SOCIAL-COGNITIVE INFORMATION PROCESSING
One may wonder why most classical approaches to information processing in personality are abandoned nowadays. A major reason can be found in the dominant tendency to study information processing in the laboratory and trying to connect the outcomes with traits like field dependence. Information processing was studied apart from the environment supplying the information in the first place. For most current approaches to personality based on information processing this is not very well possible. The modern informationprocessing approach can best be understood as a reaction against dispositional theory. In the late 1960s dispositions became discredited as major personality units because accumulating evidence indicated that one of their main features—consistency across situations—could not be warranted (Mischel, 1968). As a reaction personality theorists started to work with interactionist models based on the assumption that an individual’s behaviour can only be properly explained as a result of complex interactions between the person and the situation. Between the person, the situation and behaviour so-called triadic reciprocal causality was assumed to be present: the person affects behaviour, behaviour affects the situation and vice versa. Clearly, this picture needed further elaboration before the interactionist position could provide a basis for the study of personality. The reciprocal relationship between situation and behaviour has obtained special attention in learning. The other two are assumed to be the province of personality psychology. Accordingly, special attention is paid to the reciprocal relationships of persons with situations and with behaviours. Most current approaches are based on the assumption that information processing plays a crucial role in person-environment relationships. In those relationships the part of the person is an active-structuring one. Individual thoughts and actions are to a considerable extent based on social considerations, thus closely reflecting the concrete circumstances of daily life. Bandura (1986) argued that people no longer need to be viewed as responders to environmental stimuli but as causal agents whose personal agendas and capabilities shape the conditions of their lives and the course of their development. Person-environment relations are governed by the person’s intention to exert a certain amount of control over the environment. People select and shape their environments and give meaning to events by interpreting them according to their personal beliefs. In dealing with their environment people not only perform responses but also notice the effects they produce. If the effects confirm pre-existing goals or expectancies, the person experiences competence, self-efficacy, or control. What people think, believe and feel affects how they behave. A comprehensive framework with the capacity to study all the relations mentioned is information processing. Cognitive information processing is the cornerstone of many current approaches to personality (like e.g. Carver and Scheier, 1981; Bandura, 1986; Cantor and Kihlstrom, 1987; Dweck and Leggett, 1988; Cervone, 1991; Mischel and Shoda, 1995). Cognitive information-processing models are mediating process models including hypotheses about the mental activities or decisions regulating behaviour in the context of daily life. Those mental activities rest on knowledge acquired through modelling, observation, upbringing, education, learning, i.e. social conditions enhancing learning. Central concepts used in social information-processing theories include, e.g. declarative and procedural knowledge concerning the world and the self, expectancies, schemas, constructs, attributions, encoding strategies, values, appraisals, plans, scripts,intentions, goals, beliefs, self-efficacy and control. Although there is no complete consensus on the major elements of information processing, three major classes are usually acknowledged. First there are knowledge structures including a person’s beliefs about the world and the situations in it. Second, there are goals and intentions providing direction to a person’s behaviour. Finally, there are self-regulatory mechanisms helping the person to maintain control over himself and the world around him. Individuals can and will usually differ in the ways in which the different structures and mechanisms are organized. Within this framework personality may be defined as an individual’s ways to process information in the context of different situations.
One may wonder why most classical approaches to information processing in personality are abandoned nowadays. A major reason can be found in the dominant tendency to study information processing in the laboratory and trying to connect the outcomes with traits like field dependence. Information processing was studied apart from the environment supplying the information in the first place. For most current approaches to personality based on information processing this is not very well possible. The modern informationprocessing approach can best be understood as a reaction against dispositional theory. In the late 1960s dispositions became discredited as major personality units because accumulating evidence indicated that one of their main features—consistency across situations—could not be warranted (Mischel, 1968). As a reaction personality theorists started to work with interactionist models based on the assumption that an individual’s behaviour can only be properly explained as a result of complex interactions between the person and the situation. Between the person, the situation and behaviour so-called triadic reciprocal causality was assumed to be present: the person affects behaviour, behaviour affects the situation and vice versa. Clearly, this picture needed further elaboration before the interactionist position could provide a basis for the study of personality. The reciprocal relationship between situation and behaviour has obtained special attention in learning. The other two are assumed to be the province of personality psychology. Accordingly, special attention is paid to the reciprocal relationships of persons with situations and with behaviours. Most current approaches are based on the assumption that information processing plays a crucial role in person-environment relationships. In those relationships the part of the person is an active-structuring one. Individual thoughts and actions are to a considerable extent based on social considerations, thus closely reflecting the concrete circumstances of daily life. Bandura (1986) argued that people no longer need to be viewed as responders to environmental stimuli but as causal agents whose personal agendas and capabilities shape the conditions of their lives and the course of their development. Person-environment relations are governed by the person’s intention to exert a certain amount of control over the environment. People select and shape their environments and give meaning to events by interpreting them according to their personal beliefs. In dealing with their environment people not only perform responses but also notice the effects they produce. If the effects confirm pre-existing goals or expectancies, the person experiences competence, self-efficacy, or control. What people think, believe and feel affects how they behave. A comprehensive framework with the capacity to study all the relations mentioned is information processing. Cognitive information processing is the cornerstone of many current approaches to personality (like e.g. Carver and Scheier, 1981; Bandura, 1986; Cantor and Kihlstrom, 1987; Dweck and Leggett, 1988; Cervone, 1991; Mischel and Shoda, 1995). Cognitive information-processing models are mediating process models including hypotheses about the mental activities or decisions regulating behaviour in the context of daily life. Those mental activities rest on knowledge acquired through modelling, observation, upbringing, education, learning, i.e. social conditions enhancing learning. Central concepts used in social information-processing theories include, e.g. declarative and procedural knowledge concerning the world and the self, expectancies, schemas, constructs, attributions, encoding strategies, values, appraisals, plans, scripts,intentions, goals, beliefs, self-efficacy and control. Although there is no complete consensus on the major elements of information processing, three major classes are usually acknowledged. First there are knowledge structures including a person’s beliefs about the world and the situations in it. Second, there are goals and intentions providing direction to a person’s behaviour. Finally, there are self-regulatory mechanisms helping the person to maintain control over himself and the world around him. Individuals can and will usually differ in the ways in which the different structures and mechanisms are organized. Within this framework personality may be defined as an individual’s ways to process information in the context of different situations.
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