Chapter 10: Cognitive Foundations of Personality

What are the three parts of helplessness?

First, there must be a non-contingency or disconnect between people's actions and their outcomes, such that people truly have no control over their outcomes. People must also come to expect that their actions will be ineffective in the future. Finally, people give up and act passively when they realize that their actions are fruitless.

What is locus of control?

Locus of control is defined as people's beliefs about the control of reinforcements and outcomes in their lives

As assessed by the CAVE technique, what has an optimistic explanatory style been linked to?

Political victory, military assertiveness, and quality of life while living in a politically free country.

How is locus of control measured?

the Internal-External Locus of Control Scale

What is avoidant coping?

Coping mechanisms such as giving up on goals, distancing, denying, escaping, abusing substances, and failing to take constructive steps to fix the situation.

Salespeople with a optimistic explanatory style outsell those with a pessimistic explanatory style by about _______.

20-40%

Have American college students become more internal or external since 1960?

Americans are turning to secondary control more and more as a way of maintaining control. This shift towards secondary control is reflected in a more external locus of control.

Numerous studies have been done on locus of control which suggest that more positive outcomes in achievement, work, health, and relationships are associated with having ________________.

An internal locus of control

What is the effect of explanatory style on physical health?

An optimistic explanatory style is linked to better immune functioning. People with an optimistic explanatory style take better care of themselves, seeking and following medical advice more so than people with a pessimistic explanatory style. They are also more likely to engage in healthier behaviors that can prevent illness.

_________cultures tend to be more external. They believe in supernatural forces, fate or even destiny to determine outcomes.

Collectivistic

What are some examples of how having an internal locus of control contributes to overall better physical and mental health?

Decreased risk of heart attack More likely to wear seatbelts Externals are more vulnerable to anxiety and depression and are less able to cope with stressful life experiences Adolescent externals have a greater risk of suicide than internals

What is dispositional optimism?

Dispositional optimism is a general expectation that good things will happen in the future. People with dispositional optimism approach life with positive expectations, even in the face of adversity and believe that good things will happen, events and circumstances will work out for the better, and that good will overcome bad.

What is emotion-focused coping?

Emotion-focused coping is where one attempts to reduce or manage the negative emotions and distress they feel as a result of stress. This may be involve being preoccupied with their emotional distress, accepting the stress, putting a positive spin on events, denying the stress, turning to religion, or seeking friends for comfort.

What is explanatory style?

Explanatory style is habitual and is developed from experience. It is the way that people explain both the bad and the good things that happen to them in life.

What is the crucial difference between an internal and an external locus of control?

Externals have almost a "victim mentality" in which they feel helpless, act passively, and believe there is nothing they can do to change their outcomes or reinforcements.

Someone who is _____________would be better at learning languages in a traditional classroom setting whereas someone who is _______________would learn best by being totally immersed in everyday situations where they are surrounded by a new language.

Field-independent, field-dependent

What does helplessness lead to?

Helplessness leads to a loss of motivation, problems in thinking and learning, and negative emotions such as sadness, depression and anger.

What does a higher score on the ASQ indicate?

Higher numbers indicate a more pessimistic explanatory style.

__________cultures tend to be so internal that they are actually vulnerable to an illusion of control where people believe they are in control even in situations, where, objectively, they are not.

Individualistic

What is the effect of explanatory style on sports?

Individuals and teams with an optimistic explanatory style perform better than those with a pessimistic style. In a study done on baseball players it was found that explanatory style was just as good a predictor of the next season's performance as was the team's performance in the current season. Researchers think that the key to a winning athletic performance is the ability to persist despite setbacks.

College students with a ___________show better career decision-making skills

Internal locus of control

Externals and internals differ in how they process information. __________pay more attention to information that may be useful to them later and they also retain more information than ______________.

Internals, externals

________take more action than _________including taking political action, and achieving greater academic success by studying more, performing better on tests, and getting better grades.

Internals, externals

What is the effect of explanatory style on work performance?

Managers, nonmanagers and laborers with an optimistic explanatory style are more motivated, persist longer in the face of adversity, perform better and experience less burnout and turnover than workers with a pessimistic explanatory style.

What is the effect of explanatory style on how one performs in school?

Optimistic college students do better in their classes than students with a pessimistic explanatory style, even after controlling for ability. Optimistic students show greater motivation and persist longer in the face of adversity.

What effect does optimism have on coping strategies?

Optimists have better strategies for managing stress. Optimists approach problems head-on, doing whatever they can to improve their predicament, engaging in active problem-focused coping.

How do people develop their locus' of control?

People develop these expectations from their experiences in the world. If people have been rewarded for their own actions, they will come to believe that they can indeed control what happens to them. However, if their actions have not been rewarded they will think that they lack control and that events happen due to external causes or for unknown and unpredictable reasons.

What does someone who has an internal locus of control believe?

People who have a internal locus of control believe that they have some control over what happens to them

What is pessimistic explanatory style?

People who have a pessimistic explanatory style view negative events as their own fault (internal), likely to happen again (stable), and undermining other aspects of their life (global).

What is optimistic explanatory style?

People with optimistic explanatory style view negative events as not their fault (external), unlikely to happen again (unstable), and limited to just one aspect of their lives (specific).

There are two ways of taking control: First, people can exercise ______________and _______________. To do this, one must have an internal locus of control. Alternatively, people can exercise __________ and _________. This also requires an internal locus of control

Primary control and attempt to make themselves feel better or less distressed by changing circumstances. Secondary control and attempt to fit into, accommodate, or accept a situation, or an event in ways that make themselves feel better, or at least less distressed.

What is problem-focused coping?

Problem-focused coping is when people work to solve their problems or do something concrete to change the source of the stress.

How is explanatory style measured?

Questionnaires and content analysis. The most extensively used questionnaire is the Attributional Style Questionnaire . The second method of measuring explanatory style is the content analysis of verbatim explanations called the CAVE technique.

What does someone with an external locus of control believe?

Someone with an external locus of control believes that they have little control over what happens to them and instead believe that reinforcements or outcomes are due to chance, luck, fate, powerful others, or are unpredictable

What is the hopelessness model of depression?

The belief that ones lacks control-is helpless in the face of a negative event in the present-combines with the belief that the helplessness will continue in the future. This causes a person to lose hope, stop trying and feel sadness.

What is the key to avoiding helplessness?

The key to avoiding helplessness is not learning that a particular response is effective, but learning that any response is effective.

What is the difference between someone who is field-dependent and someone who is field-independent?

Those who are field-dependent tend to see the big picture rather than details. In contrast, people who are field-independent rely on their own physical sensations and have selective attention to particular object without being distracted by the surrounding detail.

When may someone experience learned helplessness?

When people find themselves in a situation where they are exposed to aversive stimuli that they cannot reduce, eliminate, or control in any way, they may experience learned helplessness and come to believe that their actions will be useless in future situations as well.

What is yoking?

Yoking is when a treatment that participants in one condition receive depends on how participants in another condition behave.

When interacting with strangers, ___________talked more and looked at their partners more than internals did.

externals