Do you believe, as the socio-cognitive theorists do, that all learning occurs in a social context with a dynamic and reciprocal interaction of the person, environment, and behavior?
In responding to our classmates, comment on how their proposed applications of these concepts will affect their lives. Address any gaps you see in their reasoning, but be sure to substantiate your comments with citations from the textbook, the video, or from other research you have done in the course.
Esther post
How does thinking about goals differently (performance versus learning) affect performance and success?
Performance vs learning can affect performance and success very differently for each person. Each person can look at a situation with different goals. While one person may look at a situation and try to learn as much as possible to achieve their goal, the other person may focus more on their performance while getting to that goal. The example that the book “Personality: Theory and Research” has is a perfect way to describe the difference;
Suppose that you are working on a group project and are about to present your part of the project to others in the group who will discuss its strong and weak points. Right before the presentation, you might focus your attention on how their feedback will provide information that can help you to improve your work. If so, you have a learning goal: You are striving to learn from others, in order to increase your ability and achievement. Alternatively, you might focus on the personal impression you’ll make on the other people; you might try to “look smart” and to avoid doing anything that will make you look stupid. If so, you would have a performance goal: the aim of “putting on a good performance” for others who will be evaluating your abilities. (Cervone & Pervin, 2016, p. 367)
Do you believe, as the socio-cognitive theorists do, that all learning occurs in a social context with a dynamic and reciprocal interaction of the person, environment, and behavior?
Yes, I believe that all learning occurs in a social context involving the person, environment, and behavior. The socio-cognitive theorists believed that we as a person can learn through our environment and through positive reinforcement, behaviors etc. can be changed.
How can you apply these findings to your education, work, or personal life?
For me, positive reinforcement is an important part of who I am as a person and as a mom. I have a 4 year old boy who thrives on positive reinforcement. Because of the TED Talk video of Carol Dweck, I have a new understanding of positive reinforcement. The “not yet” theory is amazing. I don’t want to raise my kids to receive positive reinforcement for achieving and getting things “right”. I want them to feel as if they are achieving their goal through effort and determination. I think a great example that this works is that I am always striving to incorporate the professor’s feedback as I get my grades back. This shows me that I have worked hard, and that I will always have room to grow.
Catherine post
How does thinking about goals differently (performance versus learning) affect performance and success?
Thinking about goals in terms of learning versus performance can have extremely different results in terms of performance and achievements. When we start to think about achieving goals it is important to factor in terms of personal fulfillment. In our careers the value of
learning should be most important and part of our personal goals. A lot of young people go to school to socialize and learning becomes secondary. Some would argue, as long as they look good and are popular, then all they need is a passing grade. However, there are students more
focused on succeeding and achieving. These students believe that they can excel by educating themselves. These students are more concerned with learning goals, whereas the social student is more interested in performance goals. (Cervone & Pervin, 2016, p. 368). Performance goals involve performing to the best of your ability. You want your abilities to show. Working on performance goals can be more stressful because some worry about how they are perceived which takes away from learning.
The two goals affect performance and success depending on what your views on intelligence is and how it’s related to your performance or learning goal. People who believe that intelligence levels are fixed believe in entity theory and those “who believe that intelligence is a gradual believe in incremental theory” (Cervone & Pervin, 2016, p. 368). In Dweck’s research she was able to show that, “those who had performance goal scored less or lower than those with goal performance due to their level of anxiety or expectation, they tend to suffer high “test anxiety” (Dweck 2014). Dweck research suggested that, “praise should be specific, and it should point out behavior that influences outcomes” (Dweck 2014). For example, praising my nephews study skills, will help him to focus on the skills he can influence, whereas praising his intelligence on something he can’t change, leaves him without a way to influence a positive outcome.
Do you believe, as the socio-cognitive theorists do, that all learning occurs in a social context with a dynamic and reciprocal interaction of the person, environment, and behavior?
I do believe that social cognitive theory applies to learning under the context that it can affect our behavior through environmental and social factors. “Bandura who created the concept of social cognitive theory believed that we change our behavior through constant reinforcement for a goal directed behavior” (Cervone & Pervin, 2016, p. 331). Bandura was able to illustrate that, “child A will eventual learn through process of learning over the behavior over and over again until eventually over time child A realizes that he would get desired reinforcement quicker through compliance” (Cervone & Pervin, 2016, p. 332-333). Remaining consistent and integrating constant reinforcement will prove to brings success.
How can you apply these findings to your education, work, or personal life?
These findings can be applied to my learning and performance goals, through the facts and feedback received from fellow students, my teachers and, my peers and my boss. This feedback is specific and helps me see which area needs improvement and which exceed expectations. I appreciate any help provided to me and appreciate other points of views; I might have overlooked. Feedback helps me to improve as a learner and allows me to create better performance goals.
