Social-Cognitive and Trait Personality
Introduced| English |
|---|
| reciprocal determinism/rɪˈsɪprəkl dɪˈtɜːmɪnɪzəm/ |
| Social-cognitive theory/ˈsəʊʃl ˈkɒɡnɪtɪv ˈθɪəri/ |
| Trait theories/treɪt ˈθɪəriz/ |
| enduring characteristics/enˈdjʊərɪŋ ˌkærɪktəˈrɪstɪks/ |
| Big Five/bɪɡ faɪv/ |
| agreeableness/əˈɡriːəbəlnəs/ |
| openness to experience/ˈəʊpənnəs tʊ ekˈspɪərɪəns/ |
| extraversion/ˌekstrəˈvɜːʃn/ |
| conscientiousness/ˌkɒnsɪˈenʃəsnəs/ |
| emotional stability/ɪˈməʊʃənl stəˈbɪlɪti/ |
Your situation shapes you, and you choose your situations
- A shy person avoids parties, so gets less practice, so stays shy.
- The person and the environment are not two separate causes — each keeps producing the other.
- That loop is the core idea of the social-cognitive account.
Reciprocal determinism
- Social-cognitive theory 社会认知理论 explains personality through reciprocal determinism 交互决定论.
- Three things influence each other continuously: the person, their behaviour and the environment.
- No single arrow is the cause; the pattern is maintained by the loop.
The social-cognitive idea that person, behaviour and environment influence each other is ____ determinism.
Reciprocal determinism treats the pattern as maintained by a loop, not caused by one factor.
Trait theories
- Trait theories 特质理论 hold that personality is a set of enduring characteristics 持久特征.
- Those characteristics lead to characteristic patterns of behaviour across situations.
- Where social-cognitive theory studies a loop, trait theory measures a level.
Which account of personality?
Sort each idea by the theory it comes from.
A trait is a dimension, not a box. Saying someone "is an extravert" treats a continuous measure as a category — the Big Five places everyone somewhere on all five scales at once.
Select all that are Big Five dimensions.
Intelligence is measured separately; it is not one of the five personality dimensions.
The Big Five treats each factor as a category you either belong to or do not.
Each is a dimension — everyone has a position on all five at once.
The Big Five
- The Big Five 大五人格 are agreeableness 宜人性, openness to experience 开放性, extraversion 外向性, conscientiousness 尽责性 and emotional stability 情绪稳定性.
- Each is a dimension, not a category — everyone has a position on all five.
- The model is descriptive: it says what varies, not why.
A question asking how a shy person's shyness is maintained over years is best answered by...
"How is it maintained" is a question about the loop, which is social-cognitive.
Match each theory to what it measures or describes.
A level, a loop, and the five dimensions the level is measured on.
Choosing between the accounts
- If a question asks why behaviour is consistent, trait theory answers with a level.
- If it asks how a pattern is maintained, social-cognitive theory answers with a loop.
- Naming which question is being asked is what a strong answer does first.
A student low in conscientiousness leaves work late, gets poorer results, and concludes she is "bad at this subject" — so prepares less next time. The trait describes the starting level; reciprocal determinism explains why the pattern deepens.
Social-cognitive theory explains personality through reciprocal determinism — person, behaviour and environment influencing each other. Trait theories describe enduring characteristics, and the Big Five gives five dimensions on which everyone has a position.