Cognitive – Experiential Domain
Personality from the Inside
• Emphasis on subjective, conscious experience
• How you think, feel, perceive your social world
– Chapter 12: Personality and Cognition
– Chapter 14: Personality and the Self
– Chapter 17: Personality and Culture
Personality and Cognition:
Perceived Control
• Narrow cognitive focus
– Judgments regarding causal connection between
stimuli
• Perceived Control: extent to which we
perceive a relationship between two stimuli
– Human tendency to attempt to make sense of
things
Perceived Control – Individual Differences
• Locus of Control
– Developed by Julian Rotter (1960s)
– Based on clinical observations
• Scale: Higher scores indicate a more external
orientation
• External: Generalized expectancy that events are
outside of one’s control
• Internal: Generalized expectancy that reinforcing
events are under one’s control, and that one is
responsible for major life outcomes
Locus of Control Scale
11
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
Internal
External
Generalized expectancy that
one’s outcomes are contingent
Generalized expectancy that
one’s outcomes are independent
of one’s responses
of one’s responses.
Locus of Control Findings
• Internals act as if they have control
– Act on basis of expectancies (i.e., prison study)
• Generalizes to beliefs about others’ outcomes
– If external, believe outcomes for others are
independent
• Religiosity?
– Why?
Locus of Control Findings Continued
• Socio-economic status (SES)?
– Why?
• Hours study?
• Vote?
• Time?
– Why?
Locus of Control Scale
•
•
•
•
Better to be internal or external?
Problems with scale?
Captured by Big 5?
Political correlates?
Perceived Control – General Principles
• Regardless of individual differences, how good
are people at detecting relationships between
stimuli?
• Both overestimate (perceive relationships that
are not warranted) and overestimate (fail to
perceive relationships that are warranted)
Perceived Control: General Principles
• Overestimate (erroneously see
connections)
– Examples?
• Two types of reasons: Motivational and
Cognitive
• Motivational
– People are motivated to understand (and predict,
explain, etc.) their social world
Perceived Control: General Principles
• Motivational Explanation
• People are motivated to understand (and
predict, explain, etc.) their social world
– Randomness is uncomfortable; it’s meant to be
– Science, religion
– However, may be so motivated to make sense that
they sometimes make sense when there is no
sense to be made (i.e., erroneously perceive a
nonexistent connection)
Perceived Control: General Principles
• Just World Hypothesis (Belief in a Just World)
– Belief that the world is essentially just; therefore,
bad things don’t happen to good people
• Lerner experiments
– Ps observe other Ps (actually confederates) in a
teacher/learner situation with shocks for incorrect
answers. Who is teacher/learning is randomly
determined. Ps perceive learner more negatively.
Perceived Control: General Principles
•
•
•
•
Real life examples?
Positive outcomes?
Effect is greater for those lower in power
Effect is greater if a more social orientation is
induced
– Why?
Perceived Control: General Principles
• Cognitive Explanations
–Poor information processors
–Multiple documented biases
Perceived Control: General Principles
• Illusion of Control (Langer)
• Overestimate control over chance (i.e.,
random) events (e.g. gambling)
• Why? Confuse causality and control
– Casino games
– Lotteries?
Perceived Control: General Principles
• Illusory Correlation
– Wider scope; relevant any time (not just chance
events) judging a relationship between stimuli
Disease
Yes No
Symptom Yes 50
25
No 20
5
Perceived Control: General Principles
Symptom
Yes
No
Disease
Yes No
50
25
20
5
50/75=67%
20/25=80%
Failure to consider all possible outcomes
Occurs anytime judging a relationship between two
stimuli (e.g., Californians and vegetarians; Hoosiers and
basketball, etc.)
Effect is larger if a priori expectation
Perceived Control: General Principles
• Underestimate (erroneously fail to see
connections)
– Examples?
• Learned Helplessness – exposure to
uncontrollable negative outcomes – belief in
no control when it may exist
• Dogs and uncontrollable shocks
• Humans and uncontrollable noise