# Humanistic and Social-Cognitive Views

Psychology I · Individual Differences · https://tryals.app/learn/psychology-i/humanistic-and-social-cognitive-views

## Humanistic Self-Concept

The **humanistic perspective** treats **self-concept**—a person's organized set of beliefs about who they are—as central to personality.

Closely related is **self-esteem**, which is the overall evaluative judgment a person makes about their own worth.

**Incongruence**, or a mismatch between self-concept and actual experience, causes distress. Conversely, unconditional positive regard fosters healthy integration.

| Concept | Scope | Key theorist |
|---|---|---| 
| **Self-concept** | Global beliefs about who one is | Rogers |
| **Self-efficacy** | Belief in capability for a SPECIFIC task | Bandura |
| **Locus of control** | General belief about what determines outcomes | Rotter |

## Social-Cognitive Views

Albert Bandura's **self-efficacy** is a person's belief in their capability to succeed at a SPECIFIC task, predicting effort and resilience.

Julian Rotter's **locus of control** describes outcome beliefs: an **internal locus** credits one's own actions, while an **external locus** credits luck or fate.

> **Common pitfall:** Treating self-efficacy and self-esteem as identical. Self-esteem is a GLOBAL evaluation of worth, whereas self-efficacy is SPECIFIC to a domain. You can have high self-efficacy in cooking yet low global self-esteem.

## Practice questions

7 of this lesson's 12 practice questions, with answers. The full set is in the app.

### 1. An internal locus of control is generally associated with better coping. Why can it become a liability in a genuinely uncontrollable situation?

A. It cannot, an internal locus is protective in every circumstance
B. Because owning outcomes you could not change makes luck into failure
C. Because uncontrollable situations are rare, so the trait is rarely tested
D. Because an internal locus makes people less likely to seek help from others

**Answer:** B. Because owning outcomes you could not change makes luck into failure

**Why:** Owning outcomes is protective while outcomes are partly yours to own. Applied to a bereavement or a market collapse it becomes self-blame, which is precisely the attributional style implicated in depression, so the healthy pattern is calibration rather than a maximised internal score.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/psychology-i/humanistic-and-social-cognitive-views/an-internal-locus-of-control-is-generally-associated-with-better

### 2. A skilled surgeon is confident she can perform an operation well while privately regarding herself as an unworthy person. Why does that combination make sense under Bandura's framework, when it sounds contradictory?

A. Because her self-esteem must in fact be high, and she is misreporting it out of modesty.
B. Because self-esteem concerns the past and self-efficacy concerns the future, so they measure different times.
C. Because self-efficacy always causes self-esteem to rise, so the combination can only be temporary.
D. Because self-efficacy is domain-specific and self-esteem is global.

**Answer:** D. Because self-efficacy is domain-specific and self-esteem is global.

**Why:** The contradiction dissolves once the two beliefs have different objects: efficacy is always efficacy *at* something and varies within one person across domains, where esteem is a global evaluation. The distinction earns its place practically, efficacy responds to mastery experiences, which is why graded exposure works, and global esteem is far less tractable.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/psychology-i/humanistic-and-social-cognitive-views/a-skilled-surgeon-is-confident-she-can-perform-an-operation-well

### 3. Bandura held that the most powerful source of self-efficacy is mastery experience - actually succeeding at the task - well ahead of encouragement from others. Why would being told you can do it work so much less well?

A. Because people generally distrust praise and assume it is insincere.
B. Because encouragement raises self-esteem instead of self-efficacy, and self-esteem does not affect performance.
C. Because verbal persuasion works only when it comes from an expert in the specific domain.
D. Because performing the task is direct evidence about capability.

**Answer:** D. Because performing the task is direct evidence about capability.

**Why:** Doing the thing is the most direct evidence available about your own capability; being told you can is evidence about someone else's estimate, mediated by whether they are being kind. Encouragement unsupported by experience is overturned by the first genuine failure, which is why graded exposure and scaffolded instruction start absurdly easy on purpose.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/psychology-i/humanistic-and-social-cognitive-views/bandura-held-that-the-most-powerful-source-of-self-efficacy-is

### 4. Two people both expect to succeed about 40% of the time, and both win twice in a row. One concludes she is getting good at this; the other concludes she has been lucky. Whose expectations change, and what does that show about locus of control?

A. Both change equally, since expectations track the outcomes themselves rather than their interpretation.
B. The second person's, because attributing outcomes to luck makes someone more sensitive to new information.
C. Neither, because two trials is too few to change an expectation under any attribution.
D. The first person's, since ability credits the outcome to capability.

**Answer:** D. The first person's, since ability credits the outcome to capability.

**Why:** Identical outcomes do different work depending on where they are attributed: 'I am getting good at this' makes the win diagnostic and updates the belief, where 'I got lucky' explains it without implicating the person. It is how locus of control becomes self-maintaining, and why an internal locus is not unconditionally better, since it means owning failures that were never controllable.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/psychology-i/humanistic-and-social-cognitive-views/two-people-both-expect-to-succeed-about-40-of-the-time-and-both-win

### 5. A person could have high self-efficacy for public speaking while simultaneously having low overall self-esteem.

**Answer:** True

**Why:** True. Self-efficacy is specific to a task (public speaking) while self-esteem is a global worth judgment, so the two can diverge freely. This dissociation is exactly why the lesson insists they are not the same concept.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/psychology-i/humanistic-and-social-cognitive-views/a-person-could-have-high-self-efficacy-for-public-speaking-while

### 6. Sort each statement by whether it reflects an internal or external locus of control.

**Answer:**

- Internal locus of control: 'If I study hard, I will do well; it is up to me', 'My promotion came because I earned it through my work'
- External locus of control: 'There is no point trying - it is all luck anyway', 'The powerful people at the top decide everything, not me'

**Why:** Beliefs that outcomes flow from one's own effort are an internal locus; beliefs that luck, fate, or powerful others control outcomes are an external locus. An internal locus is generally, though not universally, linked to better coping and achievement.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/psychology-i/humanistic-and-social-cognitive-views/sort-each-statement-by-whether-it-reflects-an-internal-or-external

### 7. Select every statement that is TRUE about these perspectives.

A. An internal locus of control is generally linked to better coping.
B. Self-efficacy and self-esteem are the same concept.
C. Self-concept is a person's organized set of beliefs about who they are.
D. The same person can be certain of one skill and doubtful of another.
E. How much a person values themselves is a single verdict, not one per activity.

**Answer:** A. An internal locus of control is generally linked to better coping.; C. Self-concept is a person's organized set of beliefs about who they are.; D. The same person can be certain of one skill and doubtful of another.; E. How much a person values themselves is a single verdict, not one per activity.

**Why:** Task-specific efficacy, global esteem, the internal-locus advantage, and self-concept are all true. Self-efficacy and self-esteem are distinct (specific vs global), not the same - the one false option.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/psychology-i/humanistic-and-social-cognitive-views/select-every-statement-that-is-true-about-these-perspectives