Social Cognitive Views of Personality

1. Social Cognitive Views of Personality

2. Behavior Therapy • Assessment • Contingencies • Therapy • Limitations

3. Behavior TherapyAssesment • Behaviors are thought of as a sample, not symbolic of something else • Dependent measure: Frequency of target behaviors • Place: relevant location

4. Behavior TherapyContingencies • Contingencies: • What is reinforcing the target behavior?

5. Behavior TherapyContingencies • Premack principle • Identifies reinforcers • What does the person do if they can choose • Used for the reinforcer for therapy • Relativity of reinforcers • The ordering establishes a hierarchy of reinforcers • Nothing is intrinsically reinforcing

6. Behavior TherapyContingencies • The contingency is folded back into the process • Ultimately, The distinction between assessment and treatment is artificial

7. Behavior TherapyTherapy • A number of applications have been developed: • Systematic Desensitization • Aversion therapy • Extinction of cravings • Flooding / Explosion therapy

8. Behavior TherapyTherapy • Systematic Desensitization

9. Behavior TherapyTherapy • Systematic Desensitization • Establish a hierarchy of phobic activities • Train a mutually exclusive response • Usually relaxation

10. Behavior TherapyTherapy • Systematic Desensitization • Transference often starts with imaginative desensitization • In vivo desensitization is more effective • (foreshadowing SLT: the process works even better in conjunction with a model)

11. Behavior TherapyTherapy • Aversion therapy

12. Behavior TherapyTherapy • Aversion therapy • Associate the unwanted behavior with bad feelings • E.g.: treatment of alcoholism with antabuse • Problem: It’s tough to keep the client taking antabuse

13. Behavior TherapyTherapy • Aversion therapy • Joke:

14. Behavior TherapyTherapy • Aversion therapy • Joke: how many therapists does it take to change a light bulb?

15. Behavior TherapyTherapy • Aversion therapy • Joke: how many therapists does it take to change a light bulb? • Answer:

16. Behavior TherapyTherapy • Aversion therapy • Joke: how many therapists does it take to change a light bulb? • Answer: only one, but the light bulb has to want to change

17. Behavior TherapyTherapy • Aversion therapy • Joke: how many therapists does it take to change a light bulb? • Answer: only one, but the light bulb has to want to change • For this reason, AT is very unpopular with both therapists and clients

18. Behavior TherapyTherapy • Aversion therapy • For this reason, AT is very unpopular with both therapists and clients • What do you think, would you guys ever use AT?

19. Behavior TherapyTherapy • Extinction of cravings associated with precipitating cues

20. Behavior TherapyTherapy • Extinction of cravings associated with precipitating cues • Similar to systematic desensitization • Establish a hierarchy of cues that cause cravings • Teach them mutually exclusive response (relaxation)

21. Behavior TherapyTherapy • Extinction of cravings associated with precipitating cues • Move up the hierarchy • Anecdote: Dr. Stote says this works with heroin, but not with meth

22. Behavior TherapyTherapy • Flooding / Explosion therapy

23. Behavior TherapyTherapy • Flooding / Explosion therapy • Similar to extinction in some ways • Establish a hierarchy of cues • Lock the client in with the cues • They will have an extreme sympathetic response • Keep them from escaping

24. Behavior TherapyTherapy • Flooding / Explosion therapy • Guthrie’s Contiguity Theory: • After a while the sympathetic response will diminish • Then the stimuli becomes associated with lower arousal levels

25. Behavior TherapyTherapy • Flooding / Explosion therapy • Move them up the hierarchy • Supposedly this therapy works very fast • (This sounds horrific; please don’t ever do this to me)

26. Behavior TherapyCriticisms • Criticisms:

27. Behavior TherapyCriticisms • Criticisms: • Symptom Substitution • Not real personality change

28. Behavior TherapyCriticisms • Symptom Substitution • The traditional Freudian response • Is this just treating the symptoms, but not the causes? • If so, another symptom will just crop up elsewhere

29. Behavior TherapyCriticisms • Symptom Substitution • There is no evidence for this • Treatment outcomes must be compared to controls • Sometimes clients develop other neuroses, but at the same rate as controls

30. Behavior TherapyCriticisms • Another criticism: personality change • Do these therapies actually change personality, or just surface behaviors? • It depends on the definition of personality, but

31. Behavior TherapyCriticisms • Another criticism: personality change • By any reasonable definition, YES • The client’s habitual behaviors change (the cause of their complaint) • The client’s self concept changes

32. Behavior TherapyThe Limitations of BT • The Limitations of BT: • The problem needs to be only behavior

33. Behavior TherapyThe Limitations of BT • The problem needs to be only behavior • If the problem were distorted cognitions, the traditional BT has nothing to work with • E.g.: what if excessive perfectionism drives someone into depression

34. Behavior TherapyThe Limitations of BT • The problem needs to be only behavior • Do you think there are any problems that are truly only behavioral, with no cognitive component?

35. Behavior TherapyThe Limitations of BT • The problem needs to be only behavior • Do you think there are any problems that are truly only behavioral, with no cognitive component? • E.g. what did you make of the fact, noted earlier, that Systematic Desensitization works better with a model?

36. Behavior TherapyThe Limitations of BT • The problem needs to be only behavior • One possible rejoinder to this limitation: • Reinforce them to engage in more activities that they find joyous

37. Behavior TherapyThe Limitations of BT • The problem needs to be only behavior • One possible rejoinder to this limitation: • Reinforce them to engage in more activities that they find joyous • Does this sound reasonable to you?

38. Behavior Therapy • Discussion questions: • What do you make of the fact that all the therapies are so similar? • Is BT just a one-trick pony, OR • Are these ingenious extensions of a fundamental principle?

39. Ch. 12: Social Cognitive Conceptions (Mischel, 1974)

40. Ch. 12: Social Cognitive Conceptions • Observational Learning (Bandura) • Cognitive Affective Person System (CAPS; Mischel)

41. Observational Learning (Bandura, 1965)

42. 4 Parts to Observational Learning 1. Attention 2. Retention 3. Motor Production 4. Motivation (Bandura, 1965)

43. 4 Parts to Observational Learning 1. Attention 2. Retention 3. Motor Reproduction 4. Motivation (Bandura, 1965)

44. 4 Parts to Observational Learning 1. Attention 2. Retention 3. Motor Production 4. Motivation (Bandura, 1965)

45. 4 Parts to Observational Learning 1. Attention 2. Retention 3. Motor Production 4. Motivation (Bandura, 1965)

46. 4 Parts to Observational Learning 1. Attention 2. Retention 3. Motor Production 4. Motivation (Bandura, 1965)

47. CAPS “if…then…” Profiles Intra-individual patterns of behavior variability: Behavior X Conditional Probability 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 I I I I I I I I I I I I I 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 Situations (conditions)

48. CAPS “if…then…” Profiles Child #9 Profile stability: r=.89 Child #28 Profile stability: r=.49 Verbal Aggression (z) -2 -1 0 1 2 I I I I I Verbal Aggression (z) -2 -1 0 1 2 I I I I I teased warned approached praised punished teased warned approached praised punished

49. Social Cognitive Processes • Self Schemas (Markus 1977): Traits one attributes to one’s self. • They guide attention and encoding. • If one thinks “I am needy, whiny and irritating” they will remember things about events that are relevant to that specific self attribution. • They organize knowledge and concepts about how one thinks one is perceived.

50. Social Cognitive Processes • The Relational Self • How one represents oneself is intimately coupled with how one represents significant others and relations between self and significant other. “I am truly my father’s son.”