, leadership, self-control. • Positive Groups: • Healthy families, effective schools, civil dialogue, community

14. Review • What is the Social-Cognitive Perspective on Personality? • Reciprocal Determinism? • How does learned helplessness affect one’s optimism, feelings of self-worth, and sense of control?