Cognitive Theories Kimberley A Clow kclow 2uwo ca

Cognitive Theories Kimberley A. Clow kclow 2@uwo. ca http: //instruct. uwo. ca/psychology/257 e-570 Office Hour: Thursdays 2 -3 pm Office: S 302 1

Outline • What is Cognition? • Schemas & Scripts • Personal Construct Theory – Fundamental Postulate – Corollaries • Attribution Theory • Feelings – Depression • Evaluation 2

Cognition • Important Terms – Structure – Encoding – Retrieval – Forgetting • Memory is the major phenomenon involved – Different kinds of memory 3

Maintenance Rehearsal Sensory input Attention Sensory Register Information is lost in 0. 5 to 3 sec Encoding Short-Term Memory Long-Term Memory Retrieval Unrehearsed information is lost in a few minutes Some information may be lost over time 4

Bartlett’s War of the Ghosts • English students told a Native Indian story • Memory for the story tested across time – Omissions and normalization • Results indicated that memory is reconstructive – Leveling • making story simpler – Sharpening • overemphasizing certain details – Assimilating • changing details to fit what we think 5

Scripts • What is your Restaurant script? – What happens first? – And then? 6

Personal Construct Theory • What is a construct? George Kelly • “People’s behavior, thoughts, and feelings (their personalities) are determined by the constructs they use to anticipate or predict events” 7

A Metaphor 8

The Fundamental Postulate • "A person's processes are psychologically channelized by the ways in which he anticipates events. " 9

Corollaries • Construction – "A person anticipates events by construing their replications. " • Experience – "A person's construction system varies as he successively construes the replication of events. " 10

• Dichotomy – "A person's construction system is composed of a finite number of dichotomous constructs. “ • Submerged poles • Core vs. peripheral constructs GOOD BAD QUIET LOUD LOVELY DISGUSTING 11

• Organization – "Each person characteristically evolves, for his convenience in anticipating events, a construction system embracing ordinal relationships between constructs. " • Personal not scientific • Tight vs. loose relationships animals -- plants | flowers -- trees | deciduous -- conifers | Christmas trees -- others 12

• Range – "A construct is convenient for the anticipation of a finite range of events only. “ • Comprehensive vs. incidental • Modulation – "The variation in a person's construction system is limited by the permeability of the constructs within whose range of convenience the variants lie. " • Permeable vs. impermeable • Dilation vs. Constriction 13

• Choice – "A person chooses for himself that alternative in a dichotomized construct through which he anticipates the greater possibility for extension and definition of his system. " • Individuality – "Persons differ from each other in their construction of events. " • Commonality – "To the extent that one person employs a construction of experience which is similar to that employed by another, his psychological processes are similar to the other person. " 14

• Fragmentation – "A person may successively employ a variety of construction subsystems which are inferentially incompatible with each other. " • Sociality – "To the extent that one person construes the construction processes of another, he may play a role in a social process involving the other person. " 15

Constructive Alternativism • " We take the stand that there always some alternative constructions available to choose among in dealing with the world. No one needs to paint himself into a corner; no one needs to be completely hemmed in by circumstances; no one needs to be the victim of his biography. " 16

What About Uncertainty? • Think about understanding behaviour, where causes are not clear or certain • Imagine a scenario… – A young woman, Jill, carrying a stack of papers trips and the papers fall over the place. – A young man, Jack, helps her retrieve all of her papers. • Why did Jack help Jill? 17

Basic Terms • Attribution – the process through which we come to understand the causes of others’ behaviour as well as the causes of our own behaviour • Internal Attribution – inferring that a particular behaviour demonstrated by an individual was due to dispositional causes • External Attribution – inferring that the individual’s behaviour was caused by some other factor than his or her dispositions (e. g. , situational causes) 18

Experiments • Math Achievement – Different Training Programs • Internal Attribution • Persuasion • Positive Reinforcement – Influences on self-esteem and math achievement • Health – Internal or External Manipulation – Only internals changed their health related behaviour 19

Problems with External Attributions • Behaviour only occurs with the external incentives • They can undermine existing habits and preferences – Overjustification Effect • External incentives work well ONLY if people believe they EARNED the reward due to INTERNAL factors 20

Covariation Principle • Explain behaviour according to 3 factors – Consistency • How does the person react to the same stimulus/event on different occasions? – Distinctiveness • How does the person respond to other stimuli/events that are similar? – Consensus • How do other people react to the same stimulus/event? 21

Attribution Principles • Discounting Principle – the role of a given cause in producing a given effect is discounted if other plausible causes are also present • Augmentation Principle – If both a factor that facilitates the behaviour and a factor that inhibits the behaviour are present, we assign added weight to the facilitative factor 22

Algorithms vs. Heuristics • Algorithm – specific rule or solution procedure – guaranteed to give the correct answer if followed correctly • Heuristic – a "rule of thumb" procedure – quick, easy, efficient – not always appropriate 23

Fundamental Attribution Error • The tendency to – underestimate the role of situations – overestimate the role of dispositions 24

What About Feelings? • Constructs of Transition – Anxiety – Threat – Guilt – Aggression • Hostility 25

Learned Helplessness 26

Models of Depression Aaron Beck 27

Irrational Beliefs • Everyone I meet should like me • I should be perfect at everything I do • Because something once affected my life, it will always affect it • It is unbearable and horrible when things are not the way I want them to be • I must perform important tasks competently and perfectly • If I don’t get what I want, it’s terrible • I must have love or approval from all the significant people in my life 28

Distorted Thinking • • All or Nothing Thinking Overgeneralization Mental Filter Disqualifying the Positive Jumping to Conclusions Emotional Reasoning Personalization 29

Rational Emotive Therapy • Emotions stem from our interpretations of events, not from the events themselves – We create our problems • Need to modify our interpretations Albert Ellis – If we don’t interpret things in a way that makes us feel bad, we won’t feel bad 30

A-B-C Theory of Personality 31

Evaluation • Strengths – Brought cognition into the study of personality • How we think • How we perceive – Emphasis on person’s own interpretation • Weaknesses – Important aspects of personality denied or neglected – Difficulty predicting behaviour – Many unanswered questions 32