CHAPTER 3 – THE BIOLOGICAL BASIS OF BEHAVIOUR



STUDY UNIT 6 (CHAPTER 18 – PERSONALITY THROUGH COGNITIVE CONSTRUCTIONS)

After studying this chapter you should be able to:

• understand the cognitive view of basic human nature

• compare cognitive concepts with behaviourist/learning concepts and psychoanalytic concepts

• describe Kelly’s view of personality in terms of the fundamental postulate and 11 corollaries

• explain motivation and personality development in terms of cognitive constructs

• describe possible applications of cognitive theories and concepts

• understand the cognitive perspective on psychological health

• critically evaluate cognitive theories and indicate implications for future research.

KEY CONCEPTS

cognition – the process of obtaining information and thinking about it

information processing – the integration and organisation of bits of information

decision-making – consciously generating ideas and choosing the best option

self-regulation – consciously striving to be in control of one’s own behaviour and events

person as scientist – where people systematically form and test hypotheses to predict events

personal constructs – criteria or hypotheses through which people view the world, or their personal theories about the world and people

constructive alternativism – the changeability of constructs

meaning structures – how people understand things

schemata – basic structure of the mind into which people fit new information

cognitive structures – schemata describing how people perceive, organise and interpret information about themselves

postulate and corollaries – various types of fundamental and consequential assumptions to interpret and predict knowledge or meaning

security versus adventure – clarifying existing constructs versus exploring new aspects of life

cognitive complexity – a more differentiated way of perceiving, constructing and judging events

cognitive simplicity – a lesser ability to differentiate between things and judge them

cognitive change – to change meaning systems

C-P-C cycle – considering several constructs to interpret a situation, then deciding upon a single construct for dealing with the issue in question and selecting that pole of the construct that promises to improve one’s predictions

emotion – strong mental or instinctive feeling

CHAPTER SYNOPSIS

This chapter focuses on how individuals process and integrate information from the environment and use knowledge to handle situations and predict the future.

18.1 Introduction

Cognition refers to the process of knowing. Cognitive psychologists are concerned with:

• How is knowledge acquired?

• How is knowledge retained?

• How is knowledge used?

• How is knowledge represented internally?

Because human behaviours and organisational processes are generally very rational in nature, it is important that the professional I-O psychologist or human-resources practitioner in the workplace has adequate knowledge of cognitive processes. The aim of the chapter is to provide an overview of the role of cognitive processes in the various dimensions of personality functioning.

18.2 A background to the cognitive view of human nature

Kelly believed that people act as scientists. As they try to predict and control the environment, they develop hypotheses, called constructs. The implication of Kelly’s view is that:

• A person is future-oriented.

• A person can react actively to the environment.

• A person can control events depending on the questions asked and answers found.

• A person should define a set of constructs that best enables him/her to predict events.

According to cognitive theorists, the process of knowing is perceived as the entire personality.

Kelly developed a comprehensive cognitive metatheory, but he is also viewed as a constructionist. His theory of constructive alternativism entails the self-organising of personality through cognition.

18.3 Main assumptions

Cognitive theorists subscribe to the following main assumptions:

• To understand human behaviour one needs to understand how information is processed.

• Life involves continuous decision-making which shapes personality development.

• People are active gatherers of information.

• Human behaviour is intrinsically self-regulated or future-oriented.

• Cognitive theorists use terms such as “constructs” and “schemata” to explain how people organise information to make sense of the world.

18.4 Cognitive interpretation of psychological concepts

18.4.1 Cognition and the behaviourist/learning perspective

The cognitive movement rejects the behaviourist view that people react passively to stimuli. Whereas the traditional behaviourist/learning theorists are only concerned with stimuli-response (S-R) reactions, cognitive psychologists, like later behaviourists on learning, consider personality formation to be a process of consciously and rationally expanding and refining the personal construct system. This means that the person is actively involved and in control of events and his/her own behaviour.

18.4.2 Cognition and psychoanalytic concepts

The concepts of ego, motivation, reinforcement and drive are not found in cognitive psychology. These aspects are considered to be parts of the personality that are controlled, like all the other parts, by cognitive processes. However, Andersen and Saribay use the Freudian meaning of “transference” to explain how people transfer their mental representations to new situations.

18.4.3 The cognitive perspective on some fundamental psychological concepts

18.4.3.1 The self-construct

One personal construct is found in virtually every construct system, namely the “self

versus others”. However, this self-construct is often subordinated in different ways. One person may include “self” under friendly, while another subsumes “self” under “intelligent”. Core roles are the roles people assume on the basis of how they think others perceive their core constructs. Peripheral constructs are those less relevant to a person’s self.

18.4.3.2 Basic motivating forces

A person’s basic motivating force is to interpret current events so that future events will be predicted with greater accuracy. Confirmation and disconfirmation of one’s predictions have greater psychological significance than rewards, punishments or drive reduction.

Festinger sees basic motivation as an attempt to reduce cognitive dissonance. Equity theory comes into practice when an individual compares his/her input and output ratio with others. Basic motivation is the need to maintain unity or self-consistency. Individuals have the need to maintain unity (compare the concept of homeostasis).

18.4.3.3 The unconscious

Some constructs are not readily available to awareness:

• preverbal constructs (early childhood constructs)

• submerged constructs (non-conscious constructs)

• suspended constructs (incomplete constructs).

Although Kelly used concepts such as preverbal, submerged and suspended constructs, he claimed that there was no unconscious in his theory. He identified a level of awareness that is highest when construing in socially acceptable symbols, such as one’s native language.

18.4.3.4 Defence mechanisms

An individual can be regarded as displaying reaction formation when he/she reclassifies elements of a construct from one pole to another pole of the same construct.

18.5 The structure of personality

According to Kelly, constructive alternativism means that every person interprets the world in terms of his/her constructs, which can be altered (alternativism). Mischel differs from Kelly in that he was interested in analysing constructs to better understand the structure of personality, rather than using them to predict behaviour. Mischel describes the person in relation to five person variables:

• construction competencies

• encoding strategies

• expectancies

• goals and subjective values

• self-control systems and plans.

Meaning structures explain why people perceive the same events and situations differently. McReynolds named the basic conceptual units “percepts” and not “constructs”. These percepts are organised into conceptual schemas.

Miller formulated a theory of cognition based on two concepts, namely images and plans. The image concerns the organised knowledge an individual has about him/herself and his/her world. The plan is a hierarchical process that controls operations. The basic structures of the mind are called schemata, and these create a framework into which incoming information fits. Lazarus recognised the importance of interpersonal relationships in maintaining maladaptive behaviour and he also developed a set of clinical strategies called multimodal behaviour therapy.

18.5.1 Personal-Construct Theory

Kelly viewed the structure of the human personality in terms of personal constructs. He claimed that certain types of constructs can be identified:

• pre-emptive constructs, which are very set or rigid

• constellatory constructs, which refer to stereotyped thinking

• propositional constructs, which are open to change.

The following assumptions have been obtained from applying Personal-Construct Theory to organisations:

• Organisations consist of people who consciously and deliberately co-ordinate their activities in search of a common goal.

• Individuals within an organisation co-ordinate their activities through shared cognitions.

• Organisation members understand that the organisation is the beneficiary of the outcomes produced by their co-ordinated efforts.

18.5.2 The fundamental postulate

All human behaviour is concerned with predicting events. Predictions are made by forming personal constructs.

18.5.3 Corollaries

Corollaries are explanations of the personal constructs that people build in their minds.

18.5.3.1 The construction corollary

The construction corollary takes the similarities of repeated events into account. These similarities enable one to predict how an event will be experienced in the future.

18.5.3.2 The individuality corollary

The individuality corollary points to individual differences in interpreting events.

18.5.3.3 The organisation corollary

The organisation corollary points to the relationship amongst constructs. The constructs are organised in a hierarchy, with the constructs placed on various levels with varying importance. The important constructs are termed “superordinate”, while the less influential are termed “subordinate”.

18.5.3.4 The dichotomy corollary

All personal constructs are bipolar. Each one is specified in terms of two opposite poles, for example “love versus hate” or “productive versus unproductive”.

18.5.3.5 The choice corollary

The choice corollary concerns individuals’ freedom of choice. Personal constructs help a person to predict the future. There are two ways to do this. Firstly, a person could clarify his/her present constructs, thereby narrowing his/her world for the sake of security. Secondly, the adventurous route may be chosen if the person explores new aspects of life.

18.5.3.6 The range corollary

A construct is only applicable to a finite range of events. (Compare this to the concept of predictive validity.)

18.5.3.7 The experience corollary

This corollary concerns exposure to new experiences so that one can cope with the ever-changing reality. New constructs are formed and existing ones changed.

18.5.3.8 The modulation corollary

The modulation corollary points to adaptation to new experiences. A permeable construct is open to construing new events, while an impermeable construct remains closed to the interpretation of new experiences.

18.5.3.9 The fragmentation corollary

This corollary describes the competition amongst constructs. Conflicting sub-systems of constructs may be used at different times by the same individual.

18.5.3.10 The commonality corollary

This corollary concerns the similarities amongst people in interpreting events. This is also the way in which a culture is formed.

18.5.3.11 The sociality corollary

This corollary explains interpersonal relationships. To anticipate and relate well to other people one should play readily understandable roles.

18.6 The development of personality

Kelly did not elaborate on the development of personality based on the assumption that constructs are developed throughout a person’s life. According to Piaget, the child enters the world lacking the cognitive competencies of an adult and develops schemata through assimilation and accommodation.

Kelly developed the Role Construct Repertory test (Rep Test), which allows a person to compare three significant people in his/her life, and by doing so, illustrates how the person interprets his/her world.

Research on cognitive styles derived from the Rep Test has focused on cognitive complexity and cognitive simplicity. Cognitive complexity relates to the ability to perceive differences between oneself and others.

18.7 Cognition and motivation

Excellent performance in any task requires knowledge and motivation. Knowledge helps to generate performance while motivation is the energy of performance. The incentive value of an outcome depends on:

1. the value of the situation to the individual and the challenge involved in the situation

2. the perceived locus of control in the situation

Failure reduces motivation only if it is attributed to external factors. Monetary rewards have little impact on motivation, unless they demonstrate self-efficacy.

Creativity involves the ability to first think loosely and then to tighten the constructs.

The process whereby a leader obtains effective group performance is through the Cognitive Resource Theory, which indicates how intelligent and competent leaders formulate more effective plans, decisions and strategies and communicate them through directive behaviour, than those who are less competent.

18.8 The cognitive perspective on psychological health

The cognitive perspective on mental health is considered from three vantage points, namely psychological adjustment, psychological maladjustment and the perspective on emotions.

18.8.1 Psychological adjustment

Well-adjusted individuals test their personality constructs against reality in logical ways, confirm or discount the predictive accuracy of these constructs, and revise them appropriately. This sequence often takes the form of the C-P-C cycle: considering several constructs that can be used to interpret a particular situation, deciding upon a single construct, and selecting that pole of the construct promising to improve one’s predictions. Well-functioning people are defined by four characteristics:

• Healthy people are willing to assess their constructs and to test the validity of their perceptions of other people.

• Healthy people can discard their constructs and reorientate their core role systems when they are invalid.

• Healthy people display a desire to extend their construct systems by opting for the “adventurous” choice.

• Healthy people have a well-developed repertoire of roles and can perform the social roles required of them.

18.8.2 Psychological maladjustment

Psychological disturbances represent the failure of a person’s construct system to predict future events. Anxiety is caused by this inability, which may be dealt with in one of two ways: the person can either search for new ways of analysing events or he/she may rigidly adhere to invalid predictions.

18.8.3 Emotions

In addition to the description of mental health, five emotions are detailed in cognitive therapy, namely: guilt, threat, anxiety, hostility and aggression. Lecky later added the emotions of love and pleasure. The experience of emotions is related to the formation, maintenance and change of constructs.

Ellis developed cognitive-emotive therapy, in which a person learns how current constructs influence emotions and behaviour, and how to change undesired constructs.

18.9 Summary and conclusion

According to the cognitive and information-processing perspectives, personality is based on a person’s cognitive constructs. Kelly based his Personal-Construct Theory on a fundamental postulate of cognitive anticipation of events, which is qualified and supported by 11 corollaries. Kelly said that a theory is the result of one’s own personal construct system, which gives it much flexibility. Maddi categorised Kelly’s theory under the consistency model.

Kelly’s idea of personal constructs has been useful as a psychotherapeutic tool and has been beneficial to I-O psychologists as many of their actions are based on obtaining applicable knowledge, taking rational decisions and predicting the future. This theory provides a logical framework for the scientific study of personality. A criticism of cognitive psychology has been that human behaviour cannot be seen in isolation from its social and physical environment.

The future involves new ways of evaluating job performance in constantly changing organisations. Research on cognitive processes in personnel management decision-making is a new sphere of opportunities for the I-O psychologist.

The end!!!

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