Deck 12: The Social-Cognitive Approach to Personality: Walter Mischel and Julian Rotter

Question 1

A concept in common to Mischel and Rotter is

A) expectancies
B) drive
C) anticipations
D) constructs

Answer 1

A

Question 2

Social learning is

A) learning the social rules of one's society
B) the variety of learning that relies on one's social ability
C) acquiring useful information through interacting with people and other elements of the environment
D) obtaining a level of sophistication in terms of relations with others that will allow a person to relate successfully to others

Answer 2

C

Question 3

How did Mischel expand on Rotter's social learning theory?

A) He totally redefined learning.
B) He made social learning theory broader and deeper so that it became applicable to other areas of psychology, such as perception.
C) He backed off from Rotter's denunciation of traits.
D) He inserted cognitive and affective factors as the controllers of behavior.

Answer 3

D

Question 4

The interaction point of view holds that

A) the interaction of the parent and the child is critical to the child's development
B) the interplay of cognitive and emotional processes determine behavior
C) interactions with people's peers shape their social behavior
D) the interplay between internal entities or person factors and social situations should be emphasized

Question 5

Social cognitive learning theory

A) holds that personality traits and social situations interact
B) involves acquiring useful information through interacting (relating) to people and other elements of the environment
C) proposes that important factors are cognitive facilities, not traits
D) involves subordinating social factors to cognitive factors in attempts to understand human behavior

Question 6

Personal factors

A) are memories of previous experiences, that determine what skills, strategies, and affects produce current behavior
B) are points along various behavioral dimensions each corresponding to a personal disposition
C) are factor dimensions with points through which one's personality profile line is drawn
D) are reasoning factors that allow the person to contrive ways to cope with distressing environmental factors

Question 7

Mischel was born near the professional residence of which of the following?

A) Freud
B) Adler
C) Allport
D) Jung

Question 8

Like Rotter and Maslow, Mischel was reared in

A) Vienna
B) Prague
C) Chicago
D) Brooklyn

Question 9

All except one of the following were interests of Mischel during his undergraduate years. Which was NOT an interest?

A) psychology
B) painting
C) ESP (Extrasensory Perception)
D) sculpture

Question 10

Who does Mischel credit with being his mentor?

A) Rotter
B) Kelly
C) Skinner
D) He was a Rotter student, but Kelly influenced him.

Question 11

Interest in which of the following was stimulated when Mischel spent time in Trinidad studying religious cults?

A) competency
B) characterizing events
C) delay of gratification
D) internal locus of control

Question 12

Which of the following is one of Mischel's beliefs?

A) Different people are essentially cognitively identical.
B) People know themselves better than psychologists can come to know them.
C) Cognitive psychology does not deserve to be as neglected as it has been in the last decade.
D) Childhood and adulthood should be studied separately because they involve different processes.

Question 13

In Mischel's 1968 book Personality Assessment, he brought forth what famous thesis?

A) Cognitive factors are important to understanding human social behavior.
B) sociobiology
C) functional autonomy
D) Cross-situational behavioral consistency, the basic notion underlying traits, is suspect.

Question 14

According to Mischel, is there behavioral stability in any way?

A) No; it is generally poor.
B) It exists for genetically determined traits only.
C) There is temporal stability for prototypical behaviors.
D) It exists for traits that began to develop early in life.

Question 15

Which of the following does NOT belong to the "Cognitive, Affective Personality System" (CAPS) sequence that ends in behavior?

A) detection of aspects of the situation that activate cognitive-affective encoding units
B) The situation is transformed into affective units.
C) encoding units stimulate cognitive-affective mediating units that influence the strength of behavioral units
D) Behavioral units determine behavioral outcomes.

Question 16

An attractor represents which of the following? (Shoda et al., 2002)

A) an index of behavioral consistency
B) a state of mind
C) clustered points along behavioral dimensions
D) a social unit composed of all the important interpersonal relationships a person has experienced

Question 17

Competency refers to

A) embracing both the cognitive ability to size-up a situation so that one understands how to operate in it effectively and the ability to perform behaviors that will lead to success
B) the cognitive ability to discriminate between relevant and irrelevant situations and the emotional control to delay acts
C) ability to operate efficiently in a situation
D) aptitude in social relations

Question 18

The feature(s) of a situation

A) are the physical factors that one must take into account in pursuing the reinforcements that a situation has to offer
B) is some part of the total situation, such as factors associated with people who are present when the situation is unfolding
C) refer to the range of elements of a situation compared to another situation
D) refer to the specific elements associated with a situation

Question 19

What did Ayduk et al. (2000) discover about "rejection sensitive" (RS) people?

A) All were unable to delay gratification (DOG).
B) They were reluctant to respond to incidences of perceived rejection.
C) DOG buffered RS people against interpersonal difficulties.
D) When provoked, they were "cool responders."

Question 20

When people perform in "hot" rather than "cool" conditions (Ayduk et al. 2002)

A) Ironically they avoid hostile words.
B) If "rejection sensitive," they repress hostile words.
C) They use hostile words.
D) They avoid speaking.

Question 21

According to Mischel, who will be successful in a situation?

A) whoever is most successful in "reading" the dominant components of the situation
B) the person with the highest level of social intelligence
C) whoever is most familiar with the peculiarities that differentiate the situation from other situations
D) the person who is most familiar with the personalities of the other persons operating in the situation

Question 22

Shoda and Mischel (1993) found which factor to be important in determining individual differences in categorizing situations?

A) people's images of reinforcement
B) the closeness of people's situational relationships with others
C) the complexity of people's thinking about the situations
D) people's goals relevant to the situations

Question 23

What must we remember about a situation's events, according to Mischel?

A) All of those events are outside oneself.
B) One's own behaviors are important events, because they can change the situation.
C) Events associated with a situation are stable over time.
D) For practical purposes, all of the events associated with a situation are invested in people.

Question 24

To Mischel, a stimulus

A) is a very definite, well defined component of a situation
B) is any impetus for behavior
C) is always physical, like the classroom temperature
D) is always a person, like the classroom professor

Question 25

For Mischel, expectancy is

A) a belief based on past experience that provides a prediction of future outcomes
B) the probability held by the person that reinforcement will occur as a function of a behavior in a specific situation
C) anticipation of future reinforcement values
D) the hopes one has regarding the likelihood of reinforcement in the future

Question 26

A value of an outcome

A) is Rotter's method of calculating the payoff for a behavior
B) is how much one prizes results of behavioral or stimulus occurrences in a situation
C) is Mischel's method of calculating the intensity of reactions to a behavior in a situation
D) is an abstract form of qualifying what one wants, behaviorally speaking, from a situation

Question 27

Which of the following shows the importance of values of outcomes?

A) People react more rapidly to obtain valued outcomes.
B) People react more intensely to obtain valued outcomes.
C) Some clients will value the therapist's approval and some won't.
D) Almost all party-goers will value the outcomes associated with small talk at a party.

Question 28

According to Mischel, success

A) is in the eye of other beholders
B) is relative to effort
C) is recasting a situation so that one is able to experience smooth social interactions in it
D) is effectively performing the behaviors which yield valued outcomes

Question 29

Self-regulatory plans are

A) plans to regulate behavior to the satisfaction of others
B) rules established in advance of behavioral performance that guide determining what behavior would be appropriate under particular conditions
C) rules that determine whether it will be profitable to behave in a specific ways in the presence of particular persons
D) a special form of expectancy

Question 30

Which of the following is an example of a self-regulatory plan?

A) deciding what to do if, at a party, things are dragging a little
B) planning how to deal with a past behavioral transgression
C) deciding on how to behave at the time one must behave
D) working out what to do after an invited speaker doesn't show

Question 31

Delay of gratification refers to

A) putting off gratification until a more desirable source of gratification is available
B) post-poning future gratifications until the present one have been "consumed"
C) halting pleasureful activity when it is in progress so that one can reconsider long term implications of continued gratification
D) postponing some pleasure so that it can be enjoyed to the maximum degree or in the most optimal way

Question 32

Which of the following is a component of the procedure used by Mischel and his colleagues in investigating delay of gratification?

A) A child is placed in a distraction free room and asked whether she or he would prefer a little or much of a desired object.
B) Children ring a bell to signify that they have succeeded in delaying gratification.
C) Children rate the desirability of objects, and it is determined whether or not they actually "consume" the highest rated object.
D) Children are given their least preferred object and allowed to bargain with others for a more desired object.

Question 33

All of the following except one are among the strategies that children adopt to delay gratification. Which is NOT one of their strategies?

A) Children attempt to bargain with other children present for a more desirable object as a means of delaying "consumption" of the object that they currently possess.
B) covering up the preferred objects (M&Ms) or leaving them in the open
C) thinking of the preferred object abstractly (M&Ms are buttons not "yummy") or concretely
D) thinking of the task at hand or the future enjoyability of the preferred object

Question 34

What important factor did Mischel and colleagues find was significantly correlated with delay of gratification?

A) marital happiness
B) number of close friends
C) adolescent cognitive/academic competence
D) attractiveness to the opposite sex

Question 35

All of the following are problems with trait theory (Big 5) but not with Cognitive Social theory according to Cervone and colleagues, except one. Which is NOT one of those problems?

A) Traits are defined in circular fashion.
B) The trait position is descriptive, rather than explanatory.
C) Trait theory relies heavily on context (situations) in it's explanation of trait-behavior relations.
D) Trait theory fails to recognize that a person's beliefs about when it is appropriate to be extraverted determine when she is extraverted.

Question 36

How did Shoda, Mischel and Wright (1989) show that people are interactionists?

A) Subjects were asked to choose the most plausible explanations of behavior from definitions of several such explanations.
B) With situations specified, impressions were more accurate in predicting differences among children in over-all, actual aggression.
C) When people are not allowed to use qualifiers or conditional statements they were better able to predict aggression in children.
D) People were asked how another person typically behaves and then how that person behaves in a specific situation.

Question 37

When Wright and Mischel (1988) took a closer look at the "trait" statements used by subjects to explain behavior, they found

A) a lack of confidence in those statements on the part subjects
B) that a tentative tone of voice was being used by subjects
C) qualifiers of statements were being used by subjects
D) subjects often wanted to "take back" their statements

Question 38

What kind of language have Mischel and colleagues come to use in describing the behavior-situation relations that are peculiar to particular individuals?

A) logistic
B) probabilistic
C) inferential
D) if-then

Question 39

Shoda, Mischel and Wright (1993) scored all of the following behaviors of summer-camp-children except one. Which one did they NOT score?

A) physical aggression
B) passive aggression
C) pro-social behavior
D) compliant behavior

Question 40

Shoda, Mischel and Wright (1994) considered all of the following situations confronting summer-camp-children except one. Which one did they NOT consider?

A) peer teased, provoked, or threatened target child
B) adult praised target child
C) peer tattled on target child
D) adult warned target child

Question 41

Shoda, Mischel and Wright (1993) graphed a child's reactions to the various situations confronting it on two different occasions. What did the figure show?

A) a different behavioral pattern across situations at time 2 compared to time 1
B) exactly the same behavioral pattern across situations at time 2 that was shown at time 1
C) a behavioral pattern across situations at time 2 that was the opposite of that shown at time 1
D) a behavioral pattern across situations at time 2 that was very similar to the pattern shown at time 1

Question 42

Which Joanne's behavior reflected her goal of "good grades" (Plaks et al, 2003)? The Joanne whose behavior across situations was

A) random with regard to consciousness
B) systematically cross-situationally variable with regard to consciousness
C) unvariably moderate in consciousness
D) unvariably extreme in consciousness

Question 43

Shoda and Mischel (1993) cite evidence that when Japanese people describe themselves

A) they use trait labels
B) they mix trait labels with behavioral labels
C) they refer to social roles
D) they refer to professional roles

Question 44

What may an African-American mean when sh/e says to a group of European-Americans, "Whites are racists"?

A) Literally, all whites are racists.
B) Most whites are racists.
C) Actually, few whites are racists and none of those present.
D) The white who "yelps" the loudest at the racist charge is suspected of being a racist.

Question 45

What did Menon et al. (1999) find when they compared East Asians with North Americans on the causal attributions for behavior each group makes?

A) both attributed cause for behavior to dispositions
B) East Asians made causal attribution for behavior to collectives.
C) North Americans made causal attribution for behavior to collectives.
D) for only North Americans, to what they attributed behavior depended on circumstances

Question 46

East Asians are more indirect in what they say to others. Under what circumstances are they most indirect compared to Westerns?

A) at home
B) at a social gathering
C) at work
D) when encountering strangers

Question 47

Suh (2002) showed that ________ are happier when they show cross-situational consistency.

A) Easterners
B) neither more than the other
C) it depends on the situation
D) Westerners

Question 48

Rotter's undergraduate major was

A) psychology
B) literature
C) chemistry
D) sociology

Question 49

Social psychologist's Solomon Asch got Rotter interested in the work of Gestalt psychologist

A) Lewin
B) Wertheimer
C) Koffka
D) Kohler

Question 50

What person who also influenced Rogers and Maslow had impact on Rotter?

A) Horney
B) Sullivan
C) Adler
D) Jung

Question 51

What was Rotter's problem when he arrived at the University of Iowa?

A) shyness
B) inadequate preparation
C) homesickness
D) poverty

Question 52

Rotter's Ph.D. degree was in

A) experimental psychology
B) clinical psychology
C) developmental psychology
D) biological psychology

Question 53

Who was counted among Rotter's colleagues at Ohio State University?

A) Sullivan
B) Kelly
C) Skinner
D) Murray

Question 54

Rotter believes

A) people gripped by the forces of a powerful situation show a general trend in behavior
B) people gripped by the forces of powerful internal factors show a general trend in behavior
C) most people are controlled by external factors
D) most people are controlled by their unconscious processes

Question 55

In Phares' (1962) "chance" and "skill"

A) subjects in the chance condition were told to take a chance each trial
B) subjects in the chance condition were told that different buttons would stop the shock on different trials
C) subjects in the skill condition were told that different buttons would stop the shock on different trials
D) subjects in the skill condition were asked to exercise their skills on each trial

Question 56

In the Gambler's Fallacy people believe that in the long run they will win

A) people believe that in the short run they will win
B) people expect that a failure on one attempt means that failure on a subsequent attempt becomes more likely
C) people expect that a failure on one attempt means that success on a subsequent attempt becomes more likely

Question 57

People in the "chance condition" of Phares' (1962) experiment behaved differently than people in the "skill condition"

A) without qualification
B) only in the case of male subjects
C) but there were individual differences within each condition
D) and there were very few individual differences within each condition

Question 58

All except one of the following are among the basic assumptions of Rotter's theory. Which is NOT one if his basic assumptions?

A) "Situations" are in the eye of the beholder.
B) People's expectancies guide their behavior.
C) In order to understand personality it is only necessary to study the environment in which people are embedded.
D) The notion "reinforcement" is usefully applied to the study of personality.

Question 59

Who performed best in the skill and chance condition?

A) females
B) skill condition subjects
C) chance conditions subjects
D) reinforcement condition subjects

Question 60

Reinforcement refers to

A) anything that has an influence on the occurrence, direction or kind of behavior
B) rewards for performing behavior
C) aversive stimulation delivered after the performance of behavior
D) the degree of preference for any reinforcement to occur if the possibilities of different reinforcements are equal

Question 61

Reinforcement value refers to

A) anything that has an influence on the occurrence, direction or kind of behavior
B) rewards for performing behavior
C) aversive stimulation delivered after the performance of behavior
D) the degree of preference for any reinforcement to occur if the possibilities of different reinforcements are equal

Question 62

A psychological situation is

A) the physical circumstance in which the person behaves
B) characterized in a way peculiar to a person, allowing her to categorize it with or differentiate it from other situations
C) social circumstance in which the person must decide how to behave vis a vis other persons in the setting
D) the social circumstance of the person's behavior

Question 63

To Rotter, situations

A) are more physical than psychological
B) more social than psychological
C) in the eye of the beholder

Question 64

According to Rotter, expectancy is

A) the probability held by a person that a particular reinforcement will occur as a function of a specific behavior in a specific situation
B) the likelihood that whatever one does will result in a reinforcement, provided only that she or he is attentive to magnitude and value of the reinforcement
C) looking ahead
D) eyes on the top of the head

Question 65

A generalized expectancy is

A) an expectancy that generalizes from one person to another person
B) an expectancy that generalizes from one situation to another situation
C) an expectancy that holds for a number of situations that are dissimilar to one another to some degree
D) an expectancy that holds for a number of situations that are similar to one another to some degree

Question 66

When are generalized expectancies likely to operate?

A) in most situations
B) in familiar situations
C) in new or ambiguous situations
D) in all situations

Question 67

Locus of control refers to

A) the degree to which people expect that reinforcement is dependent on their conscious processes versus the degree they expect it is due to unconscious processes
B) whether control is impossible, probable, or highly likely
C) whether the possibilities for control are stable, internal, and global, or unstable, external, and specific
D) the degree to which people expect that reinforcement is dependent on their characteristics, behaviors or efforts versus the degree they expect it is due to luck, fate, chance, or powerful others

Question 68

External control refers to

A) the perception that reinforcement is dependent on one's behavior, efforts or characteristics
B) the perception that reinforcement is dependent on luck, chance, fate, or powerful others
C) whether control is impossible, probable, or highly likely
D) whether the possibilities for control are stable, internal, and global, or unstable, external, and specific

Question 69

Internal control refers to

A) the perception that reinforcement is dependent on one's behavior, efforts or characteristics
B) the perception that reinforcement is dependent on luck, chance, fate, or powerful others
C) whether control is impossible, probable, or highly likely
D) whether the possibilities for control are stable, internal, and global, or unstable, external, and specific

Question 70

Rotter points out that external and internal locus of control are NOT equivalent to

A) classical conditioning orientation
B) instrumental conditioning orientation
C) traits
D) levels of consciousness

Question 71

All except one of the following are alternatives for items on the I-E scale. Which is NOT an alternative on the scale?

A) I'm a pretty confident person. I can make things happen.
B) I live my life one day at a time.
C) My voice is heard above the crowd.
D) I'm pretty much indifferent.

Question 72

All of the following are characteristics of externals, relative to internals, except one. Which is NOT a characteristic?

A) conformist and compliant
B) maladjusted
C) worn out and uptight
D) low anxiety

Question 73

Who is most likely to abuse substances?

A) internals
B) externals
C) internals or externals, depending on gender
D) internals, but a firm conclusion awaits an I-E measure specifically referring to alcohol use situations

Question 74

What did Mamlin, Harris and Case (2001) find when they studied the belief that people with learning disabilities (LD) feel a lack of control of their destinies?

A) There was no evidence bearing on the subject.
B) Actually they tend to feel in control of their destinies.
C) They found serious fault with the sources of evidence for this belief.
D) They confirmed this belief.

Question 75

All except one of the following are true of the relationship between locus of control and divorce. Which is NOT true of that relationship?

A) Married people are more internal than either single of divorced people.
B) Internals showed less post-divorce distress than externals.
C) People who are internal for marital satisfaction are more active and direct in problem solving than externals.
D) Externals are less likely to have a divorce.

Question 76

All the following are true of recent research on locus of control (LC) and computer use/mastery and LC and health issues. Which is NOT true of that research?

A) Internals have positive attitudes toward computers.
B) LC played no role in the relationship between computer attitudes and experience with computers.
C) Identical twins were alike on LC scores.
D) A genetic/environmental factor was related to a "Powerful Other's" scale.

Question 77

Which of the following is a correct description of results of studies on Locus of control and mental/physical health and fiscal and work orientations?

A) Hexal (2003) found that internals scored lower on alexithymia scales.
B) Irritable Bowel Syndrome patients were highest among bowel patients on "controlled by powerful others."
C) Externals were more prone to budgeting their money.
D) the stronger the "work persistence" the higher the work internality

Question 78

Which is NOT an item on the I-E scale?

A) My voice is heard above the crowd.
B) I steer clear of everything from bingo to poker.
C) I don't care very much about anything.
D) Me, I stick with the winners.

Question 79

Which is NOT an item on the I-E scale?

A) I plan my day, my week, my month, and my year.
B) I rely on neither luck or effort.
C) People just seem to drown me out.
D) If you are lucky, you're rich; if not, join the crowd.

Question 80

Which was NOT an item on the I-E scale?

A) I think life is partly a gamble, and partly due to our efforts.
B) Sometimes I feel powerless, the victim of mysterious forces.
C) I like to compete because if I win, I can say "I did it."
D) It's really quite simple: if you're good and work hard, you succeed.