SIGMUND FREUD

Psychoanalytic Theory

■ Id – The id developed out of Freud’s. concept of the pleasure principle. The id comprises primitive, instinctual drives
(hunger, sex, aggression). The id says, “I want.”

■ Ego – It is the ego, or rational mind, that is called upon to control the instinctual impulses of the self-indulgent id. The
ego says, “I think/I evaluate.”

■ Superego –The superego is the conscience of the psyche and monitors the ego. The superego says “I should/I ought.”
(Hunt1994)

Topographic Model of the Mind

Freud’s topographic model deals with levels of awareness and is divided into three categories:

■ Unconscious mind – All mental content and memories outside of conscious awareness; becomes conscious through
the preconscious mind.

■ Preconscious mind – Not within the conscious mind but can more easily be brought to conscious awareness
(repressive function of instinctual desires or undesirable memories). Reaches consciousness through word linkage.

■ Conscious mind – All content and memories immediately available and within conscious awareness. Of lesser
importance to psychoanalysts.
ERIK ERIKSON: EGO PSYCHOLOGY
Karen Horney
The Impact of Culture
Horney insisted that modern culture is too competitive and that competition leads to hostility and feelings of isolation.
These conditions lead to exaggerated needs for affection and cause people to overvalue love.

The Importance of Childhood Experiences

Neurotic conflict stems largely from childhood traumas, most of which are traced to a lack of genuine love. Children who
do not receive genuine affection feel threatened and adopt rigid behavioral patterns in an attempt to gain love.

Basic Hostility and Basic Anxiety

All children need feelings of safety and security, but these can be gained only by love from parents. Unfortunately,
parents often neglect, dominate, reject, or overindulge their children, conditions that lead to the child's feelings of
basic hostility toward parents. If children repress feelings of basic hostility, they will develop feelings of insecurity and a
pervasive sense of apprehension called basic anxiety.

People can protect themselves from basic anxiety through a number of protective devices, including (1) affection, (2)
submissiveness, (3) power, prestige, or possession, and (4) withdrawal. Normal people have the flexibility to use any or
all of these approaches, but neurotics are compelled to rely rigidly on only one.

Compulsive Drives
Neurotics are frequently trapped in a vicious circle in which their compulsive need to reduce basic anxiety leads to a
variety of self-defeating behaviors; these behaviors then produce more basic anxiety, and the cycle continues.

A. Neurotic Needs
Horney identified 10 categories of neurotic needs that mark neurotics in their attempt to reduce basic anxiety.

1. for affection and approval

2. for a powerful partner
3. to restrict one's life within narrow borders
4. for power
5. to exploit others
6. for social recognition or prestige
 7. for personal admiration
8. for ambition and personal achievement
9. for self-sufficiency and independence
10. for perfection and unassailability

B. Neurotic Trend

1. moving toward people, in which compliant people protect themselves against feelings of helplessness by
attaching themselves to other people
2. moving against people, in which aggressive people protect themselves against perceived hostility of others by
exploiting others
3. moving away from people, in which detached people protect themselves against feelings of isolation by
appearing arrogant and aloof.

Intrapsychic Conflicts
People also experience inner tensions or intrapsychic conflicts that become part of their belief system and take on a life
of their own, separate from the interpersonal conflicts that created them.

A. The Idealized Self-Image

People who do not receive love and affection during childhood are blocked in their attempt to acquire a stable sense of
identity. Feeling alienated from self, they create an idealized self-image, or an extravagantly positive picture of
themselves. Horney recognized

Three aspects of the idealized self-image:

(1) the neurotic search for glory, or a comprehensive drive toward actualizing the ideal self;
(2) neurotic claims, or a belief that they are entitled to special privileges; and
(3) neurotic pride, or a false pride based not on reality but on a distorted and idealized view of self.

B. Self-Hatred
Neurotics dislike themselves because reality always falls short of their idealized view of self. Therefore, they learn self-
hatred, which can be expressed as:

(1) relentless demands on the self,

(2) merciless self-accusation,
(3) self-contempt,
(4) self-frustration,
(5) self-torment or self-torture, and
(6) self-destructive actions and impulses.
Harry Sullivan

A. Infancy
The period from birth until the emergence of syntaxic language is called infancy, a time when the child receives
tenderness from the mothering one while also learning anxiety through an empathic linkage with the mother. Anxiety
may increase to the point of terror, but such terror is controlled by the built-in protections of apathy and somnolent
detachment that allow the baby to go to sleep. During infancy children use autistic language, which takes place on a
prototaxic or parataxic level.

B. Childhood
The stage that lasts from the beginning of syntaxic language until the need for playmates of equal status is called
childhood. The child's primary interpersonal relationship continues to be with the mother, who is now differentiated
from other persons who nurture the child.

C. Juvenile Era
The juvenile stage begins with the need for peers of equal status and continues until the child develops a need for an
intimate relationship with a chum. At this time, children should learn how to compete, to compromise, and to
cooperate. These three abilities, as well as an orientation toward living, help a child develop intimacy, the chief
dynamism of the next developmental stage.

D. Preadolescence
Perhaps the most crucial stage is preadolescence, because mistakes made earlier can be corrected during
preadolescence, but errors made during preadolescence are nearly impossible to overcome in later life. Preadolescence
spans the time from the need for a single best friend until puberty. Children who do not learn intimacy during
preadolescence have added difficulties relating to potential sexual partners during later stages.

E. Early Adolescence
With puberty comes the lust dynamism and the beginning of early adolescence. Development during this stage is
ordinarily marked by a coexistence of intimacy with a single friend of the same gender and sexual interest in many
persons of the opposite gender. However, if children have no preexisting capacity for intimacy, they may confuse lust
with love and develop sexual relationships that are devoid of true intimacy.

F. Late Adolescence
Chronologically, late adolescence may start at any time after about age 16, but psychologically, it begins when a person
is able to feel both intimacy and lust toward the same person. Late adolescence is characterized by a stable pattern of
sexual activity and the growth of the syntaxic mode, as young people learn how to live in the adult world.
G. Adulthood
Late adolescence flows into adulthood, a time when a person establishes a stable relationship with a significant other
person and develops a consistent pattern of viewing the world.

Tensions
Sullivan conceptualized personality as an energy system, with energy existing either as tension (potentiality for action)
or as energy transformations (the actions themselves). He further divided tensions into needs and anxiety.
A. Needs
Needs can relate either to the general well-being of a person or to specific zones, such as the mouth or genitals. General
needs can be either physiological, such as food or oxygen, or they can be interpersonal, such as tenderness and
intimacy.

B. Anxiety
Unlike needs-which are conjunctive and call for specific actions to reduce them-anxiety is disjunctive and calls for no
consistent actions for its relief. All infants learn to be anxious through the empathic relationship that they have with
their mothering one. Sullivan called anxiety the chief disruptive force in interpersonal relations. A complete absence of
anxiety and other tensions is called euphoria.

A. Malevolence
The disjunctive dynamism of evil and hatred is called malevolence, defined by Sullivan as a feeling of living among one's
enemies. Those children who become malevolent have much difficulty giving and receiving tenderness or being intimate
with other people.

B. Intimacy
The conjunctive dynamism marked by a close personal relationship between two people of equal status is called
intimacy. Intimacy facilitates interpersonal development while decreasing both anxiety and loneliness

C. Lust
In contrast to both malevolence and intimacy, lust is an isolating dynamism. That is, lust is a self-centered need that can
be satisfied in the absence of an intimate interpersonal relationship. In other words, although intimacy presupposes
tenderness or love, lust is based solely on sexual gratification and requires no other person for its satisfaction.

D. Self-System
The most inclusive of all dynamisms is the self-system, or that pattern of behaviors that protects us against anxiety and
maintains our interpersonal security. The self-system is a conjunctive dynamism, but because its primary job is to
protect the self from anxiety, it tends to stifle personality change. Experiences that are inconsistent with our self-system
threaten our security and necessitate our use of security operations, which consist of behaviors designed to reduce
interpersonal tensions. One such security operation is dissociation, which includes all those experiences that we block
from awareness. Another is selective inattention, which involves blocking only certain experiences from awareness.

Personifications
Sullivan believed that people acquire certain images of self and others throughout
the developmental stages, and he referred to these subjective perceptions
as personifications.

A. Bad-Mother, Good-Mother
The bad-mother personification grows out of infants' experiences with a nipple that does not satisfy their hunger needs.
All infants experience the bad-mother personification, even though their real mothers may be loving and nurturing.
Later, infants acquire a good-mother personification as they become mature enough to recognize the tender and
cooperative behavior of their mothering one. Still later, these two personifications combine to form a complex and
contrasting image of the real mother.
B. Me Personifications
During infancy, children acquire three "me" personifications: (1) the bad-me, which grows from experiences of
punishment and disapproval, (2) the good-me, which results from experiences with reward and approval, and (3) the
not-me, which allows a person to dissociate or selectively inattend the experiences related to anxiety.

C. Eidetic Personifications
One of Sullivan's most interesting observations was that people often create imaginary traits that they project onto
others. Included in these eidetic personifications are the imaginary playmates that preschool-aged children
often have. These imaginary friends enable children to have a safe, secure relationship with another person, even
though that person is imaginary.

Levels of Cognition
Sullivan recognized three levels of cognition, or ways of perceiving things-prototaxic, parataxic, and syntaxic.
A. Prototaxic Level
Experiences that are impossible to put into words or to communicate to others are called prototaxic. Newborn infants
experience images mostly on a prototaxic level, but adults, too, frequently have preverbal experiences that are
momentary and incapable of being communicated.

B. Parataxic Level
Experiences that are prelogical and nearly impossible to accurately communicate to others are called parataxic. Included
in these are erroneous assumptions about cause and effect, which Sullivan termed parataxic distortions.

C. Syntaxic Level
Experiences that can be accurately communicated to others are called syntaxic. Children become capable of syntaxic
language at about 12 to 18 months of age when words begin to have the same meaning for them that they do for
others.

Carl Rogers
The Fully Functioning Person
Rogers identified five characteristics of the fully functioning person:
1. Open to experience: both positive and negative emotions accepted. Negative feelings are not denied, but
worked through (rather than resorting to ego defense mechanisms).
2. Existential living: in touch with different experiences as they occur in life, avoiding prejudging and
preconceptions. Being able to live and fully appreciate the present, not always looking back to the past or
forward to the future (i.e., living for the moment).
3. Trust feelings: feeling, instincts, and gut-reactions are paid attention to and trusted. People’s own decisions
are the right ones, and we should trust ourselves to make the right choices.
4. Creativity: creative thinking and risk-taking are features of a person’s life. A person does not play safe all the
time. This involves the ability to adjust and change and seek new experiences.
5. Fulfilled life: a person is happy and satisfied with life, and always looking for new challenges and experiences.

Personality Development
-self-concept- "the organized, consistent set of perceptions and beliefs about oneself."
The self is the humanistic term for who we really are as a person. The self is our inner personality, and can be likened to
the soul, or Freud's psyche. The self is influenced by the experiences a person has in their life, and out interpretations of
those experiences. Two primary sources that influence our self-concept are childhood experiences and evaluation by
others.
According to Rogers (1959), we want to feel, experience and behave in ways which are consistent with our self-image
and which reflect what we would like to be like, our ideal-self. The closer our self-image and ideal-self are to each other,
the more consistent or congruent we are and the higher our sense of self-worth.
A person is said to be in a state of incongruence if some of the totality of their experience is unacceptable to them and is
denied or distorted in the self-image.
The humanistic approach states that the self is composed of concepts unique to ourselves. The self-concept includes
three components:
Self-worth (or self-esteem) – what we think about ourselves. Rogers believed feelings of self-worth developed in
early childhood and were formed from the interaction of the child with the mother and father.
Self-image – How we see ourselves, which is important to good psychological health. Self-image includes the
influence of our body image on inner personality. At a simple level, we might perceive ourselves as a good or
bad person, beautiful or ugly. Self-image affects how a person thinks, feels and behaves in the world.
Ideal self – This is the person who we would like to be. It consists of our goals and ambitions in life, and is
dynamic – i.e., forever changing. The ideal self in childhood is not the ideal self in our teens or late twenties etc.

Self Worth and Positive Regard

Carl Rogers (1951) viewed the child as having two basic needs: positive regard from other people and self-worth.
How we think about ourselves, our feelings of self-worth are of fundamental importance both to psychological health
and to the likelihood that we can achieve goals and ambitions in life and achieve self-actualization.
Self-worth- has confidence and positive feelings about him or herself, faces challenges in life, accepts failure and
unhappiness at times, and is open with people.
- low self-worth may avoid challenges in life, not accept that life can be painful and unhappy at times, and
will be defensive and guarded with other people.
- interactions with significant others will affect feelings of self-worth.
- we need to feel valued, respected, treated with affection and loved.
Rogers made a distinction between unconditional positive regard and conditional positive regard.
Unconditional positive regard is where parents, significant others (and the humanist therapist) accepts and
loves the person for what he or she is. Positive regard is not withdrawn if the person does something wrong or
makes a mistake.
The consequences of unconditional positive regard are that the person feels free to try things out and make
mistakes, even though this may lead to getting it worse at times. People who are able to self-actualize are more
likely to have received unconditional positive regard from others, especially their parents in childhood.
 Conditional positive regard is where positive regard, praise, and approval, depend upon the child, for example,
behaving in ways that the parents think correct. Hence the child is not loved for the person he or she is, but on
condition that he or she behaves only in ways approved by the parent(s).

Congruence
Incongruence- a difference may exist between a person’s ideal self and actual experience
Congruence- Where a person’s ideal self and actual experience are consistent or very similar

The development of congruence is dependent on unconditional positive regard. Carl Rogers believed that for a person to
achieve self-actualization they must be in a state of congruence.
According to Rogers, we want to feel, experience and behave in ways which are consistent with our self-image and
which reflect what we would like to be like, our ideal-self.
The closer our self-image and ideal-self are to each other, the more consistent or congruent we are and the higher our
sense of self-worth. A person is said to be in a state of incongruence if some of the totality of their experience is
unacceptable to them and is denied or distorted in the self-image.
Incongruence is "a discrepancy between the actual experience of the organism and the self-picture of the individual
insofar as it represents that experience.
BF Skinner

BF Skinner: Operant Conditioning

 operant conditioning; it means roughly changing of behavior by the use of reinforcement which is given after the
desired response.
 Skinner identified three types of responses or operant that can follow behavior.

• Neutral operants: responses from the environment that neither increase nor decrease the probability of a behavior
being repeated.

• Reinforcers: Responses from the environment that increase the probability of a behavior being repeated. Reinforcers
can be either positive or negative.

• Punishers: Responses from the environment that decrease the likelihood of a behavior being repeated. Punishment
weakens behavior.

 Positive Reinforcement

- strengthens a behavior by providing a consequence an individual finds rewarding. For example, if your
teacher gives you £5 each time you complete your homework (i.e., a reward) you will be more likely to
repeat this behavior in the future, thus strengthening the behavior of completing your homework.

 Negative Reinforcement

- The removal of an unpleasant reinforcer can also strengthen behavior.

- the removal of an adverse stimulus which is ‘rewarding’ to the animal or person. Negative reinforcement
strengthens behavior because it stops or removes an unpleasant experience.

For example, if you do not complete your homework, you give your teacher £5. You will complete your homework to
avoid paying £5, thus strengthening the behavior of completing your homework.

 Punishment (weakens behavior)

- defined as the opposite of reinforcement since it is designed to weaken or eliminate a response rather than
increase it. It is an aversive event that decreases the behavior that it follows.
 - can work either by directly applying an unpleasant stimulus like a shock after a response or by removing a
potentially rewarding stimulus, for instance, deducting someone’s pocket money to punish undesirable
behavior.

There are many problems with using punishment, such as:

 Punished behavior is not forgotten, it's suppressed - behavior returns when punishment is no longer present.
 Causes increased aggression - shows that aggression is a way to cope with problems.
 Creates fear that can generalize to undesirable behaviors, e.g., fear of school.
 Does not necessarily guide toward desired behavior - reinforcement tells you what to do, punishment only tells
you what not to do.

 Schedules of Reinforcement

1. The Response Rate - The rate at which the rat pressed the lever (i.e., how hard the rat worked).

2. The Extinction Rate - The rate at which lever pressing dies out (i.e., how soon the rat gave up).

Skinner found that the type of reinforcement which produces the slowest rate of extinction (i.e., people will go on
repeating the behavior for the longest time without reinforcement) is variable-ratio reinforcement. The type of
reinforcement which has the quickest rate of extinction is continuous reinforcement.

(A) Continuous Reinforcement

An animal/human is positively reinforced every time a specific behavior occurs, e.g., every time a lever is pressed a
pellet is delivered, and then food delivery is shut off.

 Response rate is SLOW

 Extinction rate is FAST
(B) Fixed Ratio Reinforcement

Behavior is reinforced only after the behavior occurs a specified number of times. e.g., one reinforcement is given after
every so many correct responses, e.g., after every 5th response. For example, a child receives a star for every five words
spelled correctly.

 Response rate is FAST

 Extinction rate is MEDIUM
(C) Fixed Interval Reinforcement

One reinforcement is given after a fixed time interval providing at least one correct response has been made. An
example is being paid by the hour. Another example would be every 15 minutes (half hour, hour, etc.) a pellet is
delivered (providing at least one lever press has been made) then food delivery is shut off.

 Response rate is MEDIUM

 Extinction rate is MEDIUM
(D) Variable Ratio Reinforcement

Behavior is reinforced after an unpredictable number of times. For examples gambling or fishing.

 Response rate is FAST

 Extinction rate is SLOW (very hard to extinguish because of unpredictability)
(E) Variable Interval Reinforcement

Providing one correct response has been made, reinforcement is given after an unpredictable amount of time has
passed, e.g., on average every 5 minutes. An example is a self-employed person being paid at unpredictable times.

 Response rate is FAST

 Extinction rate is SLOW

 Behavior Modification

- Behavior modification is a set of therapies / techniques based on operant conditioning (Skinner, 1938,
1953). The main principle comprises changing environmental events that are related to a person's behavior.
For example, the reinforcement of desired behaviors and ignoring or punishing undesired ones.

There are different types of positive reinforcements. Primary reinforcement is when a reward strengths a behavior by
itself. Secondary reinforcement is when something strengthens a behavior because it leads to a primary reinforcer.

Examples of behavior modification therapy include token economy and behavior shaping.

- Token Economy
- Token economy is a system in which targeted behaviors are reinforced with tokens (secondary reinforcers)
and later exchanged for rewards (primary reinforcers).
- Tokens can be in the form of fake money, buttons, poker chips, stickers, etc. While the rewards can range
anywhere from snacks to privileges or activities. For example, teachers use token economy at primary
school by giving young children stickers to reward good behavior.
- Behavior Shaping
- A further important contribution made by Skinner (1951) is the notion of behavior shaping through
successive approximation. Skinner argues that the principles of operant conditioning can be used to produce
extremely complex behavior if rewards and punishments are delivered in such a way as to encourage move
an organism closer and closer to the desired behavior each time.

George Kelly
Kelly's theory was structured as a testable scientific treatise with a fundamental postulate and a set of corollaries.

 Fundamental postulate: "A person's processes are psychologically channelized by the ways in which he [or she]
anticipates events."
 The construction corollary: "a person anticipates events by construing their replications." This means that
individuals anticipate events in their social world by perceiving a similarity with a past event (construing a
replication).
 The experience corollary: "a person's construction system varies as he successively construes the replication of
events."
 The dichotomy corollary: "a person's construction system is composed of a finite number of dichotomous
constructs."
 The organization corollary: "each person characteristically evolves, for his convenience in anticipating events, a
construction system embracing ordinal relationships between constructs."
 The range corollary: "a construct is convenient for the anticipation of a finite range of events only."
 The modulation corollary: "the variation in a person's construction system is limited by the permeability of the
constructs within whose range of convenience the variants lie."
 The choice corollary: "a person chooses for himself that alternative in a dichotomized construct through which he
anticipates the greater possibility for extension and definition of his system."
 The individuality corollary: "persons differ from each other in their construction of events."
 The commonality corollary: "to the extent that one person employs a construction of experience which is similar to
that employed by another, his psychological processes are similar to the other person."
 The fragmentation corollary: "a person may successively employ a variety of construction subsystems which are
inferentially incompatible with each other."
 The sociality corollary: "to the extent that one person construes the construction processes of another, he may play
a role in a social process involving the other person."
Dimensions of transitions
 Anxiety develops when a person encounters a situation that his or her construct system does not cover, an
event unlike any he or she has encountered. An example of such a situation is a woman from the western United
States who is accustomed to earthquakes, who moves to the eastern United States and experiences great
anxiety because of a hurricane. While an earthquake might be of greater magnitude, she experiences greater
anxiety with the hurricane because she has no constructs to deal with such an event. She is caught "with her
constructs down." Similarly, a boy who has been abused in early childhood may not have the constructs to
accommodate kindness from others. Such a boy might experience anxiety in an outstretched hand that others
view as benevolent.
 Guilt is dislodgement from one's core constructs. A person feels guilt if he or she fails to confirm the constructs
that define him or her. This definition of guilt is radically different from in other theories of personality. Kelly
used the example of the man who regards others as cow-like creatures "making money and giving milk." Such a
man might construe his role in relationship to others in terms of his ability to con favors or money from them.
Such a man, who other psychologists might call a ruthless psychopath, and see as unable to experience guilt,
feels guilt, according to Kelly's theory, when he is unable to con others: He is then alienated from his core
constructs.
 Hostility is "attempting to extort confirmation of a social prediction that is already failing." When a person
encounters a situation in which s/he expects one outcome and receives quite a different one, s/he should
change his/her theory or constructs rather than trying to change the situation to match his/her constructs. But
the person who continually refuses to modify his or her belief system to accommodate new data, and in fact
tries to change the data, is acting in bad faith and with hostility. Hostility, in Kelly's theory, is analogous to a
scientist "fudging" his or her data. An example might be a professor who sees himself as a brillianont educator
who deals with poor student reviews by devaluing the students or the means of evaluation.
Alfred Adler (1870-1937)

developed theories of personality that focused on a therapist's need to understand an individual within the context of
social environment. According to Adler, character traits and behaviors derive primarily from developmental issues,
including birth order.

1. First-Born Children

Adler believed that when a child is born impacts personality. Based on his theory, for example, the oldest child -- prone
to perfectionism and need for affirmation -- tends to become intellectual, conscientious and dominant in social settings.
Adler attributes this to the child losing the parents' undivided attention and compensating throughout life by working to
get it back. In addition, this child may be expected to set an example and be given responsibility for younger siblings.

2. Second and Middle Children

Adler describes the second-born child as someone who has a "pacemaker." Since there is always someone who was
there first, this child may grow to be more competitive, rebellious and consistent in attempting to be best. Middle
children may struggle with figuring out their place in the family and, later, in the world. They are eager for parental
praise and thus tend to develop gifts in the arts or academia in order to accomplish this goal. Due to their "middle"
status, they also may be the most flexible and diplomatic members of the family.

3. Youngest and Only Children

In Adler's theory, the youngest child may be dependent and selfish due to always being taken care of by family
members. However, this child may also possess positive traits of confidence, ability to have fun and comfort at
entertaining others. Only children do not have to share their parents' attention. They may have a hard time when they
are told no, and school may be a difficult transition as they are not the sole focus of the teacher. On a positive note,
Adler believed that, compared to others their age, only children tend to be more mature, feel more comfortable around
adults and even do better in intellectual and creative pursuits.

4. Other Family Situations

Adler also addressed specific family situations, such as twins. With twins, one is usually seen as the older and is stronger
and more active. This one often becomes the leader, though both may develop identity problems due to being treated
as one unit instead of two people. Another example Adler describes is an only boy among girls. He suggests this boy may
develop into an adult who is always trying to prove his manhood or, conversely, may become effeminate. An only girl
among boys may become very feminine or, attempting to outdo the boys, may become a tomboy. She may tend to work
hard to please her father.

General Notes

Adler offers some general notes for his birth order theory. He suggests that if more than three years are between
children, various sub-groups of birth order may develop. In addition, a birth order position may be taken by another
child if circumstances allow. Adler also acknowledges that for some people birth order may not be as significant an
influence as parental attitudes, gender roles or socio-economic issues. He encouraged practitioners to understand the
psychological situation in each family is different; birth order is simply one possible tool to help guide and assess.
 Stress and Cognitive Appraissal
by Lazarus and Folkman
The model "Theory of Cognitive Appraisal" was proposed by Lazarus and Folkman in 1984 and it explained the mental

process which influence of the stressors.

According to Richard Lazarus, stress is a two-way process; it involves the production of stressors by the environment,
and the response of an individual subjected to these stressors. His conception regarding stress led to the theory of
cognitive appraisal.

Lazarus stated that cognitive appraisal occurs when a person considers two major factors that majorly contribute in his
response to stress. These two factors include:

1. The threatening tendency of the stress to the individual, and

2. The assessment of resources required to minimize, tolerate or eradicate the stressor and the stress it produces.

In general, cognitive appraisal is divided into two types or stages: primary and secondary appraisal.

Primary Appraisal

In the stage of primary appraisal, an individual tends to ask questions like, “What does this stressor and/ or situation
mean?”, and, “How can it influence me?” According to psychologists, the three typical answers to these questions are:
1. "this is not important"
2. "this is good"
3. "this is stressful"
To better understand primary appraisal, suppose a non-stop heavy rain suddenly pours at your place. You might think
that the heavy rain is not important, since you don’t have any plans of going somewhere today. Or, you might say that
the heavy rain is good, because now you don’t have to wake up early and go to school since classes are suspended. Or,
you might see the heavy rain as stressful because you have scheduled a group outing with your friends.

After answering these two questions, the second part of primary cognitive appraisal is to classify whether the stressor or
the situation is a threat, a challenge or a harm-loss. When you see the stressor as a threat, you view it as something that
will cause future harm, such as failure in exams or getting fired from job. When you look at it as a challenge, you develop
a positive stress response because you expect the stressor to lead you to a higher class ranking, or a better employment.
On the other hand, seeing the stressor as a “harm-loss” means that the damage has already been experiences, such as
when a person underwent a recent leg amputation, or encountered a car accident.

Secondary Appraisal

Unlike in other theories where the stages usually come one after another, the secondary appraisal actually happens
simultaneously with the primary appraisal. In fact, there are times that secondary appraisal becomes the cause of a
primary appraisal.

Secondary appraisals involve those feelings related to dealing with the stressor or the stress it produces. Uttering
statements like, “I can do it if I do my best”, “I will try whether my chances of success are high or not”, and “If this way
fails, I can always try another method” indicates positive secondary appraisal. In contrast to these, statements like, “I
can’t do it; I know I will fail”, “I will not do it because no one believes I can” and, “I won’t try because my chances are
low” indicate negative secondary appraisal.
Although primary and secondary appraisals are often a result of an encounter with a stressor, stress doesn’t always
happen with cognitive appraisal. One example is when a person gets involved in a sudden disaster, such as an
earthquake, and he doesn’t have more time to think about it, yet he still feels stressful about the situation.

Albert Bandura

Bandura - Social Learning Theory

In social learning theory, Albert Bandura (1977) agrees with the behaviorist learning theories of classical conditioning
and operant conditioning. However, he adds two important ideas:

1. Mediating processes occur between stimuli & responses.

2. Behavior is learned from the environment through the process of observational learning.

A. Observational Learning
 - Children observe the people around them behaving in various ways. This is illustrated during the famous
Bobo doll experiment (Bandura, 1961).
- models -Individuals that are observed
- In society, children are surrounded by many influential models, such as parents within the family,
characters on children’s TV, friends within their peer group and teachers at school. These models provide
examples of behavior to observe and imitate, e.g., masculine and feminine, pro and anti-social, etc.
- First, the child is more likely to attend to and imitate those people it perceives as similar to itself.
Consequently, it is more likely to imitate behavior modeled by people of the same gender.
- Second, the people around the child will respond to the behavior it imitates with either reinforcement or
punishment. If a child imitates a model’s behavior and the consequences are rewarding, the child is likely to
continue performing the behavior. If a parent sees a little girl consoling her teddy bear and says “what a
kind girl you are,” this is rewarding for the child and makes it more likely that she will repeat the
behavior. Her behavior has been reinforced (i.e., strengthened).
- Third, the child will also take into account of what happens to other people when deciding whether or not to
copy someone’s actions. A person learns by observing the consequences of another person’s (i.e., models)
behavior, e.g., a younger sister observing an older sister being rewarded for a particular behavior is more
likely to repeat that behavior herself. This is known as vicarious reinforcement.
-

 Reinforcement can be external or internal and can be positive or negative

- external reinforcement- If a child wants approval from parents or peers

- internal reinforcement- but feeling happy about being approved of is an.
- Positive (or negative) reinforcement will have little impact if the reinforcement offered externally does not
match with an individual's needs. Reinforcement can be positive or negative, but the important factor is
that it will usually lead to a change in a person's behavior.

 Identification occurs with another person (the model) and involves taking on (or adopting) observed behaviors,
values, beliefs and attitudes of the person with whom you are identifying.

B. Mediational Processes

- some thought prior to imitation, and this consideration is called mediational processes. This occurs between
observing the behavior (stimulus) and imitating it or not (response)
There are four mediational processes proposed by Bandura:

1. Attention: The extent to which we are exposed/notice the behavior. For a behavior to be imitated, it has to grab
our attention. We observe many behaviors on a daily basis, and many of these are not noteworthy. Attention is
therefore extremely important in whether a behavior influences others imitating it.
2. Retention: How well the behavior is remembered. The behavior may be noticed but is it not always
remembered which obviously prevents imitation. It is important therefore that a memory of the behavior is
formed to be performed later by the observer.

Much of social learning is not immediate, so this process is especially vital in those cases. Even if the behavior is
reproduced shortly after seeing it, there needs to be a memory to refer to.

3. Reproduction: This is the ability to perform the behavior that the model has just demonstrated. We see much
behavior on a daily basis that we would like to be able to imitate but that this not always possible. We are
limited by our physical ability and for that reason, even if we wish to reproduce the behavior, we cannot.

This influences our decisions whether to try and imitate it or not. Imagine the scenario of a 90-year-old-lady who
struggles to walk watching Dancing on Ice. She may appreciate that the skill is a desirable one, but she will not
attempt to imitate it because she physically cannot do it.

4. Motivation: The will to perform the behavior. The rewards and punishment that follow a behavior will be
considered by the observer. If the perceived rewards outweigh the perceived costs (if there are any), then the
behavior will be more likely to be imitated by the observer. If the vicarious reinforcement is not seen to be
important enough to the observer, then they will not imitate the behavior.

Aaron Beck's Cognitive Theory of Depression

Different cognitive behavioral theorists have developed their own unique twist on the cognitive way of thinking.
According to Dr. Aaron Beck, negative thoughts, generated by dysfunctional beliefs, are typically the primary cause of
depressive symptoms. A direct relationship occurs between the amount and severity of someone's negative thoughts
and the severity of their depressive symptoms. In other words, the more negative thoughts you experience, the more
depressed you will become.

Beck also believes that there are three main dysfunctional belief themes (or "schemas") that dominate a person with
depression's thinking:

 I am defective or inadequate.
 All of my experiences result in defeats or failures.
 The future is hopeless.

Together, these three themes are described as the negative cognitive triad. When these beliefs are present in someone's
thoughts, depression is very likely to occur (if it has not already occurred).

An example of the themes will help illustrate how the process of becoming depressed works. Imagine that you have just
been laid off from your work. If you are not in the grip of the negative cognitive triad, you might think that this event,
while unfortunate, has more to do with the economic position of your employer than your own work performance. It
might not occur to you at all to doubt yourself, or to think that this event means that you are washed up and might as
well throw yourself down a well. But if your thinking process was dominated by the negative cognitive triad, however,
you would very likely conclude that your layoff was due to a personal failure. You would also believe that you will
always lose any job you might manage to get and that your situation is hopeless. On the basis of these judgments, you
will begin to feel depressed. In contrast, if you were not influenced by negative triad beliefs, you would not question
your self-worth too much, and might respond to the lay off by dusting off your resume and starting a job search.

Beyond the negative content of dysfunctional thoughts, these beliefs can also warp and shape the attention a person
focuses on certain events or thoughts. Beck stated that people with depression pay selective attention to aspects of
their environments that confirm what they already know. They do so even when evidence to the contrary is right in
front of them. This failure to pay attention properly is known as faulty information processing.

Particular failures of information processing are very characteristic of the depressed mind. For example, people with
depression will tend to pay attention to information which matches their negative expectations and ignore information
that goes against those expectations. Faced with a mostly positive performance review, people with depression will
manage to find and focus in on the one negative comment that keeps the review from being perfect. They tend to
magnify the importance and meaning placed on negative events, and minimize the importance and meaning of positive
events. All of these issues, which happen quite unconsciously, function to help maintain core negative themes in the
face of evidence that goes against them. This allows them to remain feeling hopeless about the future even when the
evidence suggests that things will get better.