INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION

Psychology 305A: Lecture 8

Finish Learning and Behaviorism
Cognitive Approach
Emotions and Personality

The Essence of Behaviorism

• "The consequences of behavior

determine the probability that the
behavior will occur again”
– BF Skinner

•Anyone’s personality can be formed or changed through

patterns of reinforcement and punishment

•If you are extraverted, that’s because extraverted behaviors were

rewarded by the people who raised you 2

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A Clockwork Orange

Classical Conditioning
• Alex injected with nausea drug (unconditioned
stimulus) while watching violence
– Alex feels nauseous (unconditioned response)
• Alex thinks about violence or acts violent
(conditioned stimulus)
– Alex feels sick and avoids acting violent (conditioned
response)
• Would this approach work for real juvenile
delinquents?

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Message of Movie:
Society Can’t Produce Morality
• Satire about societal attempts to make
people good/moral
– Psychological conditioning can’t make
people good
– People must choose to be good/moral
– Anthony Burgess wrote the book (which
Kubrick’s movie was based on) in response
what he saw as a Skinnerian threat to
humanity
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Anthony Burgess on Skinner

• If humans can be conditioned, what
happens to free will?
• “All of us might agree with Professor Skinner that a well-
run, conditioned society is an excellent thing for a new
race—a breed of [humans] rationally convinced of the
need to be conditioned, so long as the conditioning is
based on rewards and not punishment. But we are not
the new race, and we stubbornly do not want to be
anything but what we are—creatures aware of our faults
and determined, more or less, to do something about
those faults in our own way.” - Burgess
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View of Skinner Today

• Not very good
– If we’re interested in HUMANS, it’s ok (and
even good!) to study mental states
• Yet, behaviorism remains an important part
of personality, and psychology more
generally
– Behavioral evidence considered strongest
• Emotion expression research
– Subjective reports (e.g., self-report data) often
suspect
• Importance of O, T data 7

Toward the Acceptance of Mental

States: The Cognitive Perspective
• After Skinner, focus shifted from the
behavioral output of reward (dog sitting) to
what goes on between the environmental
trigger (bell) and reward (steak)
• Social Learning
1. Observe behaviors of others being rewarded
2. Use your MIND to connect the two
3. Decide to behave similarly
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Social Learning Perspective

• Observational learning (modeling)
– Acquire a behavior by watching someone else do
it and observing the consequences
• Bandura’s “Bobo” doll studies
– 1. Children observed an adult model attack
“Bobo”, play quietly, or saw no model
– 2. Children frustrated (toys taken away)
– 3. Children given opportunity to attack “Bobo”
• Those who watched model attack were more likely to
attack
• Those who saw no model were more aggressive than
those who saw a non-aggressive model 9

Social Learning Perspective

• Extension of basic conditioning principles
– Observational learning (modeling)
• Observed consequences rather than
experienced
– Expectancies / Incentives / deterrents
• Anticipated consequences
• Examples
– Altruism in young children
– Video games and violence
– Shaming prison sentences
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Is altruism innate, or learned?

• Evidence for early emergence of pro-

social behavior
• Cross-species evidence
– Warneken & Tomasello, 2006, Science
• “Roots of altruism seen in babies:
Toddlers eager to help out, even with no
prospect of reward”
-MSNBC

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But, is there another

explanation?
• Maybe the toddlers and chimps
expected reward
– Might social learning have played a role?
• Is this evidence for innate altruism?

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Roots of altruism?

• Hamlin, Wynn, & Bloom (Nature, 2007)

– At 3 months, babies prefer helpers to
hinderers
– Learn about social helping very early on?
– Or is our basic sense of good vs. bad innate?

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Roots of altruism?
• Innate morality or…
– Direct reinforcement
• Play
• Past reinforcement for similar behaviors
– Observational learning (parent)
– Vicarious reinforcement (older sibling)
– No direct reward, but incentives and
expectancies
• Anticipated consequences

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Violent Media

• Exposure to violent TV and video games:

– Increases aggressive behavior, thoughts, and
feelings
– Increases physiological arousal
– Decreases pro-social behaviors (e.g., helping)

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Violent Media

• Why does violent media increase

aggression?
– Classical Conditioning
• Video games are fun to play, pleasurable feelings
associated with violence
– Operant conditioning
• Video game player is directly rewarded for being violent
(e.g., accumulate points)
– Observational learning
• “Role models” (e.g., movie stars) rewarded for
violence 22

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Media Violence

• Which films lead to violence?

– Gratuitous, realistic violence (Van Damme,
martial arts films)
– Old Westerns don’t
• Minimally violent
– Horror films don’t
• Violence seems fake, observers can discount it

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Shaming Prison Sentences

• Date back to the Old Testament

• Common in 17th century
Puritanical society (e.g., the
scarlet “A”)
• Revival of shame punishments
started in the late 1980s

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Shaming Prison Sentences

• Men convicted of soliciting prostitutes are identified in
newspapers, radio shows, and billboards
• A man living in Houston was sentenced to stand in
front of a store each day for a week carrying a sign
that reads: “I stole from this store. Don’t be a thief
or this could happen to you.”
• An Ohio judge ordered a man convicted of harassing
his ex-wife to let her spit in his face
• In Memphis, Tennessee Judge Joe Brown likes to
escort burglary victims to the thieves’ homes and
invite them to take whatever they want
• Do you think these sentences deter crime? 25

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Shaming Prison Sentences

• Shaming sentences may deter crime through:
– Observational learning: observe someone else
punished for antisocial act
– Expectancies of punishment: imagine self on
billboard
• “If humiliation is a punishment for a crime then people will
avoid committing crimes. You get deterrence because others
see what happens. Why don’t we give shame a chance.”
Judge Williams
• “If you shock ‘em, maybe they’ll say, ‘Hey, it’s not worth
the risk.’ This forces you to face up to what you did.” Judge
Poe
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Shaming Prison Sentences

• But, shaming sentences actually may
backfire and cause more crime
• Shaming offenders will only make them feel
bad about themselves, which may increase the
likelihood that they will commit further crimes
• -Prof. June Tangney
– “The goal should be to rehabilitate offenders
into society, not embarrass them. Added
humiliation may accentuate the very root of
their behavior.”
-American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) 27

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The problem with shame

• Motivates escape, hiding, avoidance

• Leads to blaming others, aggression
• More adaptive to feel guilt in response
to failure
– Guilt promotes reparation, apology,
confession
– In guilt the focus is on what you did, not
who you are
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What about Public Shaming?

• Internet ‘walls of shame’
– Pet mistreatment
– Vancouver Stanley Cup riots
• It matters who the shamers are
– When a mob takes over, punishment is not
proportionate to the crime
– If government shames, punishment can be
proportionate
• Common Goods dilemma study
• Negligent tax-payers shamed by IRS
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Early Cognitive Perspective

• More complex version of social learning theory
• Led to two fundamental shifts in how we think
about personality
– Our personality reflects how we process information
about ourselves, others, and the world
– How we process information reflects our mental
representations of ourselves, other people, and the
world
• Mental representations work as filters or lens
through which we experience reality
– Personal constructs, schemas, scripts

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Personal Construct Theory

George Kelly
• Overarching perceptions shape
interpretation of realityà personality
• If your cognitive take on the world
determines your personality, you can
change who you are by changing the
way you see the world
• Beginning of post-modernism (there is
no single reality; we create our reality)
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George Kelly and

Personality Change
• “We take the stand that there are always
some alternative constructions available to
choose among in dealing with the world. No
one needs to paint himself into a corner; no
one needs to be completely hemmed in by
circumstances; no one needs to be the victim
of his biography.”

George Kelly (1955). "A Theory of

personality."
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Social Cognition and

Personality

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Modern Cognitive Perspective: People have

different cognitions, which shape personality

Cognitions (beliefs, attitudes, values, self/other schemas)

constitute the information that guides people’s behavior
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Locus of Control
Julian Rotter

• External Locus: Belief that fate, luck, or

outside forces are responsible what
happens

• Internal Locus: Belief that one’s own

ability, effort, or actions determine what
happens
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Whose
fault?

Control, blame, fate, freedom

…… Are we at the mercy of external forces or is what happens to

us under our own control? 36

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Advocating Internal Locus:

The appeal of James Frey
“People in here, people everywhere, they all
want to take their own problems, usually
created by themselves, and try to pass them
off on someone or something else. I'm a
victim of nothing but myself, just as I
believe that most people with this so-called
disease aren't victims of anything other than
themselves. I call it being
responsible. I call it the
acceptance of my own
problems and my own
weaknesses with honor and
dignity. I call it getting better.”
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Rotter’s Locus of Control

Scale
1. A. Many of the unhappy things in people’s lives are partly
due to bad luck.
B. People’s misfortunes result from the mistakes they
make.

2. A. In the long run, people get the respect they deserve in

this world.
B. Unfortunately, an individual’s worth often passes
unrecognized no matter how hard he tries.

3. A. Most people don’t realize the extent to which their lives

are controlled by accidental happenings.
B. There really is no such thing as luck. 38

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Research Findings on
Locus of Control
• Internal Locus
– Increased academic performance
– More effective health-prevention behaviors
– Social/political activism

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External Locus:
Learned Helplessness
• Originated in research on dogs (Seligman)
– Exposure to unavoidable shocks
– Outcome not contingent on behavior (external
locus)
– Helpless dogs get depressed, give up
• “Learned helplessness” = belief that
outcomes can’t be controlled
• Humans, too, show learned helplessness

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But, is there a downside to

Internal Locus?
• Some things are truly outside our control
– People who accept this may cope better
with death, disease, etc.
– Survivor guilt
• Why not externalize negative events?
– “It wasn’t my fault the team didn’t win”

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Beyond Locus: Explanatory Style

• Explanatory Style: The ways in which people
habitually explain the causes of negative events
• Locus:
– Internality (“it’s me”) [SELF-BLAME]
– Externality (“its something in the environment”)
• Stability:
– Stable (“it’s going to last forever”) [FATALISM]
– Unstable (“it’s going to go away”)
• Globality:
– Global (“it’s going to undermine everything”)
[CATASTROPHIZING]
– Specific (“it’s effects are limited to this one domain”)42

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Explanatory Style and Relationships

Locus:
Internality: It’s my fault [SELF-BLAME]
Externality: It’s his/her fault. OR: It’s difficult to make a
relationship work while we’re busy with school.

Stability:
Stable: Relationships just never work out [FATALISM]
Unstable: We just didn’t work well together as a couple

Globality:
Global: I am a bad person. My whole life is ruined.
[CATASTROPHIZING]
Specific: I can’t seem to make things work out in this
relationship 43

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Pessimistic Explanatory Style

• Internal, stable, global
– “I did it, I always do it, and I do it on everything”
• People who tend to explain bad events in terms
of internal, stable, global causes à more
depressed
• People who tend to explain bad events in terms
of stable and global causes (internal or external)
à more health problems
• Solution: internalize, but don’t globalize
– Internal, unstable, specific attributions
– It’s my fault, but it’s because I didn’t study hard this
time
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Evidence for Importance of

Explanatory Style
• Terman Longitudinal Study – participants
born in 1910
• In 1936-1940, participants described their
responses to bad events, such as:
– “Have any disappointments exerted a
prolonged influence on you?”
• Responses were coded by 8 judges for
internality, stability, and globalility

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Evidence for Explanatory Style

• Participants in Terman sample followed for

decades
• Catastrophizing (attributing bad events to global
causes) was associated with increased mortality
– Especially accidental and violent deaths

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Cognitive Therapy
• Recognize that thoughts (beliefs, expectations,
explanations, thinking style) affect your feelings
and behavior
• Try to change negative schemas
– Convert to positive schemas or compartmentalize
• Try to change explanatory style
– I didn’t get the job because I didn’t prepare well
– He broke up with me because he didn’t want to be in
a relationship
• Interpret failure as an opportunity to learn
• “Talk” to self differently before, during, and after
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Emotions and Personality

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What is an emotion?

• Discrete, momentary experience in a

specific situation
• Traits, or dispositional tendencies to
chronically experience certain feelings
– Mood, temperament, emotional disorder

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What are the Parts

of an Emotion?
• Feelings
• Thoughts/Cognition
• Physiology
• Brain activation
• Nonverbal Expression

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Emotion
Regulation

Antecedent Cognitive Emotional Emotional

Event Appraisal of Experience Expression
Event Facial expressions
Physiology Behaviors (e.g., crying)
Feelings

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HOW DO EMOTIONS
INFLUENCE PERSONALITY?

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Which personality traits predict

happiness?
• Extraversion and Neuroticism
• Why?
Situations that might lead
to happiness: Running into a friend

Personality-specific Excitement, saying hello

Response:
Happiness
Emotional response:
Subjective well-being 53

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Which personality traits predict

happiness?

Situations that might lead

to happiness: Running into a friend

Personality-specific Nervousness, avoidance

Response:
Anxiety, low self-esteem
Emotional response:

Low Subjective well-being

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Alternative Model
Personality-specific Going to a party
Behaviors:

Running into a friend

Situations that might lead
to happiness:

Happiness, excitement
Emotional response:

Subjective well-being
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Personality and Subjective

Well-being

• Does personality affect a person’s

emotional responses to a situation, or,
does personality determine which
situations a person engages in?
– Evidence for first path
– Placed in the same situation, extraverts and
neurotics have different emotional responses
• Extraverts become happier from pleasant photos
• Neurotics become more upset from unpleasant
photos
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Emotions as Personality Traits

• Stable tendency to experience certain
feelings, or have certain emotional
reactions

Grumpy, hostile Happy, hyperactive 57

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Happiness: The Trait

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Definitions of Happiness
• Aristotle: the goal of life, attained through
virtuosity (being “good”)

• Rousseau: hedonism (being “bad”)

• James: accomplishments

• What do you think?

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Modern Research Definition

of Happiness
• Cognitive-Affective Approach
– Judgment of life’s satisfaction
• How satisfied are you with your life?
AND
– Tendency to experience positive vs. negative
emotions
• Martin Seligman: Authentic happiness is
based on living a life filled with purpose
and meaning
• Daniel Kahneman: Positive (but not
negative) emotions
– Do what feels good (hedonism) 60

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Happy Facts
• The average person is…
– Happy 65% of the time
– Neutral 15%
– Unhappy 20%
• Is there a gender difference?
– No.
• Is there an age difference?
– No.
• What about country differences?
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Subjective
well-being
across
countries
(Diener & Tay;
2015)

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Subjective
well-being
across
countries
(Diener & Tay;
2015)

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What makes some countries

happier than others?

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Subjective Well-Being and…

Individualism (vs. collectivism) Purchasing Power (wealth)

Culture more predictive than wealth 65

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Happiness across Countries

• Why are poorer countries less happy?
– Health-care
– Civil rights
• What about within countries? Are poorer people
more unhappy?
– Only if you compare people who can’t afford basic
necessities (e.g., food, shelter, healthcare)
– Above that level, rich are not too much happier than
poor!

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Happiness and Inequality

• Oishi, Kebesire, & Diener (2011)
examined happiness and income
inequality in the US from 1972 to 2008
– 50,000 people
• Found a negative correlation between
happiness and inequality
• Relation was due to perceived trust and
unfairness among the poorest 60%
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Happiness and Set-Point

• Emotions change in response to major

life events
• BUT, they quickly return to a basic set
point, which varies by individual
– The average set point is more happy than
neutral

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Zheng, Plomin, & Stumm (2016)

• Behavioral genetics research on trait
happiness
• 447 17-year old twins rated daily positive
and negative affect
– Variation in trait negative affect is largely
genetic (heritability = .53)
– Variation in trait positive affect is largely due
to shared environmental factors (.52)
• No significant genetic effect for positive affect

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Issue: The Good Life?

Hedonism – the sum of

pleasant moments

VS.
Eudemonia – the life
well-lived; meaning and
purpose
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Daniel Kahneman: Happiness is the sum

of happiness across life’s moments

Martin Seligman: authentic happiness is

based on long-term purpose and
meaning

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Ed Diener: Happiness Study

How do happy moments relate to feeling a purpose
in life?

Studied 222 college students

Assessed life satisfaction 3 times over 7 weeks

Each day, asked about daily life satisfaction &

positive/negative moods

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Diener Findings

Correlation between overall life

satisfaction and daily life satisfaction

r = .44

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Emotions and Life Satisfaction

• Daily Satisfaction Life Satisfaction
• (52 Days) (3 Occasions)
• β p β p

• Predictors

• Pleasant Emotions .43 .001 .00 ns

• Interested Daily .34 .001 .00 ns
• Unpleasant Emotions -.18 .01 -.11 ns
•
• Physical Pleasure .08 ns .04 ns
• GPA .04 ns .08 ns
• Material Resources .08 ns .10 ns

• Purpose in Life .03 ns .51 .001

• Social Resources -.11 ns .20 .001
• Good vs. Bad Memories .06 ns .16 .01
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Daily Life
Satis. Satis.

• Informant-Rated Attributes
• Socially Skilled .03 .21
Healthy -.03 .22
Energetic -.07 .30
Self-Confident .08 .20

• Self-Rated Attributes
Socially Skilled .13 .25
Healthy .04 .29
Energetic .08 .36
Self-Confident .10 .40

• Suicidal Attempts & Ideation -.03 -.24 77

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The Good Life

• For daily satisfaction, go for hedonism

– Boost positive affect, decrease negative
affect
• For life satisfaction, go for eudemonia
– Emotions don’t matter
– Meaning/purpose in life and social
networks most important

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Unpleasant Emotions and

Personality

Anxiety Depression Anger

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Trait Anxiety (Neuroticism)

• Moody, touchy, irritable, complaining
• Easily upset
• Biological origins
– Stable across lifespan
– Cross-cultural
– More active BIS
• May have cognitive basis
– Recall more self-relevant negative information
– Recall being sick more often, may get sick more
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Stroop Task: Say the color

of each word

Happy Fear Flowers

Disease Death Chalk
Nose Cancer Failure
Heart Smile Cough
Awake Grief Nice
School Friend Lunch

Neurotics take longer to read anxiety-producing words 81

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Depression
• Diathesis-stress model
– Pre-existing vulnerability gets activated
– Genetic evidence
• Beck’s Cognitive theory
– Cognitive Triad: depressing view of the self,
the world, and the future
– Overgeneralization (global attributions)
– Personalizing (internal attributions)
– Catastrophizing (stable attributions; the worst
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Anger-Proneness and Hostility

• Tendency to respond to everyday

frustrations with anger and aggression
• Resentment
• Biological Model: Type A Personality
– Friedman & Rosenman (1974): cardiologists
– Noticed personality similarities among
coronary heart disease patients
• Workaholics, Over-achievers
• Hostile, hurried, never relaxed 83

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More recent research on

hostility and heart disease

• It’s not the ambitious, over-achieving

side of Type A’s
• It’s the hostility!
– Hostility linked to other risk factors
• Smoking, obesity, depression, SES
– Hostility independently linked to heart
disease
• Lipids build-up, increased BP & HR

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Other Emotional Traits:

Pride-Proneness

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Two Facet Theory

• Authentic pride
– Promotes social investments and
achievements
– Fosters genuine self-esteem
• Hubristic pride
– Promotes hostility, maladaptive
relationships
– Related to narcissism
– Related to aggression, hostility
– Narcissistic self-esteem 86

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How are the Two Facets of Pride

Related to Personality?

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Pride and Personality

• People who tend to feel Authentic pride:
– High self-esteem
– Agreeable, extraverted, emotionally stable,
and conscientious
– Positive relationships, popular, well-liked by
others
• People who tend to feel hubristic pride:
– Narcissistic but low self-esteem
– Shame-prone
– Disagreeable, aggressive, hostile, and angry
– Anxious in relationships, weak friendships 88
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Two Expressions of Pride?

• “Does this person feel more … ”

– triumphant, accomplished, victorious, self-
confident
OR
– conceited, pompous, arrogant, haughty

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Both Expressions Convey

Both Facets

47% Authentic 48% Authentic

53% Hubristic 52% Hubristic

• No evidence for distinct

expressions
• Suggests importance of context
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Midterm Exam 2

• March 26th
– Will start at 5 pm and go to about 6:45
• Also: I forgot to say this in class, but the
exam will be same format as Midterm 1
– ~2/3 multiple choice
– ~1/3 short answer (essay)

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Midterm 2 Topics

• Trait approach
– What are traits
– Development of trait taxonomies
– Gabrielle’s lecture
• Important trait taxonomies (PEN and BIG 5)
• Change and consistency in traits
– Person-Situation Debate & Resolution
• Walter Mischel’s critique
• Personality’s responses – how personality fought back
and continues to fight back with more open science
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Midterm 2 Topics

• Genes & behavioral genetics

• Approaches to studying genetic and environmental
influence on personality (twins, adoption studies)
• Findings from behavioral genetics studies
• Genes, shared environment, non-shared environment
• Physiological Approach
– Stability of temperament over time
– Eysenck’s Introversion-Extraversion (PEN model)
– Gray’s BIS & BAS
– Serotonin, dopamine, Testosterone 94

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Midterm 2 Topics
• Evolutionary Approach
– Natural selection, sexual selection,
inclusive fitness
– Universality of emotion expressions
– Sex differences in jealousy and mating
preferences
– Evolutionary approach to the Big 5
• Learning and behaviourism
• Early cognitive approach (George Kelly)
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Midterm 2 Topics
• Modern cognitive approach
– Rotter’s locus of control
– Explanatory style
• Emotions
– What are emotions
– Personality-emotion associations
– What leads to happiness?
– Distinct negative emotions (anger,
sadness, anxiety)
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Midterm 2

• Relationships and social interactions will

NOT be on Midterm 2 (but will be on
final exam)

• Good luck! And bring a no. 2 pencil!

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