PSYCH 645 Week 3 Cognitive-Behavioral Approaches to Personality Example

"If He Gets Close, He Will Find Out I Am Not Enough": Cognitive-Behavioral Approaches Applied to the Band Director Case

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University of Phoenix

PSYCH/645: Personality Theories

Week 3 Assignment

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[Date]

Elena Ruiz and her thoughts and history are a composite case written for a model paper; theories and research findings come from the sources listed.

Cognitive-behavioral approaches explain personality through the ways people interpret situations, the expectations they hold and the consequences that shape their behavior. Rather than broad traits or hidden conflicts, they look for specific links among situations, thoughts, feelings and actions. This paper applies these approaches to the composite case from earlier weeks.

The Thought Journal

Elena Ruiz, twenty-nine, a high school band director, agreed as part of a coaching exercise in a professional development program to keep a journal for two weeks recording situations that upset her, her thoughts, her feelings and what she did next. During those weeks, her partner of seven months, Daniel, invited her to spend Thanksgiving with his family in Flagstaff. Her entries showed a sequence: "Situation: Daniel asks about Thanksgiving. Thought: If he gets close, he will find out I am not enough. His family will see I'm not wife material. Feeling: dread, tight chest, 8 out of 10. Behavior: said I might have to run a band event, changed the subject, was short with him that evening. Afterward: relief, then guilt." Similar sequences followed when Daniel left a toothbrush at her apartment and when he mentioned a future trip.

At work, by contrast, her entries recorded stress before performances but thoughts such as "I've prepared; we'll handle it."

A Personality System of If-Then Patterns

Mischel and Shoda (1995) proposed the cognitive-affective personality system, arguing that personality consistency appears not as the same behavior across all situations but as stable patterns of variation: if situation A, then a person does X; if situation B, then Y. These if-then signatures arise from the interplay of a person's encodings of situations, expectancies, beliefs, goals, values, feelings and self-regulatory competencies, which become activated in particular situations. The theory reconciled evidence that behavior varies across situations with the intuition that people have stable personalities.

Elena's journal reveals a clear signature: if a partner signals commitment, then she encodes the situation as a threat of exposure, expects rejection, feels dread and withdraws. If a professional challenge arises, then she encodes it as a task to master, expects success and approaches it. Her personality lies in this pattern, not in a single trait.

Self-Efficacy in Two Domains

Bandura (1977) argued that what people believe they can pull off shapes what they attempt, how hard they push and how long they hold on when things go badly. Such beliefs grow from doing something well, from watching someone similar do it, from encouragement and from reading one's own bodily state; of these, a track record of success counts most.

Elena's efficacy for teaching and conducting is high, built on years of mastery. Her efficacy for sustaining intimacy is low, built on a history of relationships that ended, which, ironically, she ended. Each breakup becomes evidence that she cannot do relationships, lowering efficacy further.

Core Beliefs and Automatic Thoughts

Cognitive models of personality, drawing on Beck's work, describe core beliefs, deep assumptions about the self, others and the world formed in childhood, that give rise to automatic thoughts in specific situations. Elena's automatic thought, "he will find out I am not enough," suggests a core belief of being unworthy of lasting love, consistent with her father's unpredictable presence. Unlike psychodynamic accounts, cognitive models focus on beliefs that can be identified and tested in the present.

The belief "I am not enough" never comes up at band camp; it waits for Thanksgiving invitations.

Perfectionism: Strivings and Concerns

Stoeber and Otto (2006) reviewed research on perfectionism and distinguished two dimensions: perfectionistic strivings, setting high standards and striving for excellence, and perfectionistic concerns, worrying about mistakes, doubting one's actions and fearing others' evaluation. Strivings alone were often associated with positive outcomes, such as conscientiousness and achievement, while concerns were associated with negative outcomes, such as anxiety, depression and low self-esteem. People high in strivings and low in concerns, healthy perfectionists, fared better than those high in both.

Elena appears high in both. Her strivings fuel her band's success; her concerns, fear of mistakes and of being judged, appear in her self-criticism and her expectation that partners and their families will judge her as inadequate.

How Avoidance Is Maintained

Behavioral principles explain why Elena's pattern persists despite its costs. Withdrawing from Daniel brought immediate relief from dread, a form of negative reinforcement that makes withdrawal more likely next time. Avoidance also prevents disconfirmation: by leaving before a partner can reject her, she never learns whether the feared rejection would have happened.

Locus of Control and Expectancies

Rotter's social learning theory adds another angle. Rotter proposed that behavior depends on expectancies, beliefs about whether a behavior will lead to a reinforcement, and on how much a person values that reinforcement. He also described a generalized expectancy, locus of control, the degree to which people see outcomes as caused by their own actions or by luck and powerful others. Elena shows an internal locus at work: she credits preparation for her band's success and blames herself for its mistakes. In relationships, her expectancies are pessimistic and partly external: she expects partners to leave regardless of what she does, which makes ending things first feel like the only form of control available.

Personal Constructs

Kelly's personal construct theory suggests looking at the categories Elena uses to make sense of people. Asked to compare partners, she contrasted people who "stay" with people who "leave," and herself as "dependable" versus others as "unreliable." These constructs channel her predictions: a partner who is warm today is sorted, in her system, as someone who has not left yet. Helping her build more nuanced constructs, such as people who stay through conflict, could open new predictions.

Comparing the Approaches

Cognitive-behavioral approaches overlap with earlier weeks but focus on different levels. Attachment theory's internal working models resemble core beliefs, but cognitive models emphasize testing beliefs in the present. Trait research described Elena's high neuroticism and low trust; cognitive models specify when those traits show up and through what thoughts. Cognitive-behavioral accounts are more testable and point directly to interventions.

Evidence on Change

Hofmann et al. (2012) surveyed 269 meta-analyses of cognitive behavioral therapy. The strongest backing appeared for anxiety problems, unexplained bodily complaints, binge-purge eating, anger and everyday stress, where CBT usually matched or beat the comparison treatments. The review noted variation across conditions and the need for more research in some populations.

A Change Plan

A cognitive-behavioral plan for Elena would include identifying the if-then signature and its automatic thoughts, testing the belief "he will find out I am not enough" with behavioral experiments, such as attending Thanksgiving and recording what actually happens, building efficacy through small steps toward intimacy and addressing perfectionistic concerns through self-compassion and realistic standards. She decided to go to Flagstaff and to tell Daniel about her anxiety beforehand.

Conclusion

Cognitive-behavioral approaches describe Elena's personality as an if-then pattern driven by beliefs about her worth, low efficacy for intimacy and perfectionistic concerns, maintained by avoidance that relieves anxiety. These concepts complement trait and attachment accounts and point toward testable steps for change.

References

Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84(2), 191-215. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.84.2.191

Hofmann, S. G., Asnaani, A., Vonk, I. J. J., Sawyer, A. T., & Fang, A. (2012). The efficacy of cognitive behavioral therapy: A review of meta-analyses. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 36(5), 427-440. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-012-9476-1

Mischel, W., & Shoda, Y. (1995). A cognitive-affective system theory of personality: Reconceptualizing situations, dispositions, dynamics, and invariance in personality structure. Psychological Review, 102(2), 246-268. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.102.2.246

Stoeber, J., & Otto, K. (2006). Positive conceptions of perfectionism: Approaches, evidence, challenges. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 10(4), 295-319. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327957pspr1004_2