cognitive perspective on personality (1)

two assumptions of the cognitive perspective

1. understanding behavior means understanding how people deal with information that surrounds them

2. flow of life consists of an elaborate web of decisions—some conscious, others not—how the mind is organized, personality is structured, personality emerges from styles of cognitive processing

george kelly’s personal constructs

our experiences aren’t based entirely on physical reality

the physical reality of an experience may be the same for all, but the experience of it can very widely from person to person

people impose subjective organization on the world they perceive

schemas

cognitive structures used to organize knowledge about the world

influence attention, interpretation, memory, and behavior

schemas include information about

exemplars (specific examples)

general characteristics

theories of schema formation

generated around construct of prototype (best member)

represent a composite of characteristics that are relevant by not necessary (fuzzy set)

social cognition

cognitive processes focusing on socially meaningful stimuli

people form cognitive categories for

types of people

gender roles

environments

social situations

social relations

people differ in what regarding schemas?

how readily they develop schemas

content and complexity

which schemas are most readily activated

why do people differ in the these things about schemas

differential experiences

memory and schema activation

memory is organized in a network of interconnected nodes (areas of storage)

information from activated memory nodes is represented in consciousness

as a given node is activated, partial activation spreads to related (linked) nodes

partial activation makes it easier for information to move into consciousness

priming and use of information

idea that partial activation produces easier access to memories has led to experimentation with priming

activating a node of information prior to a task of interest—does schema remain activated and influence subsequent judgments/behaviors, does related information become more accessible?

srull and wyer

participants complete two unrelated tasks

“word comprehension” - scrambled sentence task (80% vs 20% related to hostility)

“impression formation”

priming and behavior - macrae and johnson

scrambled sentence task (ex: clean you the dishes should (neutral prime), old helped he lady the (helpful prime))

experimenter drops box of pens

person most likely to help is the participant given the helpful prime

priming and personality

priming happens constantly in life

whenever you read, hear, think, or see something, it makes corresponding parts of your memories active (directly or indirectly)

residual activation can impact judgments, behaviors, goals, and mindsets

personality is partly the product of residual schema activation

chronic schemas

the most accessible categories an individual uses most—reflects a readiness to use particular schemas in perceiving the world

people (are the same/differ) in what categories are generally accessible

differ

individual differences and schema accessibility (brady and matthews)

children from low-income neighborhoods perceived more hostile intent in ambiguous actions than other children—most likely because they had a higher likelihood of being exposed to violence growing up so the schema was more well-developed and accessible