Introduction
What is adjustment? Becoming comfortable and not complacent. Coping the best you can.
How do you adjust? Learn, grow, strive, negotiate, compromise, surrender, conquer. . . . .
What is accepting yourself?
Having a sense of self-worth and living up to it
Being what you want to be and not what someone else wants you to be
Accepting failure and the death of a dream
Not being afraid to make mistakes
Having goals and direction in your life
Having a sense of identity
What is having an efficient perception of reality?
Not worrying too much about how the world ought to be.
Not hiding behind a mask
Not thinking that everyone else should be just like you
Not thinking that everything is your fault
Also need:
Close, caring relationships
Independence
A sense of values and ethics
Willingness to grow
Chapter 1: Getting Acquainted with Ourselves & Others
What is the greatest risk of self-disclosure?
Not being accepted.
What is a façade?
What does self-disclosure do? Improves relationships, promotes mental health, validates or
confirms/affirms your ideas and self-concept
What is negative about self-disclosure? It can be used to manipulate people. It can also be used
embarrass or blackmail the discloser.
It can also be used as part of impression management, e.g., telling only the positive things about
yourself.
In the Johari window, describe open, blind, hidden and unknown information. Which type has
no need for communication, and which type has no basis for communication. What is a major factor
that can change the size of the windowpanes?
When is a person lonely? When there are too few interpersonal relationships or relationships are not
satisfying.
In 1968, Harry S. Sullivan listed loneliness as a problem that could lead to isolation, lack of selfesteem, depression, physiological problems
What causes loneliness? Divorce, death, moving away, family weakness. . .
What is LTL? Living-together loneliness, A person can be lonely in the presence of others. As many as
25% of married people may experience LTL.
Is loneliness the same thing as aloneness? No, sometimes people have a need to be alone.
Among what groups is loneliness most prevalent? Teenagers, the unmarried, young adults, divorced
people, and the widowed
What should a relationship provide? Emotional attachment and security. It may also provide a
confidant, someone who accepts you and is interest in listening about you.
What people are usually parts of close relationships? Parents, siblings, best friends, boy or girlfriend
(romantic interest), spouse, pastor, pet
How does this person generally feel about you? Often overlooks your faults, sometimes tells you about
your faults, cares when you hurt, allows you to show your tender, vulnerable side
The advantages of a close relationship? Better health, lower stress level, longer life
Physical touch is important. Emotional sharing is important. Cognitive sharing of thoughts and ideas is
important. These may come from different relationships.
The need for relationship can cause people to be vulnerable, and to seek social ties, even if those are
negative such as gangs, cults or friends who use drugs. If people belong to organizations, they have a
sense of identity and belonging. These would include clubs, teams, religious organizations, and families.
Sometimes, the elderly suffer from having withdrawn from many of their ties (including retirement and
loss of a spouse), and this may effect their health or shorten their lives.
Individuals and groups also form a person’s support system to have physical needs met. To know who
your support system is, ask yourself whom you would call in a major or minor emergency.
Shyness – the fear of getting acquainted
50% of Americans claim to be shy. Why shyness is considered charming in many Oriental cultures, it is
considered a negative trait in America, and severe shyness is called Social Anxiety Disorder. It is treated
with antidepressant drugs. Generally, people do not like being shy. It results in missed opportunities,
loneliness, and being uncomfortable around people. The shy person is often inhibited, anxious, and
dreads social encounters. They are glad to see the encounter over with.
Not every shy person is shy in all social circumstances, and the types of circumstances vary from person
to person.
The thoughts accompanying shyness include worries over being boring, not having anything to say,
thinking that people will not like me or think that they are as good as I am. The feelings include anxiety,
insecurity, confusion, and embarrassment. The physical reactions may include butterflies, nausea,
fainting, perspiring, blushing, pounding heart, dry mouth & trembling.
The consequences of shyness include being very self-conscious and unaware of the needs or feelings of
others, difficulty in meeting and making friends, reluctance to try new situations, not standing up for
rights or expressing opinions, and not demonstrating personal capabilities and getting positive
evaluations.
Why are people shy? On the inheritance side (nature), they may have a nervous temperament or highlevel of emotional reactivity. Kagan says that shy people have a fast heart rate, high levels of stress
hormones, and much right-hemisphere activity in the brain. On the experience side, they may have
been treated harshly, overprotected, or have faulty perceptions of themselves, or of cultural
expectations.
The most common situations to provoke shyness are meeting strangers, talking to authority figures, and
meeting members of the opposite sex.
Zimbardo suggests that to overcome shyness, people should analyze the shyness, build self-esteem
through examining their self standards and making them more realistic using positive self-talk. He also
says to try to improve your social skills and to try not to take rejection personally.
A person can improve his or her social skills by imitating effective models, learning to listen and using
videotape feedback of themselves. They should learn to smile, and to imagine social situations and
practice how they would behave in them. It is a process.
People Perception
We all “size people up” using our past experiences, stereotypes, and prejudices. We perceive, evaluate,
categorize, and form judgments.
Perceptual awareness is the ability to “read” others. First impressions are lasting. We may judge
someone to be serious, untrustworthy, fun to be around, kind, etc. We will then use this judgment to
filter additional information about the person. There is a “primacy effect” that says you will avoid
people you don’t think you will like. These judgments are often formed in seconds or minutes.
As we are judging people, we are considering future interactional possibilities. We use physical
appearance, stereotypes (Why do we stereotype?), and often have prejudices based on perceived group
memberships. Is prejudice always negative? What is categorizing? What are in-groups and out-groups?
Physical appearance. People who are physically attractive are seen as poised, competent, happy and
socially skilled. We also identify beauty as good (and ugly as evil) In truth, physical beauty is not
correlated with intelligence, mental health or self-esteem.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The ideal of physical beauty varies from culture to culture and
from time to time in the same culture.
The “matching” hypothesis (Berscheid, 2000) says that we like to date people whom we perceive as our
equals in physical attractiveness. This makes us more comfortable.
Attribution – the process of judging other people’s motives
The fundamental attribution error, made with those we don’t know well, is to put too much
emphasis on the person’s personality and ignore the situation when attributing motives for their
actions. The actor-observer discrepancy, says that when we are the one being judged, we blame our
actions on the situation.
Power of Expectations
What is a self-fulfilling prophecy?
What is the Rosenthal effect?
What kinds of negative self-talk (and other talk) should we avoid?
Why are hope, expectations, and faith so important?
According to Carl Rogers, we do not choose our behaviors based on reality, but on our
__________.
What are the rules for making a favorable impression?
1. Use eye contact, but only 2/3 of the time.
Watch your body language.
2. Smile.
3. Don’t over disclose,
4. Use flattery.
5. Don’t have a line.
6. Don’t overuse the person’s name.
7. Don’t be aloof or “poker-faced.”
8. Remember the rules of the culture.
Chapter 2: Self-Awareness
Where do you get your self-image or self-concept? 1) Observing your own behavior (traits you were
born with); 2) Learning and experience; 3)feedback from others; 4) comparing yourself with others
What is a significant other? Any person who influences you greatly through a personal relationship.
Festinger: When you compare yourself with others, you think “same-different” and “superior-inferior”.
If you are different, the comparison may be inappropriate.
Review the self-esteem powerpoint slides, posted on the web page.
Sigmund Freud said there were three parts to the personality. The id represents raw desire without
reason or morality. The superego is the conscience or sense of right and wrong. The ego is simply the
thinking self, with minimal emotion/motivation. These parts are usually in conflict, and the ego is the
mediator.
Alfred Adler said that we strive for superiority, and that is the basic human motive. It is normal to
compensate for perceived inferiority in some areas by playing to our strengths or working harder.
However, some people develop an inferiority complex and spend their lives working for power, status,
and success.
Review Erikson’s stages from your textbook or the internet. You should be able to recognize
descriptions of them and roughly what ages they correspond to.
Similarly, with Levinson, you should know the sequence and description of stages and roughly what ages
these represent, e.g., thirties, early forties. What is Levinson’s “dream”? How do men and women
differ in their concerns at midlife?
According to the MacArthur Foundation, 1999, what happens to people after the midlife transition?
What are the Big Five stable personality traits? Remember OCEAN, and be able to recognize their
descriptions.
What is the problem with Carl Rogers’s concepts of self-actualization and unconditional positive regard?
According to him, what is self-actualization? What is a fully-functioning person, and how does one
become this? What happens when there is a lack of unconditional acceptance?
What is self-worth based upon and how is it different from self-esteem?
Under the section, “How did I get to be the person I am today?, What is self-talk? What is cognitive
restructuring? Is there a relationship between self-talk and the self-fulfilling prophecy? What is
reciprocal determinism? What is a self-serving bias?
Chapter 3: Who’s In Control?
How did B. F. Skinner explain his statement that people have no free will?
How does the “serenity prayer” relate to what or whom we believe is in control of our lives?
What is the easiest to control: 1) the situation; 2) other people’s behavior; 3) our responses to the
situation? What should we be most concerned about controlling? What do we become when we try
too hard to control the behavior of others?
According to Albert Ellis’s ABC model, what does B stand for, and why is it important?
Is the way that you think about things learned?
According to Julian Rotter, people tend to either have an internal or an external locus of control.
Compare and contrast these two positions.
What are the behaviors that are different between internals and externals? Which group is usually
more successful? Why?
What is learned helplessness? What causes learned helplessness? What is self-efficacy? What leads to
self-efficacy?
In your textbook on page 120, an example was given which compared Wanda and Jeff, each of whom
had lost a romantic partner. Wanda had an optimistic, external explanation for what happened. Jeff
had a more pessimistic, internal explanation. What were the differences in their thoughts?
How can you take control of your life?
1. Analyze who/what you think is controlling you.
2. Try new activities, interests.
3. Assume more responsibility for tasks. (When you are in charge, you get to do it your way.)
On page 125, your text contrasts optimistic vs. pessimistic explanatory styles. What does it mean that
pessamists think in global, stable and internal ways and optimists think in specific, unstable and external
ways? Which kind of person handles stress better?
Seligman says that you can change your thinking by 1) imagining/considering adverse situations; 2)
determining what you would think in those situations; and 3) challenging your own pessimistic thoughts.
Learning
Learning is a relatively permanent change in behavior based on experience.
You must pay attention to learn.
You can really only pay full attention to one thing at a time.
Things that attract our attention are usually: 1) novel (new or unusual); 2) personally important to us; or
3) conflicting (they disagree with what we already know or believe).
Learning through Experience
1. Observational learning (Albert Bandura). We learn most social behaviors this way. We watch or
observe a model and then imitate them. In order to do this we must: 1) pay attention; 2) remember
what we saw; 3) be able to perform the behavior; and 4) be motivated to imitate the behavior. Whether
we are motivated or not has much to do with the consequences we saw the model experience after the
behavior (were they rewarded or punished?).
2. Classical conditioning. I strongly suggest that you look at a book or internet source on this topic. You
might put the term itself in a search engine or use Ivan Pavlov or John B. Watson. I will not ask you
about UCS-UCR or CS-CR pairings, but you do need to know that this type of learning is often automatic
and unintended and without full or deliberate conscious awareness.
3. Operant conditioning. Once again, I suggest that you might look at a textbook or internet source. The
primary name associated with this is B. F. Skinner. The behavior here is more voluntary, and the
learning more conscious. However, what the person is learning is not how do to the behavior, but how
to alter a behavior pattern to get the best outcome (the most reward or pleasure and the least pain or
punishment).
Remember that reinforcement is always rewarding and designed to encourage the behavior that
it follows. If it is positive reinforcement it adds (+) something positive to the person’s situation. If it is
negative, it takes away (-) something undesirable such as being in prison, having to do chores, or having
a headache. Punishment is always designed to discourage a behavior. If it is positive punishment, it
adds (+) something unpleasant, such as the pain of a spanking or a fine for speeding. If it is negative (-),
it takes away something pleasant (restriction or time-out).
Chapter 4: Dealing with Emotions
What are emotions? Feelings that are experienced. They include physiological changes, behavioral
expressions, cognitive interpretations, motivational tendencies, and subjective experience.
We usually have little or no direct control over the physiological changes, which may include fear
accompanied by a “fight-or-flight” response—increased heart rate and respiration, perspiration, etc. It
may include depression with a reduced heart rate and respiration and a feeling of tiredness.
Behavioral expressions (which may also be physiological) include blushing, laughing, quivering or highpitched voice, trembling, etc. It may also include more deliberate expression such as yelling, slamming
doors, hugging someone, or even violence, etc.
Cognitive interpretation considers the event or situation in light of our “philosophy of life”. In light of
our philosophy or worldview, is this situation or event significant, negative, positive, threatening,
challenging, etc., and what is likely to be its outcome?
Emotion not only motivates people to take action to change a situation, in a more general sense, it
motivates us to change our personal state of existence in predictable ways. When we are feeling
pleasure, we want to keep it. When we are bored, we want stimulation. When we are anxious, we
want to calm down. When we are sad, we want to be happy; when we are frustrated, we want to be
satisfied, and when we are angry, we want justice to be done. Given all this, we should realize that
emotions are wonderful indicators of how things are going in our lives; much like pain gives us feedback
on how we are faring physically.
Some emotions are generally pure, unmixed, or primary. Others appear to be combinations of two or
more primary emotions. Emotions may also be intense or mild, short- or long-term, and positive or
negative. A mood is a general emotional feeling tone.
Ellis (2000) pointed out that the intensity of an emotion is important. It the emotion is excessive in
intensity or duration, it may hamper your ability to function, and other people may start to avoid you.
Fear or anxiety is a good example. It may paralyze you or cause you to avoid people or situations. Most
fears are not of physical dangers. They are of threats to the self-concept or our worldview. These
include fears of rejection, of ridicule, of abandonment, of being hurt, of getting involved, of failure, etc.
How to face your fears:
1. Admit that you have them.
2. Take a chance or risk on doing something.
3. Think positively; focus on past successes.
4. Avoid catastrophic thinking. (You should know what this is.)
5. Stay in the present and avoid future “what if’s”.
6. Be patient and take one step at a time.
Anxiety, much like fear, is an unpleasant, threatening feeling that something bad is about to happen.
Rollo May (1973) described it as feeling a “danger to your existence.” The danger may be to your life,
your self-concept, or your current situation.
Anxiety also has a positive function in motivating you do to what you don’t want to do, e.g., pay your
bills.
Some theorists make a distinction between normal and neurotic anxiety. They say that neurotic anxiety
interferes with your ability to cope. The line between these two is very hard to draw, and the difference
may be only in the person’s perceived ability to cope.
What is the “magic worry belief”?
__________________________
This stops at the top of page 176 in your textbook. The remainder of Chapter 4 will not be on Test 1.