Your goals in this lesson are to identify some of the factors that help shape personality, complete a temperament sorter to assess your personality, and recognize characteristics in your personality that may inhibit your motivation to change behaviors that are limiting the overall quality of your health.

BANDURA'S SELF EFFICACY THEORY - SOCIAL COGNTIVE PSYCHOLOGY

Albert Bandura defined self-efficacy as a judgement of one's capability to accomplish a certain level of performance. He stated that, studies have shown that "perceived self-efficacy is a significant determinant of performance that operates partially independently of underlying skills".

The Social Cognitive Theory, as outlined by Bandura, is based on a triad including both environmental and internal forces: behavior, cognitive and other personal factors, and environmental factors. These factors influence each other. Bandura calls this triadic reciprocal determinism where reciprocal refers to the mutual action between the factors and determinism refers to the production of effects by certain factors. The strength of the reciprocity between factors can vary by person and situation and take place over time. Because of the complexity of human behavior, thought process, and environment, it is not possible to study every interaction at the same time. By studying subsystems, understanding of the interactions of factors in the subsystems can occur. Self- efficacy is one of those cognitive and other personal factors (Cited in http://trochim.human.cornell.edu/gallery/walkley/self-eff.htm#what%20is%20self%20efficacy).

Self efficacy is very important as it relates to decision-making, and goal setting. Individuals with a high level of self efficacy believe they are capable of making modifications, or changes to specific behaviors or they believe they are capable of eliminating harmful behaviors.

Bandura believes people attain self efficacy by mastering subskills. When subskills are mastered, people feel capable and are more willing to attempt more difficuly tasks. With the success from previous achievements, individuals develop perserverance to maintain the effort necessary to master a skill.

To learn more about Albert Bandura visit: http://www.stanford.edu/group/adolescent.ctr/Research/bandura.html

MASLOW'S HIERARCHY OF HUMAN NEEDS - BEHAVIORAL PSYCHOLOGY

To learn more about Abraham Maslow visit: http://www.maslow.com/

PIAGET'S STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT - DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY

Sensorimotor Stage: covers the period of birth to about the age of two. This stage consists mostly of reflexes, but during this time, foundations are laid for later mental growth and development.

Preoperational Stage: begins at about the age of two. From two to four years of age the child experiences vast growth in language use. Judgment are incomplete and modeling is a basis for learning.

Concrete Operations: From seven to twelve the child begins to think logically. The span of attention expands and a clear sense of time emerges. Children at this level can count, weigh, and test solutions. They do not yet possess the ability to reason in the abstract.

Formal Operations: Individuals can think hypothetically. They do not require visible concrete cues for each stage of the thinking process.

To learn more about psychological theories in general visit: http://www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/perscontents.html

An Editorial from the Instructor:
This is information I believe to be related not necessarily to personality, but instead to decision making and choices. As you will come to find out, our lives are a product of the decisions we make and the focus of this class is to improve our decision making so that we can fulfill our potential.

A Partial Look at the World According to Del Helms
I believe there are three factors that determine who we are and what we become. These three factors are ability, attitude and effort.
None of us has anything to do with the natural ability we inherit from our biological parents, e.g. the ability to solve mathematical equations quickly, the ability to play music "by ear", or the ability to run fast; however, our attitude toward improvement and the effort we put forth on a daily basis can have a tremendous impact on our lives and the successes we earn or the failures we earn. It is my opinion that we have great control over the decisions we make and the attitude and effort we put forth when we decide to either do something, or not to do something. For example, we have no ability to control whether we inherit a susceptibility to high cholesterol, but our attitude toward this situation and the effort we put forth to minimize its negative effects are greatly under our influence. There are theories regarding locus of control that state we either believe we have control over our lives (internal locus of control) or others have great control over our destiny (external locus of control, or we lie somewhere in between believing we have control over some aspects of our lives, but not other aspects. I would advise, but not require you complete the Locus of Control and Attribution Style Test to determine where you rank. Locus of control and self efficacy have a tremendous impact on whether people believe they have the ability to influence their overall quality of health.

In addition to ability, attitude and effort having an impact on one's decision making, there are other factors that influence why we decide to do the things we do. To understand why we make the choices we do, it is critical that we develop an understanding of introspective intelligence so that we can examine our motivations for the choices we make. Introspective intelligence requires one to look honestly at why one makes the choices one makes, and when one can understand this aspect of their personality they have started down the road to effective change (IMHO). Howard Gardner has put forth a theory on Multiple Intelligences that is founded on the principle, "It is not how smart we are that is important, rather how we are smart that is important." Introspective intelligence is one of the "multiple intelligences". If you are interested in looking at where your intelligences exist visit: Seven Styles of Learning.

The final component in my evolving theory includes the importance of self discipline. My definition of self discipline is, "The ability to make yourself do the things that you don't want to do, so that you can achieve the goals and desires you have for yourself. Long term gains can only be accomplished through either denial and/or perseverance."

In conclusion your life is constantly changing (just look back at some old pictures, or something you wrote ten years ago) and you will see that change occurs whether you want it or not, and that there is no such thing as staying the same --we are either improving or worsening and unless we continually strive to improve, areas of our life will decline, e.g. If we fail to lift weights our strength diminishes, if we fail to use the theorems we learn in geometry and our ability to apply their truths will vanish from us.

Please note this is an evolving theory :-)

The first step in this assignment is to complete an online temperament assessment. The assessment used in this class is the Keirsey Temperament Sorter. It is one of many different temperament tests one can take. The Keirsey Temperament Sorter is intended to provide you with information regarding your preferences, and to place you into one of sixteen different categories. The findings and conclusions in the Keirsey interpretation are theory based and many of the questions are ambiguous. Do not feel you must only fall into one category. Many of the questions may be answered differently from day to day depending upon your mood, thus the results could place you into one category one week, and a completely different category during another week.
When you take the test answer with your first instinct and do not analyze the questions-- just answer them.
You will visit The Keirsey Temperament Sorter II. Interpretation of the Keirsey Temperament can be found in the book entitled, Please Understand Me II by David Keirsey.

After completing the test read the description for the category of temperament in which you were placed. Next, go to the discussion board and select the discussion group set up for you based upon your placement into one of the four categories-- each category has four types, thus sixteen different categories. When you get to your discussion group you will find directions for completing your this assignment.

The Four Temperament Types:

To learn more about personality and temperament visit:

• http://www.queendom.com
• PsychTests.com
• Discover Your Learning Style
• Poem about Attitude
• Seven Habits of Highly Effective People - defined
• Excerpts from the book Flow

I would also highly recommend three books: The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey, Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihaly, and Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl.