Cognition and personality

• Memory: the internal record of some previous event or experience
• Multi store model of memory

  Theorised in 1968 by Atkinson and Shiffrin

  
• The process of memory

  Encoding: The conversion of sensory info into a form that can be processed by the brain. It can be done visually, acoustically or by meaning

  Storage: The retention of information for various lengths of time. Human memory is stored via networks of neurons

  Retrieval: recovery to conscious awareness of information stored in the brain. If a memory can't be achieved, it can be shown to not exist at all.
• What is at the centre/belief of humanistic theory

  The belief that people are born good and that they try to reach their potential throughout their lives
• Self actualisation

  the need to live up to our highest unique potential
• Personality is the characteristic ways of thinking, feeling and behaving that make a person
• What are the five traits identified by Mccrae and Costa?

  These traits are

  • Openness to experience v Closed to experience
  • Conscientiousness v Lack of direction
  • Extroversion v Introversion
  • Agreeableness v Antagonism
  • Neuroticism v Emotional stability
• people high in openess

  •People who rate high in openness tend to:Be creative, inventive and adventurous

  Have a great deal of intellectual curiosity, prefer to avoid routine,
• Low in openess...


  •People who rate low in openness tend to:

  Be careful and consistent

  Appreciate routines and are often wary or even resistant to change
• Conscientiousness (vs Lack of Direction):

  This trait describes a continuum between being highly efficient and very careless
• High in conscientiousness

  High achieving

  Perfectionists
• Low in conscientiousness (high lack of direction)

  Mediocre-to-low achieving

  Careless/negligent
• Extraversion v introversion


  This trait describes a continuum between being very outgoing and very reserved
• High in extraversion characteristics (mcrae)

  Talkative

  Gregarious
• Low in extraversion (mcrae)

  Quiet

  Solitary
• Agreeableness (vs Antagonistic):

  •This trait describes a continuum between being cooperative/helpful and antagonistic/disagreeable
• High agreeableness

  Cooperative

  Even-tempered
• Low agreeableness (high antagonistic)

  Uncooperative/

  argumentative

  Ill-tempered
• Neuroticism (vs Emotionally Stable):

  •This trait describes a continuum between being emotionally unstable (neurotic) and emotionally stable
• High neuroticism (mcrae)

  Anxious

  Insecure
• Low neuroticism (high emotional stability) (mcrae)

  Calm

  Secure
• Limitations of Maslow's theory

  •Sample: the sample used by Maslow makes it difficult to generalise his theories to females and individuals from lower social classes or different ethnicities:

  Maslow’s sample was highly biased

  His sample of self-actualised people was limited to highly educated white males
• Limitations of maslow


  •Lacks empirical testing: it is extremely difficult to empirically test Maslow’s concept of self-actualisation in a way that causal relationships can be established
• Theorists for classical conditioning


  Ivan Pavlov and J.B. Watson
• Theorists for operant conditioning


  Operant conditioning: Edward Thorndike and B.F. Skinner
• Trait definition


  the stable form of behaviour that people display in any and every situation
• Features of traits


  they are enduring and genetically based
• Strengths of Eysenck's 1963 theory

  • consistent across time and cultures
  • accounts for both nature and nurture in personality development
• Define unconditioned stimulus


  Unconditioned stimulus (UCS): is any stimulus that consistently produces a particular, naturally occurring, automatic response
• Define unconditioned response


  the response that occurs automatically when the UCS is presented. A UCR is a reflexive involuntary response that is predictably caused by a UCS
• Define Bandura's social learning theory


  Learning that occurs when someone uses observation of a model’s actions and the consequences of those actions to guide their future actions
• Results of Bandura's Bobo doll experiment


  •Children who observed the aggressive model made far more imitative aggressive responses than those who were in the non-aggressive or control groups

  •Boys were more likely to imitate same-sex models than girls
• Maslow's hierarchy

  Maslow

  
• Bandura's sample 


  24 children (12 boys and 12 girls) watched a male or female model behaving aggressively towards a toy called a 'Bobo doll'

  Another 24 children (12 boys and 12 girls) were exposed to a non-aggressive model who played in a quiet and subdued manner

  The final 24 children (12 boys and 12 girls) were used as a control group and not exposed to any model at all
• Bandura's Bobo doll experiment


  •A lab experiment was used, in which the independent variable (the type of model) was manipulated in three conditions:

  1.Aggressive model is shown to 24 children

  2.Non-aggressive model is shown to 24 children

  3.No model shown (control condition) – 24 children
• Thorndike's law of effect


  •Operant conditioning is based on Edward Thorndike’s law of effect. This states that:

  Any behaviour that is followed by a pleasant consequences is likely to be repeated

  Any behaviour that is followed by unpleasant consequences is likely to cease
• Operant conditioning


  •Learning that is explained by its consequences
• Neutral Stimulus (NS) Classical conditioning


  •Neutral stimulus (NS): is the stimulus that is ‘neutral’ at the start of the conditioning process and does not usually produce the unconditioned response
• Conditioned stimulus


  •Conditioned stimulus (CS): this is what the neutral stimulus becomes once it has been successfully paired (or associated) with the UCS. Through repeated association with the UCS, the CS triggers a very similar response to that caused by the UCS
• Conditioned response (CR)


  •Conditioned response (CR): is the learned response that is produced by the CS. The CR occurs after the CS has been associated with the UCS.