PSY232.html

1. constructive alternativism - the assumption that any one event is open to a variety of different interpretations. It is considered a philosophical position. There is no reality outside of our interpretation of it.

2. fundamental postulate - "A person's processes are psychologically channelized by the ways in which he anticipates events."

organization - each person characteristically creates, for his convenience in anticipation of events, a construction system with a defined ordinal relationship.

dichotomy - a person's construction system is composed of a finite number of dichotomous constructs.

choice - a person chooses for himself that alternative in a dichotomized construct that promises the most growth for him.

range - a construct is convenient for the anticipation of a finite number of events.

experience - a person's construction system varies as he successfully construes the replication of events.

modulation - the variation of a person's construction system is limited by the permeability of the constructs within whose range of convenience the variants lie. Some constructs are easily changed while others are not.

fragmentation - a person may employ a variety of construction subsystems which may be incompatible with each other.

communality - 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 that person.

sociability - 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.

4. role - a process or behavior a person engages based on his or her understanding of the behavior and constructs of other people.

5. anxiety - the recognition that events with which we are confronted lie outside the range of one's construct system.

6. guilt - perception of one's apparent dislodgment from his core role structure.

7. aggression - the active elaboration of one's perceptual field. This is not hostility. Kelly's aggression is assertiveness to the rest of the world.

8. hostility - continued effort to extort validation in favor of a type of social prediction which has already proven itself a failure.

9. role construct repertory test (REP test) - it permits a person to reveal personal constructs by comparing and contrasting a number of significant persons.

10. cognitive complexity - the ability to perceive differences in the way in which one construes other people.

11. role playing - therapeutic method which made the client play the role of a person that bothered him to explore different ways to handle certain situations.

12. role reversal - the client would play the authority figure and Kelly would play the client.

13. fixed-role therapy - the client would assume a role different than one's original way of behaving and would act the new role out for a week or longer to expand his or her horizons.

1. Personal construct theory's fundamental postulate states that people's behavior is directed by the ways in which they anticipate events in the world around them.

2. People interpret events by means of the personal construct, in which things are seen as being alike and yet different from others.

3. Personal constructs are dichotomous (bipolar); they have a range of convenience (certain things apply well, others don't); they are permeable or impermeable (they allow new experiences in or are rigid/inflexible); they have cognitive, motivational, and emotional aspects; and they may be pre- verbal (they have originated before language development).

4. The personal construct system gives consistency and order to a person's constructs.

5. The social corollary states that to the extent that people can construe each other's construction processes, they can interact with each other. In such interactions they fulfill social roles.

6. Human beings are the active constructors of their worlds rather than passive reactors to forces, internal or external, that are more powerful than themselves.

7. The same principles of prediction and control govern the scientist's and the ordinary person's behavior.

8. Anxiety arises when the person's ability to interpret and predict events is threatened with failure. It is more likely to arise when a person, whose constructs are relatively impermeable, is confronted with new events.

9. Guilt arises from the perceived failure in a core role, such as the role a father plays in respect to his child.

10. Early constructs may be defined by specific people (father = authority). Preverbal constructs may come later to govern a person's behavior without his or her being aware of them.

11. Learning and motivation are basic aspects of personality constructs, not separate processes.

12. The Role Construct Repertory Test, which measures a person's own idiosyncratic way of sorting out the people and events he or she encounters, has been used in research in clinical, social, and personality psychology.

13. George Kelly's theory has been criticized for neglecting the emotional and motivational aspects of human behavior, for failing to specify the ways in which personal constructs are acquired and applied, and for tending to shun the use of other relevant theories and conceptions, adhering narrowly to its own framework. Personal construct theory is, however, a bold and original theory. Its most distinctive feature is its emphasis on the person as an active constructor of his or her unique world.

1. attribution - the process of making a judgement about the cause(s) of an event.

2. automatic thoughts - self-related internal dialogue that often interferes with behavior.

3. cognitive assessment - procedures used to assess cognitive processes and contents of consciousness.

4. cognitive therapy - procedures aimed at reducing cognitive distortions and resulting distress.

5. cognitive triad - negative patterns of thinking about the self, the world, and the future.

9. fuzzy set - a category defined by a set of attributes that are not absolutely necessary for membership.

12. possible self - an image of oneself in the future (expected, desired, feared, etc.).

13. priming - the process of activating an element in memory by using the information that is contained in it.

14. prototype - the representation of a category in terms of the "best" member of the category.

16. script - a memory structure used to represent a highly stereotyped category of events.

17. self-complexity - the degree to which one's self-schema is differentiated and compartmentalized.

20. social cognition - cognitive processes focusing on socially meaningful stimuli.

21. social intelligence - the knowledge and skills people bring to bear on problems in social living.

22. locus of causality - a dimension of causal attribution that relates to whether the person perceives the cause(s) of events as coming from within (i.e., internal) or from outside (i.e., external). Two other causal dimensions are stability (i.e., stable vs. unstable causes) and controllability (i.e., controllable vs. uncontrollable events).

23. implicit personality theory - a person's beliefs concerning the characteristics or traits of people that go together. They are implicit in that they are not part of a formal theory of personality.

24. self-guides - standards concerning the self that the individual feels should be met. They result from early learning experiences and have important emotional consequences.

25. stress - a person's perception that circumstance exceed his or her resources and endanger his or her well-being. This view involves two stages of cognitive appraisal: primary (i.e., appraising the presence and threat value of an event) and secondary (i.e., appraisal of one's capacity to respond effectively to the perceived event).

1. The cognitive orientation to personality is related to Kelly's theory of personal constructs, to the social learning view of personality, and to cognitive psychology. This view focuses on how people attend to, process, organize, encode, store, and retrieve information. Schemas are mental organizations of information that develop out of experience and are used to categorize events. Some see schemas as organized around prototypes ("best" members) whereas others emphasize the notion that schemas have fuzzy, or inexact, definitions. Schemas facilitate the coding of new events; they provide information to fill in the gaps of events and orient you to new experiences by suggesting where to look for additional information.

2. Social cognition refers to the cognitive processes that bear on stimuli relevant to social behavior. People develop schematic representations of other people as well as environmental and social settings. People also develop self-schemas, or representations of themselves. The self-schema is more elaborate than other schemas, but it seems to follow the same principles.

3. Schemas can represent both concepts (in semantic memory) and events (in episodic memory). Each aspect of memory holds both specific cases and generalities. Stereotypic-event categories are called scripts. Many psychologists view memory as a vast set of nodes linked to each other by various kinds of associations. Activating one node in memory causes partial activation of related nodes, causing that information to become more accessible.

4. Comprehensive statements on how a cognitive view of personality can be developed emphasize the importance of people's schemas, their encoding strategies, their personal competencies, their expectations about how things are interrelated in the world, their values or incentives, and their self-regulatory systems. Also emphasized is the idea that social life is a continuous process of problem-solving to which people bring the intelligence (i.e., knowledge and skill) they have acquired over the course of living.

5. Assessment from this viewpoint involves determining a person's cognitive tendencies and the contents of consciousness. Cognitive assessment techniques include think-aloud strategies, thought-sampling, and monitoring the occurrence of particular categories of events. These procedures give a clearer idea of what thoughts come to mind in various situations, typically situations that are problematic.

6. Problems on behavior can come from information-processing deficits (e.g., ineffective allocation of attention, difficulty encoding). Problems can also arise from the development of negative self-schemas. Consistent with this view, depression results from various cognitive distortions, all of which cause events to seem more unpleasant or as having negative implications than is actually true. Cognitive therapy (e.g., rational-emotive therapy, stress-inoculation training) involves, in part, attempting to get people to stop engaging in cognitive distortions and develop more adaptive views of themselves and the vents that they experiences.

7. The information that is emphasized and the implications of that information for self-regulation and social behavior can vary enormously from culture to culture. Different cultures have different views of what constitutes the self and what forms its boundaries. One of the implications of these differences is whether there are genuinely universal principles in the field of personality. It is also important to bear in mind that individuals vary within cultures as well as across cultures.

1. sociobiology - search for the ultimate causation of social behaviors that appear in every culture.

2. Darwin's theory - animals have survived by changing and adapting to their environment.

3. struggle for survival - when resources are scarce, promoting competition among members of a species.

4. natural selection - only those organisms that possess (genetic) traits that are beneficial to adaptation will survive and
reproduce.

5. inclusive fitness - when genetic replicas are made either directly (one's offspring) or indirectly (relatives' offspring).

9. leash principle - a relationship between our genetic make-up and our cultures.

1. Sociobiology stresses the distant influence of biological basis of social behaviors that affect all humans. Darwin first
proposed that animals (including humans) that are best fit to their environment reproduce and maintain the species. This
idea has been extended to "indirect" reproduction or inclusive fitness, which is helping our relatives and their offspring
survive and reproduce. This new development in the theory allows the explanation of such diverse human behaviors as
altruism and homosexuality.

2. There is a double standard for mate selection: Male promiscuity is almost universally accepted and is often encouraged, whereas female promiscuity is simply not tolerated.

3. Child abuse is selective: one child is singled out. Such a child is usually unattractive, has a funny (irritating) cry, and is
withdrawn. Non-biological parents are more likely to abuse foster or step children than biologically related parents.

4. Siblings fight for resources and parental attention, which is exemplified in sibling rivalry.

5. Genuine altruism simply does not occur in nature. Kin altruism involves blood relatives. One is more likely
to save those who are genetically close first. Then one begins to save those who are less and less related. Reciprocal
altruism is based on the fact that those who cooperate with one another have a better chance of surviving than those who
do not.

6. Sociobiology is nowadays "en vogue." Empirical data are naturalistic (not experimental). Thus, the theory is not
falsifiable. It is also circular by accepting an adaptation program. In addition, it tends to legitimize the status quo.
However, it allows new and exciting research avenues.

CHAPTER 14

INTERPERSONAL AND SOCIOCULTURAL PERSPECTIVE

(Sufism and the Islamic Tradition)

TERMS

1. Al-Ghazalli - Established a framework in which normalcy, pathology, and mystical behavior are linked in a single, unified field of human experience. He also reinstated the elements f personal development and transpersonal experience into Islam.

2. Sufism - The mystical core of Islam.

3. Baqa - A state in which the individual is part of the world, but unconcerned about his or her rewards or position in it.

4. Fana - The disintegration of a person's narrow self-concept, social self- and limited intellect (feeling like a drop of water aware of being part of the ocean).

5. Haqiqa - Personal understandings of the inner meanings of the guidance and practices of Sharia and Tariqa.

6. Marifa - A deep level of understanding, it is the station of the great sages and saints, the messengers, and the prophets.

7. Sharia - Teachings of morality, ethics, and outer practice. It refers to a "road" anyone can follow.

8. Tariqa - The inner practice of the teachings, with not obvious route to follow..

9. Bearing witness - Recitation of the basic tenet of Islam. Entrance into Islam begins with a confession of faith.

10. Contemplation and self-examination - Meditation in order to perceive inner reality. Stilling and clearing the mind, as in Yoga and Buddhism.

SUMMARY

1. Sufism is described as a path, a metaphor that suggests both an origin and a destination.

2. There are four basic principles in Sufi practice: there are an infinite number of ways of transforming the ego and serving creation to reach truth; an inner sense of justice is needed to live in harmony with others, and selfishness is an impediment; one of the underlying principles of morality is love, expressed in service to others; self-knowledge is the cardinal truth which ripens into knowledge of God.

3. Al-Ghazzali divided knowledge into the categories of useful and detrimental. The most important form of useful knowledge that furthers a person's growth is direct knowledge. Knowledge that distracts from or retards the understanding of inner self is detrimental (logic, philosophy, academic knowledge are considered limiting of self-knowledge).

4. According to ibn 'Arabi, there are four stages of practice and understanding in Sufism: Sharia (exoteric religious law), Tariqa (the mystical path), Haqiqa (truth), and Marifa (gnosis).

5. Two states of advanced consciousness are described by Sufism: Fana is the state of annihilation or union and Baqa is the state of persistence or return.

6. Stages of psycho-spiritual growth include initial awakening; patience and gratitude; fear and hope; self-denial and poverty; trust in God; love, yearning, intimacy, and satisfaction; intent, sincerity, and truthfulness; contemplation and self-examination; and the recollection of death.

7. Heedlessness and the Nafs (lower self) are the main obstacles to growth. The Nafs is the source of most of our negative traits (e.g., pride, greed, anger).

8. The Nafs is a living process made up of impulses to satisfy desires, which dominate reason. The process derives from the interplay of body and soul.

9. The Nafs have been categorized into the following levels: the tyrannical Nafs, the regretful Nafs, the inspired Nafs, and serene Nafs, the pleased Nafs, the Nafs pleasing to God, and the pure Nafs.

10. The teacher is considered a physician of the soul.

(Zen and the Buddhist Tradition)

TERMS

1. Delusion - A general state of vacillation, confusion, and lack of awareness. Delusion is one of the "three fires," or obstacles to growth.

2. Dissatisfaction - The belief that suffering comes not from the outer world, but from the limited ego of each person.

3. Enlightenment - A dynamic, progressive state of mind that requires self-discipline, meditation, and the realization of selflessness. It can bring about the experience of truth.

4. Greed - The desire to possess more than we have or need. Greed is one of the "three fires," or obstacles to growth.

5. Hate - A state in which a person displays quick anger, and is one of the "three fires," or obstacles to growth.

6. Impermanence - The notion that everything is constantly in flux. The result is that there can be no final authority of permanent truth.

7. Interdependence - A characterization of the world as a fluid, interconnected process.

8. Koan - A question or exercise that cannot be solved by thinking or logic. The aim of a koan is to entice Zen students to go beyond abstract conceptualizing, to see their ignorance, and to search for truth within themselves.

9. Pride - A state that may create distortion of the teachings or lead to a lack of respect for one's teacher. Pride can be an obstacle to truth.

10. Zazen - Zen mediation, described as "just sitting."

SUMMARY

1. Every person has the capacity to become a Buddha, a fully mature and complete being. Buddhism fosters the simultaneous appreciation of the real and the ideal, and it recognizes the tension between the two. This dialectic provides a creative tension, a way both to address present limitations and to move toward the ideal.

2. Through the Buddha's own experience in religious self-discipline came the concept of the Middle Way: seeking a useful and healthy self-control without either extreme of self-torture or complete indulgence in the senses.

3. There are three major characteristics of existence: impermanence, selflessness, and dissatisfaction.

4. The basic principles of the Four Noble Truths are: the existence of dissatisfaction is inevitable; dissatisfaction is a result of desire or craving; elimination of craving brings the extinction of suffering; and there is a way to eliminate craving - the Eightfold Path.

5. The Eightfold Path includes right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration, right thought, and right understanding.

6. In Zen, there are two meditation practices: one can simply sit, with concentrated awareness, or one can focus on a koan, or Zen paradox.

7. The terms "satori" (intuitive understanding) and "kensho" (to see into one's own nature) have often been used in Zen for enlightenment. Both terms refer to the experience off the truth of Buddhist teachings as a dynamic state of being, rather than as a static state that one can obtain permanently.

8. The "Arhat" is one who has become free of the world and its attachments to family possession, and comfort. The quest is for spiritual perfection and abandonment of the world for the sake of self-development.

9. The Bodhisattva is one who has vowed to remain in the world until all sentient beings have been delivered from suffering, Feeling the suffering of others as one's own results in compassion for all beings, and ideally, service to others.

10. Greed, hate, and delusion are the major sources of suffering, or the "three fires" of Buddhism. Each person possess a mixture of all three qualities, in a balance that changes with circumstances.