1. Module 34 – Contemporary Perspectives on Personality
The Trait Perspective
and
The Social Cognitive Perspective

2. Review: Perspectives on Personality
We are studying 4 perspectives on personality
Psychoanalytic, Humanistic, Trait, and Social-Cognitive
Trait perspective: People can be described by a limited set of patterns of behavior or disposition to feel and act
Eysenck & Eysenck’s 2 dimensions: Stability and extraversion
Big 5: Conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness to new experience, and extraversion
Questions about personality traits:
Are there biological bases for personality? Yes, neurotransmitters
Are the traits stable? Yes, especially after adolescence
Are the traits genetically determined? Yes, partially
Does a person’s personality change across situations? No, behaviors change, average tendencies for behavior remains stable

3. Contemporary psychology’s ways of assessing personality
Personality can be assessed by self-report: a personality inventory
a questionnaire (often with true-false or agree-disagree items) designed to measure a wide range of feelings and behaviors
Assesses selected personality traits
scored objectively
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)
the most widely researched and clinically used of all personality tests – translated to 100 languages including Turkish
originally developed to identify emotional disorders (still considered its most appropriate use)
NEO-PI-Revised Personality Inventory of Big 5: translated and adapted to Turkish by Sami Gulgoz

4. Perspectives on Personality
Psychoanalytic
Humanistic
Trait
Social-cognitive

5. Social-Cognitive Perspective
Behaviors are influenced by the interaction between persons and their social context
Reciprocal Determinism: the interacting influences between personality and environmental factors

6. Reciprocal determinism
Do we choose our environments?
Reciprocal determinism
People choose different environments: preferences (personality)
People react to environments based on personality (will influence future choices)
Repeated experiences in an environment will change our reactions over time
BIOLOGICAL , PSYCHOLOGICAL, AND SOCIAL-CULTURAL FACTORS INFLUENCE PERSONALITY

7. The issue of personal control
Our sense of controlling our environments rather than feeling helpless
External Locus of Control
the perception that chance or outside forces beyond one’s personal control determine one’s fate
Internal Locus of Control
the perception that one controls one’s own fate
An extreme situation of lack of control: Learned Helplessness
the hopelessness and passive resignation an organism learns when unable to avoid repeated aversive events

8. Perceived control is basic to adaptive human functioning
Uncontrollable
bad events
Perceived
lack of control
Generalized
helpless behavior

9. How helpless do we feel? Optimism vs. pessimism
Pessimism: a negative attributional style - explain bad events as externally determined, stable, and global.
Optimism: a positive attributional style - explain bad events as internally controllable, temporary, and specific.
Both internal locus of control and optimism are related to higher achievement, better dealing with stress, less illness and faster recovery.

10. How can we “predict” behavior? Social-cognitive psychologists’ answer
Behavior is the product of personality and the situation
Best predictor of behavior in a given situation is past behavior in a similar situation
We cannot predict behavior with personality only
We cannot predict behavior by asking questions about “what would you do if…”
We can predict behavior if we create analogous situations

11. Module 43 – Social Thinking
Attitudes and behaviors
Power of the Situation

12. Social Psychology
Branch of psychology which studies how we think about, influence, and relate to one another.
TOPICS:
Attributions: How do we try to understand each other?
Attitudes: How are our behaviors in different environments determined?
How do attitudes change?

13. How do we think about and try to understand one another?
We attempt to understand each other’s behaviors by making attributions:
Dispositional attributions
Situational attributions
FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTION ERROR: We overestimate the influence of personality and underestimate the influence of situations
Napolitan & Goethals experiment: Conversations with a woman: aloof/critical OR warm/friendly
Two groups: expected spontaneous behavior / expected behavior upon instruction
Participants were asked to talk to a woman who behaved in a cold, aloof and critical manner.  Before talking to her, participants were told either that the woman was like this naturally, or they were told that she had been asked to behave in this way.  However, afterwards when they were asked about what the person was really like they ignored previous information and believed that she really was cold and critical.  They repeated the procedure with other participants using a woman that was friendly and kind and found just the same.  Situational factors were only considered when the participants had the opportunity to chat to the woman a second time and see her behaving differently.

14. The Effects of Attribution
In the way we relate to each other in daily life
Friends, partners, spouses, coworkers
In situations when we make decisions about each other:
Job interviews, courts, disciplinary hearings – murder versus manslaughter
Political effects of attributions
Why is there poverty? Why is there unemployment? Why is there ignorance? Why is there illiteracy? Why is there terrorism?
Personal deficits  treatment of individuals
Situational deficits  large scale policies

15. Does behavior influence attitudes?
Attitudes and actions
Definition: Attitudes are feelings (based on our beliefs) that predispose our reactions to our environment (objects, people, and events)
Cigarette smoking does not really kill.
“White” lies don’t count as lies
Attitudes influence behavior (most of the time)
What if there are other influences?
Does behavior influence attitudes?

16. Attitudes and Actions
Internal attitudes
External
Influences
Behavior

17. How does behavior influence attitudes?
“Foot-in-the-door” phenomenon
Agree to a request for a small action  comply with a larger demand
Prisoners of war  changing political attitudes
Attitudes follow good behaviors and evil behaviors
Smoking campaigns
Finnish paternity leave policy

18. Social roles influence attitudes
Roles are sets of expectations / prescriptions about social positions.
Roles define how those in a certain position ought to behave.
Roles affect our attitudes.
Role of a meek female or an assertive male
Management role
Motherhood role

19. Stanford Prison Study

20. Stanford Prison Study
Subjects: physically and mentally healthy young men who volunteered to participate for money.
They were randomly assigned to be prisoners or guards.
Those assigned the role of prisoner became distressed, helpless, and panicky.
Those assigned the roles of guards became either nice, “tough but fair,” or tyrannical.
Study had to be ended after 6 days.