Study Guide – Test 4
Cognitive Approaches, Self, & Personality Disorders
Personality Psych (255)
Fall, 2009
Material:
Lecture notes
Readings:
 Funder – Chapters 15 (pp 495-514), 16, 17, 18, 19
 Fleeson (2003)
 Baumeister et al. (2000)
Topics
Milgram study and Stanford prison experiment.
 General design and findings
 Implications for personality, situational forces, and behavior
Cognitive Approaches
The CAPS model as a framework for a Cognitive perspective on personality
 How are personality, behavior, and situations related to each other?
 What is the role of personality in the links between behavior, and situations?
 What is personality? What “makes up” personality? “Person Variables”
 How is this approach different from a “trait” approach?
Expectancies
 Priming & Accessibility (Funder)
 What are expectancies?
o Self-fulfilling prophecies – how do they occur?
o Expectancies and aggression
 Snyder & Swann’s (1978) study on expectancies and hostilty (experimental manipulation of
expectancies)
 What was done? What was found? What principle does this demonstrate?
o Expectancies & rejection sensitivity
 What is rej sensitivity?
 Downey et al. (1998) study on rejection sensitivity (examination of existing individual
differences)
 What was done in the study? What was found? What principle does this demonstrate?
Beliefs
 Locus of Control
o What is it? What are some implications/findings regarding LOC?
 Attributional (explanatory) style more generally
o 3 Dimensions of attributional style, implications for Optimism/Pessimism
Motivations, goals, and values
 Goals
o Types of Goals: General/specific, Idiographic/Nomothetic
o Note that Funder discusses Judgment & Developmental goals and Entity & Incremental theories, which
we discussed as part of the “self” material (see below)
 Strategies
o What are they?
o Example: Defensive Pessimism
 Values
o 2 Core dimensions of Schwartz’s model of values? “Types” of values
o Relation to the Big 5? Relation to religiosity? – general trends
Affect (Emotion)
 Basic stages of emotion
 Sources of emotion
 Emotional circumplex
 Affect intensity and change
 Emotional intelligence
 Happiness – set point, correlates of happiness
Self-regulation
 Mischel’s research on self-regulation of impulses in children
 How were the studies done? What were the key findings? Evidence for long-term implications/stability of selfregulation?
Another model of cognitive system: Cognitive Experiential Self-theory (Two ways of thinking – see Funder)
Integrating various aspects of cognitive approaches – two examples
 “Regulating the interpersonal self”
o Integrate self-regulatory ability and rejection sensitivity
o Does the association between rejection sensitivity and (some outcome variable such as ) self-worth
depend on one’s ability to self-regulate emotions?
o How was the study done? What were the key findings? Begins to reveal the potential complexity of the
phenomena
 “Expectancy Value theory” (J Rotter)
o What are the elements of EVT (ie, what are the determinants of behavioral decisions)?
 Self-presentation theory of social anxiety SA = IM, IE. What do these associations look like? What does it mean
that IM and IE are “interactive”? To think about - in what way does the self-preesntation theory of social anxiety
parallel EVT?
Roots of the Cognitive Approach: Social Learning theory
 How is this different from “Behaviorism”
 Note where some of these concepts can be integrated within the CAPS model
 Dollard and Miller
o Habit hierarchy, Drives, Frustration/Aggression hypothesis, Internal conflicts
 Bandura
o Efficacy expectations, Observational learning, Reciprocal Determinism
Going back to behavior and consistency/variability across situations
 if..then contingencies, “behavioral signatures”
 Fleeson
o Person-situation debate & “interactionism”
o Density Distributions of behavior
o How is it that both the “situationists” and the “person” sides can both be correct?
o Implications for personality theory?
 Resolving the consistency paradox
Self
Self and culture – in relation to self-regard and consistency
Cognitive component of the self (“Self-concept,” “self-schema,” etc)
 Self-schema – what is it? What does it do? How is it assessed?
 Self-reference effect
 Self-efficacy
 Self-discrepancies (actual, ideal, ought)
 Relational selves
 Implicit selves and IAT
 Working self-concept?

Implicit self-theories (Dweck)
o Entity/Incremental theories, relation to goals and behavior. Academic orientation
Motivational components
 3 types of motivations
 Implications for depressive affect?
Affective/Evaluative component: Self-esteem
 What is it?
 Global versus domain-specific SE
 How is SE related to reaction to criticism and negative feedback?
 Baumeister et al
o Is SE linked to aggression – results of studies? Threatened egotism? Hidden low-self-esteem?
 Defensive vs secure self-esteem: Study
o How was it done? What was found? Implications?
 Does self esteem cause good outcomes to occur? Evidence?
Disorders
 What is the DSM? Purposes? Axes?
 What is a personality disorder? General characteristics?
 10 Types of disorders: Characteristics of each
 Note that the DSM’s three “Clusters” pretty much match Funder’s three categories, so just be familiar with the
DSM clusters. The only differences seems to be the labels and the fact that paranoid & borderline switch places
 Bases of diagnosis – how are PDs diagnosed?
 Categorical vs dimensional perspectives (and the Big Five)
What have we learned?
Funder Chapter 19