Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Today we're going to be looking at cognitive and affective
personality theories. We'll look at several of them. Kelly's personal
construct theory that sees personality as patterns of interpretation, unique
mental templates for understanding reality. We'll look at the famous
Bandura Cognitive social theory emphasizes several factors reciprocal determinism, self efficacy,
(00:21):
and observational learning. Also look at Ellis's ribt, the cousin
of CBT, looking at linking irrational beliefs to emotional distress,
Maslow's hierarchy, which we talked a little bit about already,
self determination theory, regulatory focus theory which divides motivation into
promotion such as gains versus loss, and law, locus of control,
(00:42):
and attributional styles which predict resilience, mental health, and other things.
We'll look at it. Personality, remember, isn't fixed, It's shaped
by patterns, how we interpret events, what do we believe
is possible, and what motivates us to act. So let's
start off with a personal construct theory by George Kelly.
He saw people as their own how would you say?
Personal scientists they're developing these mental templates called constructs. Since
(01:07):
the constructs are a bipolar dimension, so they look at
things in two things either all or nothing, like kind
or unkind developed through experience. And this is interesting because
we see this as an issue for psychodynamic theorists and
the concept of splitting or CBT for all or nothing
or black and white thinking. These constructs guide perception, prediction,
(01:27):
and behavior in human beings. When they're too rigid and flexible,
they're narrow or inaccurate, they generate the stress. This is
exactly what psychodynamic world has been talking about for decades.
The repertory grid. The technique is used to assess a
person's construct system by exploring how they perceive different people
in their life along these bipolar dimensions. So if you
(01:51):
have a client's construct that is authority equals rejection, working
with a therapist might offer a new data point to
revise this type of thinking. So you're challenging, you're creating
a nuance, a gray area in their black and white thinking,
or they're splitting as we would call it in a
psychodynamic world. So you would challenge this type of construct
(02:13):
that they may have, the biparality, the bipolarity of it.
Now we switch over to cognitive social theory with Bandura
and Dura emphasize that personality emerges from interactions between thoughts, behaviors,
and the environment, what he called reciprocal determinism, so you
have observational learning where people learn behaviors by watching others.
(02:34):
Modeling is what's also known as self efficacy, which has
really become more important than self esteem and a lot
of research over the last couple of decades. It's the
belief in one's ability to perform a task and handle challenges. Finally,
is self regulation, which is the ability to set internal standards,
monitor your performance, and self reinforce. So self efficacy is
(02:56):
a key target in CBT exposure therapy. Really in MOOS therapies,
the client who believes I can't manage anxiety may not
even attempt feared situations. I've also seen this a lot
with people who struggle with alcoholism, especially those what I
call or not me only environmental alcoholics, people who more
(03:17):
are influenced by context by alcohol, I mean by social
context and anything else causing their alcohol. A lot of
times they believe they can't stop when they actually can,
Compared to a alcoholic that has more of a chemical
dependency issue. Now we're in a different world. The biology
is really playing strong. But this is not for this
(03:38):
discussion either way. Self efficacy is important because a lot
of times individuals say I can't do this, and this
was going to reframe that until you can, at least
by using CBT, exposure therapy or other types of therapies.
Like I said, most therapies try to reframe this. RBT
argue that irrational beliefs, not events themselves, cause emotional disturbance.
(04:00):
So he's copying here Epicteitis from the Stoic Philosophy school,
where the epictita said, once events, it's not the events
that disturb us, it's our perception of the events. For him,
it's irrational beliefs. According to Ellis, he has an ABC model.
It's an activating event which leads to a belief, rational
or irrational, which then leads to a consequence. Irrational beliefs
(04:22):
are often taken the form of absolutist thinking, I must
be liked by everyone. It's awful if things don't go
my way. RBT involves identifying, disputing, and replacing these beliefs
with rational alternatives. It's highly structured, but confrontational and designed
to promote emotional responsibility. It has been known to be
useful for anxiety and depression and anger. Motivational theories of
(04:45):
personality goes into Maso's hierarchy of needs. Who talked about
it before, the pyramid of needs physiological food and water, safety,
security and shelter, love and belonging relationships, esteem, achievement and respect,
and then finally self actualization, which is growth and fulfillment.
You need to satisfy obviously your needs first, the first
(05:05):
one two they have to go in order. Self determination
theory by Dessi and Ryan people are motivated by three
innate psychological needs. Autonomy feeling in one control of one's actions, competence,
feeling effective and capable autonomy. Let me repeat that one
feeling in control of one's actions. Relatedness feeling connected to others.
(05:26):
Environments that support these needs promote intrinsic motivation engagement, as
well as good mental health. Environments that thwart them, such
as a rigid school or work environment, can't promote burn
out in apathy. So how would you use this in therapy? Well,
a lot of times this explains why collaborative clients centered
therapy by Carl Rogers is effective clients thrive when they
(05:49):
feel ownership of their own change, believe they can improve,
so you're increasing again the self efficacy. You can see
how these overlap. Regulatory focus theory by Higgins is motivationtions
differ by orientation. Promotion focus individuals pursue growth and success.
They respond to reward and ideal outcomes. Prevention focused individuals
(06:10):
aim to avoid failure and loss. They respond to safety
and obligations. So you can see one's most likely a
loss aversion for the prevention focused. These styles shape risk
tolerance emotional toll. A promotion focused client might respond to
goal setting with excitement, while a prevention focused client might
need reassurance and a contingency planning to avoid loss. Now
(06:34):
we go into what they call locus of control and
the attributional style locus of control by Roter. Attributional styles
is by Seligman in the locus of control. The internal
locus of control belief is that outcomes result from one's
actions tired to higher achievement, resilience, and proactivity, and again
you can see the relationship here with self efficacy. External
(06:55):
locus believe that outcomes are due to chance or external forces,
and here you can see they're linked a lot with helplessness,
which is connected to depression. Depression often shifts locus of
control to outward feelings. Clients feel life is happening to
them instead of them controlling their life. Therapy helps re
establish agency. According to this theory, attributional styles we look
(07:18):
at three different dimensions, internal versus external, stable versus unstable,
and global versus specific. So if pessimistic style attributes failed
to internal, stable and global causes, for instance, I failed
because I'm stupid, that's the internal I always fail at everything.
(07:40):
So let's get more specific on these different dimensions. So
internal versus external internal contribution. Again, the cause attributed to
something about the person, their ability. I failed the exam,
I'm not smart enough. Externals, I failed the exam because
the test was unfair. The causes attributed to something outside
the person. Yes, very similar. So we just talked about
(08:01):
internal and external locus of control, but a little different.
Stable versus unstable. The dimension refers to whether the cause
is perceived as unchanging over time or variable, So for instance,
I'm always bad at math as stable attribution. This is
where we see a lot in Western cultures now in
the US about math. Unstable attribution is the cause is
(08:22):
temporary or situational. I didn't sleep well the night before
the test. Finally, it was global versus specific. The dimension
of refers to how broadly the causes believed to apply.
For instance, global attribution, the cause affects many areas of life.
I feel that everything I try this is kind of
this helplessness or hopelessness component. Specific attribution, the cause applies
(08:45):
only to a particular domain. I'm bad at this one
type of math problem, so I'm incompetence. I'm always messing
things up. I'll ever succeed is the internal stable global right,
I'm incompetent. As internal stable, I'm always always is the
key there, and I'll never succeed in anything as the
global This para spessimistic style you can probably relate to.
(09:06):
Is related to depression and low self esteem. The external
unstable specific is the interview. The interviewer was in a
bad mood today. Usually I do well in interviews. This
is more optimistic and often linked to greater resilience and persistence.
So again, depressions. People with a pessimistic attributional style related
to learn helplessness theory as well and Finally, we'll look
(09:29):
at personality assessment and intervention. Assessment. Tools align with these
theories include rotters, Locus of Control scale, General self Efficity
Efficacy Scale, Attributional Style Questionnaire, RBT, thought records, self determination tasks.
Therapies that are informed by these models include RBT, CBT,
Motivational Interviewing ACT, DBT, and I would actually say a
(09:53):
lot of theories incorporate these concepts. Remember, personality isn't static.
That's learned, tested and revised. Clients arrive with belief systems
shaped by their experience, which we know motivated though by
needs and aren't always visible. This is where it differs
a little bit from other theories, where it focuses a
lot more on the motivational component of it. You're even
(10:13):
seeing some of this overlap with that Larrian theory. That's
it for now,
Today we're going to be looking at cognitive and affective
personality theories. We'll look at several of them. Kelly's personal
construct theory that sees personality as patterns of interpretation, unique
mental templates for understanding reality. We'll look at the famous
Bandura Cognitive social theory emphasizes several factors reciprocal determinism, self efficacy,
(00:21):
and observational learning. Also look at Ellis's ribt, the cousin
of CBT, looking at linking irrational beliefs to emotional distress,
Maslow's hierarchy, which we talked a little bit about already,
self determination theory, regulatory focus theory which divides motivation into
promotion such as gains versus loss, and law, locus of control,
(00:42):
and attributional styles which predict resilience, mental health, and other things.
We'll look at it. Personality, remember, isn't fixed, It's shaped
by patterns, how we interpret events, what do we believe
is possible, and what motivates us to act. So let's
start off with a personal construct theory by George Kelly.
He saw people as their own how would you say?
Personal scientists they're developing these mental templates called constructs. Since
(01:07):
the constructs are a bipolar dimension, so they look at
things in two things either all or nothing, like kind
or unkind developed through experience. And this is interesting because
we see this as an issue for psychodynamic theorists and
the concept of splitting or CBT for all or nothing
or black and white thinking. These constructs guide perception, prediction,
(01:27):
and behavior in human beings. When they're too rigid and flexible,
they're narrow or inaccurate, they generate the stress. This is
exactly what psychodynamic world has been talking about for decades.
The repertory grid. The technique is used to assess a
person's construct system by exploring how they perceive different people
in their life along these bipolar dimensions. So if you
(01:51):
have a client's construct that is authority equals rejection, working
with a therapist might offer a new data point to
revise this type of thinking. So you're challenging, you're creating
a nuance, a gray area in their black and white thinking,
or they're splitting as we would call it in a
psychodynamic world. So you would challenge this type of construct
(02:13):
that they may have, the biparality, the bipolarity of it.
Now we switch over to cognitive social theory with Bandura
and Dura emphasize that personality emerges from interactions between thoughts, behaviors,
and the environment, what he called reciprocal determinism, so you
have observational learning where people learn behaviors by watching others.
(02:34):
Modeling is what's also known as self efficacy, which has
really become more important than self esteem and a lot
of research over the last couple of decades. It's the
belief in one's ability to perform a task and handle challenges. Finally,
is self regulation, which is the ability to set internal standards,
monitor your performance, and self reinforce. So self efficacy is
(02:56):
a key target in CBT exposure therapy. Really in MOOS therapies,
the client who believes I can't manage anxiety may not
even attempt feared situations. I've also seen this a lot
with people who struggle with alcoholism, especially those what I
call or not me only environmental alcoholics, people who more
(03:17):
are influenced by context by alcohol, I mean by social
context and anything else causing their alcohol. A lot of
times they believe they can't stop when they actually can,
Compared to a alcoholic that has more of a chemical
dependency issue. Now we're in a different world. The biology
is really playing strong. But this is not for this
(03:38):
discussion either way. Self efficacy is important because a lot
of times individuals say I can't do this, and this
was going to reframe that until you can, at least
by using CBT, exposure therapy or other types of therapies.
Like I said, most therapies try to reframe this. RBT
argue that irrational beliefs, not events themselves, cause emotional disturbance.
(04:00):
So he's copying here Epicteitis from the Stoic Philosophy school,
where the epictita said, once events, it's not the events
that disturb us, it's our perception of the events. For him,
it's irrational beliefs. According to Ellis, he has an ABC model.
It's an activating event which leads to a belief, rational
or irrational, which then leads to a consequence. Irrational beliefs
(04:22):
are often taken the form of absolutist thinking, I must
be liked by everyone. It's awful if things don't go
my way. RBT involves identifying, disputing, and replacing these beliefs
with rational alternatives. It's highly structured, but confrontational and designed
to promote emotional responsibility. It has been known to be
useful for anxiety and depression and anger. Motivational theories of
(04:45):
personality goes into Maso's hierarchy of needs. Who talked about
it before, the pyramid of needs physiological food and water, safety,
security and shelter, love and belonging relationships, esteem, achievement and respect,
and then finally self actualization, which is growth and fulfillment.
You need to satisfy obviously your needs first, the first
(05:05):
one two they have to go in order. Self determination
theory by Dessi and Ryan people are motivated by three
innate psychological needs. Autonomy feeling in one control of one's actions, competence,
feeling effective and capable autonomy. Let me repeat that one
feeling in control of one's actions. Relatedness feeling connected to others.
(05:26):
Environments that support these needs promote intrinsic motivation engagement, as
well as good mental health. Environments that thwart them, such
as a rigid school or work environment, can't promote burn
out in apathy. So how would you use this in therapy? Well,
a lot of times this explains why collaborative clients centered
therapy by Carl Rogers is effective clients thrive when they
(05:49):
feel ownership of their own change, believe they can improve,
so you're increasing again the self efficacy. You can see
how these overlap. Regulatory focus theory by Higgins is motivationtions
differ by orientation. Promotion focus individuals pursue growth and success.
They respond to reward and ideal outcomes. Prevention focused individuals
(06:10):
aim to avoid failure and loss. They respond to safety
and obligations. So you can see one's most likely a
loss aversion for the prevention focused. These styles shape risk
tolerance emotional toll. A promotion focused client might respond to
goal setting with excitement, while a prevention focused client might
need reassurance and a contingency planning to avoid loss. Now
(06:34):
we go into what they call locus of control and
the attributional style locus of control by Roter. Attributional styles
is by Seligman in the locus of control. The internal
locus of control belief is that outcomes result from one's
actions tired to higher achievement, resilience, and proactivity, and again
you can see the relationship here with self efficacy. External
(06:55):
locus believe that outcomes are due to chance or external forces,
and here you can see they're linked a lot with helplessness,
which is connected to depression. Depression often shifts locus of
control to outward feelings. Clients feel life is happening to
them instead of them controlling their life. Therapy helps re
establish agency. According to this theory, attributional styles we look
(07:18):
at three different dimensions, internal versus external, stable versus unstable,
and global versus specific. So if pessimistic style attributes failed
to internal, stable and global causes, for instance, I failed
because I'm stupid, that's the internal I always fail at everything.
(07:40):
So let's get more specific on these different dimensions. So
internal versus external internal contribution. Again, the cause attributed to
something about the person, their ability. I failed the exam,
I'm not smart enough. Externals, I failed the exam because
the test was unfair. The causes attributed to something outside
the person. Yes, very similar. So we just talked about
(08:01):
internal and external locus of control, but a little different.
Stable versus unstable. The dimension refers to whether the cause
is perceived as unchanging over time or variable, So for instance,
I'm always bad at math as stable attribution. This is
where we see a lot in Western cultures now in
the US about math. Unstable attribution is the cause is
(08:22):
temporary or situational. I didn't sleep well the night before
the test. Finally, it was global versus specific. The dimension
of refers to how broadly the causes believed to apply.
For instance, global attribution, the cause affects many areas of life.
I feel that everything I try this is kind of
this helplessness or hopelessness component. Specific attribution, the cause applies
(08:45):
only to a particular domain. I'm bad at this one
type of math problem, so I'm incompetence. I'm always messing
things up. I'll ever succeed is the internal stable global right,
I'm incompetent. As internal stable, I'm always always is the
key there, and I'll never succeed in anything as the
global This para spessimistic style you can probably relate to.
(09:06):
Is related to depression and low self esteem. The external
unstable specific is the interview. The interviewer was in a
bad mood today. Usually I do well in interviews. This
is more optimistic and often linked to greater resilience and persistence.
So again, depressions. People with a pessimistic attributional style related
to learn helplessness theory as well and Finally, we'll look
(09:29):
at personality assessment and intervention. Assessment. Tools align with these
theories include rotters, Locus of Control scale, General self Efficity
Efficacy Scale, Attributional Style Questionnaire, RBT, thought records, self determination tasks.
Therapies that are informed by these models include RBT, CBT,
Motivational Interviewing ACT, DBT, and I would actually say a
(09:53):
lot of theories incorporate these concepts. Remember, personality isn't static.
That's learned, tested and revised. Clients arrive with belief systems
shaped by their experience, which we know motivated though by
needs and aren't always visible. This is where it differs
a little bit from other theories, where it focuses a
lot more on the motivational component of it. You're even
(10:13):
seeing some of this overlap with that Larrian theory. That's
it for now,
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