The Cognitive Perspective

The Cognitive Perspective Theories of Personality Chapter 16 May 2, 2002 Class #13

Albert Ellis(1913- ) • Ellis was born in Pittsburgh in 1913 and raised in New York City. He made the best of a difficult childhood by using his head and becoming, in his words, "a stubborn and pronounced problem-solver”… • A serious kidney disorder turned his attention from sports to books, and the strife in his family (his parents were divorced when he was 12) led him to work at understanding others… • In junior high school Ellis set his sights on becoming the Great American Novelist • He planned to study accounting in high school and college, make enough money to retire at 30, and write without the pressure of financial need

Background Information • The Great Depression put an end to his vision, but he made it through college in 1934 with a degree in business administration from the City University of New York • Ellis devoted most of his spare time to writing short stories, plays, novels, comic poetry, essays and nonfiction books • By the time he was 28, he had finished almost two dozen full-length manuscripts, but had not been able to get them published • He realized his future did not lie in writing fiction, and turned exclusively to nonfiction, to promoting what he called the "sex-family revolution"

Background Information • As he collected more and more materials for a essay called "The Case for Sexual Liberty," many of his friends began regarding him as something of an expert on the subject • They often asked for advice, and Ellis discovered that he liked counseling as well as he did writing • In 1942 he returned to school, entering the clinical-psychology program at Columbia • He started a part-time private practice in family and sex counseling soon after he received his master's degree in 1943 • He received a doctorate in 1947 also from Columbia

Background Information • In the late 1940s he taught at Rutgers and New York University, and was the senior clinical psychologist at the Northern New Jersey Mental Hygiene Clinic • He also became the chief psychologist at the New Jersey Diagnostic Center and then at the New Jersey Department of Institutions and Agencies

Background Information • Ellis initially believed that psychoanalysis was the deepest and most effective form of therapy • But Ellis' faith in psychoanalysis was rapidly crumbling • He discovered that when he saw clients only once a week or even every other week, they progressed as well as when he saw them daily • He took a more active role, interjecting advice and direct interpretations as he did when he was counseling people with family or sex problems • His clients seemed to improve more quickly than when he used passive psychoanalytic procedures

Rational-Emotive Therapy • By 1955 Ellis had given up psychoanalysis entirely, and instead was concentrating on changing people's behavior by confronting them with their irrational beliefs and persuading them to adopt rational ones… • Very confrontational style • This role was more to Ellis' taste, for he could be more honestly himself. "When I became rational-emotive," he said, "my own personality processes really began to vibrate"

Attack on Rogers… • Ellis says his goal as a therapist is to “make mincemeat” out of his client’s illogical ideas • Feels much of Rogers’ ideas are nonsense… • We don’t have to be loved by everybody • We don’t have to be successful or competent at everything • Therapists don’t have to be warm, caring, and have a reflective acceptance of what the client is saying • Quite to the contrary, it better to challenge their faulty beliefs – that’s the job of the therapist – that’s what we are getting paid for…not for “echoing”

Ellis on bringing religion into the mix… • Ellis is a self-proclaimed atheist clinician • Some of his viewpoints: • He feels that extreme religiosity is essentially an emotional disturbance • He feels that devoutly religious persons tend to be “inflexible, closed, intolerant, and unchanging” • The best solution to emotional problems is to be quite unreligious • He feels there is no intrinsic connection between religion and morality • One can be a highly moral atheist or a distinctly immoral religionist (or vice versa)

Walter Mischel(1930- ) • A native of Vienna, Austria, Mischel moved to New York as a young boy when his family fled the Nazis • He earned his bachelor’s degree from New York University and his master’s degree from the College of the City of New York • He earned his doctoral degree in psychology in 1956 from The Ohio State University

Biography • After graduation, Mischel joined the faculty of the University of Colorado, and later served a four-year stint as assistant professor of social relations at Harvard University • In 1962, he joined the Stanford University faculty, becoming professor of psychology in 1966 and serving two terms as department chair • In 1983, he joined Columbia University as professor of psychology, serving as department chair from 1988 to 1991

Biography • Mischel has written seven books, including a textbook, Introduction to Personality, now in its fifth edition • He has received numerous awards, including the American Psychological Association (APA) Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award and the APA Distinguished Scientist Award

Biography • Mischel who grew up down the street from Freud initially was an advocate of psychoanalysis • Became discouraged when these techniques failed to be effective when applied to juvenile defenders on NYC’s Lower East Side

Theory • Mischel began his work with a criticism of traditional personality theories… • The psychodynamic theories presumed a maladaptive childhood… • Trait theories assumed a relatively stable underlying personality structure… • Both theories tried to "tap into" the presumably enduring, stable trait which would enable the clinician to predict future behavior with relative accuracy • Mischel doesn’t buy into this – feels there is more involved

What about environmental conditions? • Most all theorists recognized that there were large behavioral variations among individuals, Mischel emphasized the wide variations within individuals • He called this concept "behavior specificity" • For Mischel this term meant that an individual's behavior is determined by the specific situation in which he or she finds herself • He stated further that the individual will behave in similar ways only to the same extent that the circumstances lead to similar goals or consequences

Patients know themselves better than their psychologists do??? • Well that’s what Mischel thought… • People can predict their own behavior and explain what's wrong more often than their psychologists… • Maybe, Mischel and Rogers should have gotten together • He felt however, that people often believe they and others have cross-situational consistency when in fact they do not

Interaction point of view… • Mischel felt there was an interplay between the internal entities of the person and social situations • The person and the situation point of view… • Felt that the personal cognitive/affective factors were constantly interacting with the situational things

Cognitive Social Learning Theory • Mischel felt that personal factors such as memories of previous experiences determined what skills, strategies, and affects were being used to produce behavior • Mischel’s theory predicts that the history of rewards and punishments experienced in a given situation and the resultant skills, etc. developed in that situation will determine one’s present behavior

Aaron T. Beck (1921- ) • One of the most famous scholars in the field of cognitive psychology is Aaron T. Beck • He formulated the cognitive theory of depression and the subsequent psychotherapy based on it • His cognitive theory characterizes all depressions • The theory proposes that depressogenic schemas (dysfunctional attitudes) develop early in certain people's lives • However, these schemas lay latent until negative life events activate them

Beck’s Background • Aaron Beck was born in Providence, Rhode Island, on July 18, 1921. • He graduated from Brown University in 1942 and attended Yale University, where he earned his Ph.D. in psychiatry in 1946 • He became interested in psychoanalysis and cognition during his residency in neurology • Beck served as Assistant Chief of Neuropsychology at Valley Forge Hospital during the Korean War • He graduated from the Philadelphia Psychoanalytic Institute in 1956 • After graduation, he launched into a research program to validate psychoanalytic theories • However, after his research did not support his hypotheses, he rejected the psychoanalytic approach and began to develop a cognitive therapy for depression

Beck’s Cognitive Distortion Model of Depression (1967) • Before activation by specific experiences, they do not directly influence mood or cognition, nor are they accessible to people's awareness • However, after they develop, the presence of these excessively rigid and inappropriately negative schemas contribute to people's cognitive predisposition, making them more vulnerable to depression • The schemas prompt people to have negative thoughts about themselves, the world, and the future, thoughts that distort their conscious thinking and behavior

Beck’s Cognitive Distortion Model of Depression (1967) • Beck theorized: • That depressed individuals have distorted negative thoughts about themselves and the present situation they are in • That depressed individuals have negative thoughts about their future

Beck’s Cognitive Distortion Model of Depression (1967) • Negative thinking is also where the concept with which cognitive therapy of depression began in the work of Beck and Ellis • They felt that negative thoughts nearly always contain gross distortions

Other researchers disagree… • Alloy and Abramson (1988) • Suggest that depressives are more accurate in their assessments of the facts concerning their lives than are non-depressives, who tend to have an optimistic bias • Non-depressed individuals may overestimate the amount of control they have in situations • There is much evidence that increased attention to yourself, in contrast to increased attention to the people, objects, and events around you, is generally associated with more signs of depressed feeling

Non-depressed people paint too rosy a picture of real-life? • Weinstein(1989) • Seems to suggest that we fool ourselves into being happy

Unrealistic Optimism • Weinstein (1980) • People tend to think that they are invulnerable • They expect others to be victims of misfortune, not themselves • Such ideas imply not merely a hopeful outlook on life, but an error in judgment that can be be labeled unrealistic optimism • People believe that negative events are less likely to happen to them than to others, and they believe that positive events are more likely to happen to them than to others • Weinstein (1983) • The tendency for people to claim that their chances of suffering from various problems are less than the chances of others around them

Weinstein & Klein (1996) • Probably the biggest gap in research on this topic is the absence of information about the behavioral implications of optimistic biases • Do optimistic biases really result in unnecessary harm? • Are they ever beneficial?

Positive Illusions? • It has long been assumed that the mark of a mentally healthy individual is the ability to be in touch with reality • In other words, a well-adjusted person is someone who views herself and the world around her with great accuracy

Taylor and Brown (1988) • Challenged this widely held tenet of psychology by proposing that positive illusions and not accuracy in viewing reality is essential for mental health • These researchers suggested positive illusions, which they define as “unrealistically positive self-evaluations, exaggerated perceptions of control, and unrealistic optimism”, are both pervasive and enduring in well-adjusted individuals • They supported their claim that most individuals hold unrealistic positive illusions by citing research that found the majority of individuals see themselves as better than average and better than others see them

Final Words… • Mischel and Beck put a lot of weight on the social aspects involved in cognition • It seems situational effects can cause faulty thinking • Negative schemas • Affect is involved in both theories but seems to be emphasized more in Mischel’s • Both theories may contain a bit of the old psychoanalytic stuff but they have added much to it… • Clearly moving away from it • Slides 26 and 27 prepared by http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Units/socpsy/CourseWeb/Thinking/COURSEDOCS/9

The Cognitive Perspective