Thoughts, feelings and actions

Transcript

RyanTwo friends get the same disappointing grade on a big exam. The first one goes quiet and thinks, I'm just not smart. Nothing can change that. And this proves I'm bad at everything.

SoheeThe second one is just as disappointed. But she thinks, I studied the wrong way for this one. I can change how I prepare. And this is one test, not my whole life.

RyanSame event. Very different thoughts. And research on how we explain setbacks suggests those thoughts really matter.

SoheeWelcome to EPPP Prep, the podcast. I'm Sohee.

RyanAnd I'm Ryan. Today's knowledge statement is about the relations among cognitions and beliefs, behavior, affect, temperament and mood. In plain words: how thoughts, feelings and actions push on each other.

SoheeLet's start with those two friends, because the OpenStax psychology textbook uses almost exactly that example. It comes from learned helplessness, so let's build up to it.

RyanIn the 1960s, Martin Seligman put dogs in a chamber where they received shocks they couldn't escape. Later, when they could escape by jumping a partition, most didn't even try. Dogs that had been able to escape earlier did jump and escape.

SoheeSeligman believed the dogs had acquired a belief that they were powerless. He called it learned helplessness, and he saw their passivity as similar to human depression.

RyanThen came the reformulation, by Abramson, Seligman and Teasdale in 1978. It emphasized attributions, our explanations for why something happened. Three dimensions.

SoheeInternal versus external: was it me or the situation? Stable versus unstable: can it change? And global versus specific: does it apply to everything, or just this area?

RyanOur first friend made an internal attribution, I'm not smart. A stable one, nothing can change that. And a global one, I'm bad at everything. The theory predicts she'll perceive little control and be especially prone to depression.

SoheeAnd research has shown that people who tend to make internal, global and stable attributions for bad outcomes tend to develop symptoms of depression when they face negative life events.

RyanHere's the hopeful part, from the textbook. Attribution habits can be changed through practice, and training in healthy attribution habits has been shown to make people less vulnerable to depression.

SoheeAnd a later reformulation is called hopelessness theory. It holds that seeing negative events as having stable and global causes leads to hopelessness, an expectation that bad outcomes will happen and nothing can be done, which then leads to depression.

RyanPause and think. After a breakup, a client says, it's because I'm unlovable, I always will be, and it's why my career is going nowhere too. Name the three attribution dimensions.

SoheeInternal, I'm unlovable. Stable, always will be. Global, it spreads to the career too. The pattern linked to depression.

RyanNow Aaron Beck's cognitive theory of depression, developed in the 1960s. Beck proposed that depression-prone people have depressive schemas, mental predispositions to think about most things negatively.

SoheeThose schemas carry themes of loss, failure, rejection, worthlessness and inadequacy. They may develop early in childhood after adverse experiences, then stay dormant until stressful events activate them.

RyanOnce active, they prompt dysfunctional, pessimistic thoughts about the self, the world and the future. And Beck believed this thinking is maintained by cognitive biases that make us focus on negatives, interpret things negatively and block positive memories.

SoheeThe textbook's example: someone with a rejection schema notices another person's frown, reads it as rejection, and automatically remembers past rejections. Thought, feeling and memory all pulling in one direction.

RyanAnd notice the structure. It's a diathesis-stress model. A cognitive vulnerability plus a stressful life event. Longitudinal studies support Beck: negative thinking combined with life stress predicts the onset of depression over time.

SoheeWhich led to cognitive therapy. Its core idea: how you think determines how you feel and act. Therapists help clients spot distortions, like overgeneralization, failing one test and concluding I'm stupid and worthless, or catastrophizing, concluding I'll fail the course and flunk out.

RyanAnd cognitive-behavioral therapy works on both thoughts and actions. One of the first forms was rational emotive therapy, founded by Albert Ellis.

SoheeNow appraisal, from the stress chapter. Lazarus and Folkman framed stress as a process where we perceive and respond to events we appraise as overwhelming or threatening. The appraisal shapes the reaction.

RyanA primary appraisal judges how much potential harm or threat a stressor carries, and whether it's a threat or a challenge. A secondary appraisal judges the options for coping and how well they'd work.

SoheeThe textbook's example is two people who each find a lump during a self-exam. Both see a potential threat. But Robin thinks nothing can be done, while Madhuri thinks there are effective options. Robin experiences greater stress.

RyanNext, three Bandura-and-Rotter ideas that people constantly mix up. Self-efficacy is your confidence in your own abilities, built through social experience. It shapes which challenges you take on and how quickly you recover from setbacks.

SoheeLocus of control, from Julian Rotter in 1966, is different. It's your belief about how much power you have over your life. Internals believe outcomes come from their own efforts. Externals believe outcomes come from other people, luck or chance.

RyanSo self-efficacy is, can I do this? Locus of control is, do my actions determine what happens? And researchers have found that people with an internal locus of control perform better academically, are healthier, cope better and are less depressed.

SoheeAnd Bandura's reciprocal determinism ties it together: cognitive processes, behavior and context all interact, each influencing and being influenced by the others.

RyanNow temperament. The textbook defines it as innate traits that influence how one thinks, behaves and reacts with the environment. Most contemporary psychologists believe it has a biological basis, because it appears so early.

SoheeThomas and Chess found babies could be categorized into one of three temperaments: easy, difficult, or slow to warm up. Easy children show positive emotions, adapt well to change and regulate their emotions.

RyanDifficult children show negative emotions and have trouble adapting to change and regulating emotion. And here's the reciprocal part: easy children may elicit warm, responsive parenting, while demanding, irritable children may evoke irritation or withdrawal in their parents.

SoheeSo temperament shapes behavior, which shapes how others respond, which shapes the child. And research points to two temperament dimensions important in adult personality: reactivity, how we respond to new or challenging stimuli, and self-regulation, our ability to control that response.

RyanThen affect and mood. Negative affectivity is a tendency to experience distressed states like anger, contempt, disgust, guilt, fear and nervousness. It's been linked with the development of hypertension and heart disease.

SoheePositive affect is pleasurable engagement with the environment, like happiness, joy, enthusiasm and alertness. It's associated with greater social connectedness, adaptive coping and lower depression.

RyanAnd optimism is related but different. Positive affect is about feeling states. Optimism is a generalized tendency to expect good things to happen.

SoheeFinally, the reverse direction: when behavior changes beliefs. Leon Festinger defined cognitive dissonance as psychological discomfort from holding two or more inconsistent attitudes, behaviors or cognitions. Believing smoking is harmful, and smoking anyway.

RyanLater research found that only conflicting cognitions that threaten our positive self-image cause dissonance. And we reduce it by changing the behavior, changing our cognitions through rationalization or denial, or adding a new cognition.

SoheeA related idea is justification of effort: we value goals we put a lot of effort into. In Aronson and Mills's classic study, students who went through a difficult initiation to join a deliberately boring discussion group rated the group more favorably.

RyanPause and think. A man who spent years and a lot of money on a hard training program now insists it was the best decision of his life, though the job it led to is disappointing. What concept fits?

SoheeCognitive dissonance, reduced through justification of effort. Changing the behavior is no longer possible, so the belief shifts to match the investment.

RyanSo how might the exam test this knowledge statement? Expect a vignette and a concept. Watch the pairs: self-efficacy versus locus of control, Beck's schemas versus attributional style, primary versus secondary appraisal, positive affect versus optimism.

SoheeLet's recap. Learned helplessness began with inescapable shock. The reformulation says internal, stable, global attributions for bad events raise depression risk, and attribution habits can be retrained.

RyanBeck: depressive schemas, negative thoughts about self, world and future, maintained by cognitive biases. Cognitive therapy targets distortions like overgeneralization and catastrophizing.

SoheeAppraisal: primary judges the threat, secondary judges coping options. Self-efficacy is can I. Locus of control is does it depend on me. Reciprocal determinism links thought, behavior and context.

RyanTemperament: easy, difficult, slow to warm up, and it shapes how others respond. Negative affectivity, positive affect and optimism are distinct. Dissonance lets behavior reshape belief.

SoheeAnd now, back to those two friends. If you've had a disappointing exam result, the explanation you give yourself matters. Not I'm not smart, but this time, this approach, and something I can change. That isn't just kind. It's in line with the research on attributions, which says these habits can be changed with practice.

RyanTake a breath, try a few practice questions, and we'll see you next time on EPPP Prep.

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