Hypocrites and Backsliders: Lesson 014 10 Steps to Temptation: The First Sin in Genesis 3:1-6.

Hypocrites and Backsliders:Lesson 014

10 Steps to Temptation: The First Sin in Genesis 3:1-6

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The Seat of Cognitive Emotion• Scientists have known for some time that the

prefrontal lobes are involved in the processing of emotion.

• This is why in the 1940s someone had the idea of disconnecting the prefrontal cortex from the lower brain in mental patients, a procedure we know as a prefrontal lobotomy, and one we also know was eventually abandoned because it left patients with no emotional life at all.

• But not until recently have scientists understood the prefrontal cortex is not, it turns out, the place emotion is formed, but where it is reasoned and processed from it’s origin in the lower brain.

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The Sequence of Cognitive (Intelligent) Emotions

• Hypocrisy and Backsliding are related to how we think, so, next we will study “Thinking”.

• There is a sequence to thinking:• 1. The event.• 2. Perception of the Event.• 3. Appraisal of the Event.• 4. Filtering the Appraisal to get a Representation.• 5. Reaction to the Representation.

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The Event

Perception

Appraisal Filter

Representation

Cognitive Response Emotional ReactionThe VolitionalInterlude

Rational Emotional

The Sequence of The Sequence of TemptationTemptation

OR

SCAttributionMoodBeliefsAttitudeKnowledge

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1. The Event:

• Something happens, (a remark, a gesture, an accident, etc.) that potentially relates to one of the persons goals as either:– a threat or – an enhancer.

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2. Perception of the Event:

• The individual becomes fully aware of the event (through seeing, hearing, or reading, etc.).

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3. Appraisal of the Event:

• The person determines whether or not the event relates to a goal.

• The value of the goal will directly affect the strength of the emotion.

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Filtering the Appraisal:

• The status of the person’s body (sleepy, alert, etc.)[or background emotions] influences the intensity of his or her appraisal (e.g., very threatening our only mildly threatening).

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The Appraisal Filters

Beliefs

Self Concept

Knowledge

Attitude

Attribution

Mood

Appraisal

BehaviorSelf Image

Self Esteem Affect

PhysicalEmotional

Cognition

Script

Values

Frame

Representation


Knowledge

• In common parlance, knowledge is the possession of information.

• Certain philosophers, however, choose to define these concepts in a technical way, different from their everyday use.


Knowledge

• According to philosophic jargon, Knowledge can be defined as information associated with an intentionality.

• Both knowledge and information consist of true statements.

• But knowledge can be considered as information that has a purpose or use.

• The study of knowledge is called epistemology.


Knowledge

• Another common defintion of knowledge is that it consists of justified true belief.

• This definition derives from Plato. • What constitutes knowledge, certainty and truth are

controversial issues. • These issues are debated by philosophers, social

scientists, and historians.


Mood

• A person's mood is the repertoire of emotions and thoughts experienced at a particular time. In normal functioning, moods are largely adaptive to external events.

• An optimist and a pessimist evaluate a situation relatively favorably and unfavorably, respectively.


Mood

• This applies also to expectations. • The optimist looks at the world "through

rose-tinted spectacles" wheras a pessimist will tend to concentrate on the possibility for oncoming doom.


Frame, framing effect• A decision-frame is the decision-maker's

subjective conception of the acts, outcomes and contingencies associated with a particular choice.

• The frame that a decision maker adopts is controlled partly by the formulation of the problem and by the norms, habits, and personal characteristics of the decision maker.

• It is often possible to frame a given decision problem in more than one way.


Frame, framing effect• A framing effect is a change of preferences

between options as a function of the variation of frames, for instance through variation of the formulation of the problem.

• For example, a problem can be presented as a gain (200 of 600 threatened people will be saved) or as a loss (400 of 600 threatened people will die), in the first case people tend to adopt a gain frame, generally leading to risk-aversion, and in the latter people tend to adopt a loss frame, generally leading to risk-seeking behavior.


Script• A script is a knowledge structure, which describes

the adequate sequence of events of familiar situations, for instance the script of a restaurant situation.

• It includes information about the “fixed” aspect of the situation, for example, all Mexican restaurants serve Mexican food.


Script• Moreover, it has slots for variables that apply to

specific restaurants, for example, how expensive a particular restaurant is, or how good the food is.

• Scripts combine single scenes to an integrated sequence from the point of view of the person.


Self-concept• The self-concept consists of the self-image and the

self-esteem.• The self-concept (self-identity) is the mental notion

a person has about his:– physical, – psychological, and – social attributes;

• as well as his:– attitudes, – beliefs and – Ideas.


Self-esteem

• In psychology, self-esteem is the person's self-image from an emotional level; circumventing reason and logic.

• The maintenance of a healthy degree of self-esteem is a central task within psychotherapy, where patients often suffer from excess degrees of self-criticism, hampering their ability to function.


Self-esteem

• Popularised in the 1970s as the cause of the ills of society and of individual humans, and written into Californian law as something to oppose, low self-esteem rapidly became a universal explanation for any personal failing and a staple target for personal development movements, sometimes resulting in narcissistic, over-confident individuals with excessive self-esteem.


Self Image

• A person's self image is the mental picture, generally of a kind that is quite resistant to change, that depicts not only details that are potentially available to objective investigation by others (height, weight, hair color, nature of external genitalia, I.Q. score, is this person double-jointed, etc.), but also items that have been learned by that person about himself or herself, either from personal experience or by internalizing the judgments of others.


Self Image

• Those items include the answers to such questions as:

• Am I skinny? Am I fat? Am I weak? Am I strong? Am I intelligent? Am I stupid? Am I a good person? Am I a bad person? Am I a male? Am I a female?


An Overview of Self-Concept Theory for Counselors.

Highlights: An ERIC/CAPS Digest. • After more than a decade of relative neglect, self-concept is

enjoying renewed popularity and attention by both researchers and practitioners.

• There is growing awareness that of all the perceptions we experience in the course of living, none has more profound significance than the perceptions we hold regarding our own personal existence--our concept of who we are and how we fit into the world.

• Self-concept may be defined as the totality of a complex, organized, and dynamic system of learned beliefs, attitudes and opinions that each person holds to be true about his or her personal existence.

• Fromm (1956) was as beautifully clear as anyone when he described self-concept as "life being aware of itself."


SOME BASIC ASSUMPTIONS REGARDING SELF-CONCEPT

• Many of the successes and failures that people experience in many areas of life are closely related to the ways that they have learned to view themselves and their relationships with others.

• It is also becoming clear that self-concept has at least three major qualities of interest to counselors: – (1) it is learned – (2) it is organized – (3) it is dynamic


1. Self-concept is learned• As far as we know, no one is born with a self-concept. It

gradually emerges in the early months of life and is shaped and reshaped through repeated perceived experiences.

• The fact that self-concept is learned has some important implications: – Because self-concept does not appear to be instinctive, but is a

social product developed through experience, it possesses relatively boundless potential for development and actualization.


1. Self Concept is Learned

• Faulty thinking patterns, such as dichotomous reasoning (dividing everything in terms of opposites or extremes) or overgeneralizing (making sweeping conclusions based on little information) create negative interpretations of oneself.


2. Self Concept is Organized• Self-Concept is organized. Most researchers agree

that self-concept has a generally stable quality that is characterized by orderliness and harmony.

• Each person maintains countless perceptions regarding one's personal existence, and each perception is orchestrated with all the others.

• It is this generally stable and organized quality of self-concept that gives consistency to the personality.

• This organized quality of self-concept has corollaries.


2. Self Concept is Organized

• Self-concept requires consistency, stability, and tends to resist change.

• If self-concept changed readily, the individual would lack a consistent and dependable personality.

• The more central a particular belief is to one's self-concept, the more resistant one is to changing that belief.


2. Self Concept is Organized• At the heart of self-concept is the self-as-doer, the

"I," which is distinct from the self-as-object, the various "me's."

• This allows the person to reflect on past events, analyze present perceptions, and shape future experiences.

• Basic perceptions of oneself are quite stable, so change takes time.

• Rome was not built in a day, and neither is self-concept.


2. Self Concept is Organized

• Perceived success and failure impact on self-concept.

• Failure in a highly regarded area lowers evaluations in all other areas as well.

• Success in a prized area raises evaluations in other seemingly unrelated areas.


3. Self-Concept is Dynamic

• Self-Concept is dynamic. • To understand the active nature of self-

concept, it helps to imagine it as a gyrocompass: a continuously active system that dependably points to the "true north" of a person's perceived existence.


3. Self-Concept is Dynamic

• This guidance system not only shapes the ways a person views oneself, others, and the world, but it also serves to direct action and enables each person to take a consistent "stance" in life.

• Rather than viewing self-concept as the cause of behavior, it is better understood as the gyrocompass of human personality, providing consistency in personality and direction for behavior.


3. Self-Concept is Dynamic• The dynamic quality of self-concept also

carries corollaries. – The world and the things in it are not just

perceived; they are perceived in relation to one's self-concept.

– Self-concept development is a continuous process.


3. Self-Concept is Dynamic– In the healthy personality there is constant

assimilation of new ideas and expulsion of old ideas throughout life.

– Individuals strive to behave in ways that are in keeping with their self-concepts, no matter how helpful or hurtful to oneself or others.


3. Self-Concept is Dynamic• Self-concept usually takes precedence over

the physical body. • Individuals will often sacrifice physical

comfort and safety for emotional satisfaction. – Self-concept continuously guards itself against

loss of self-esteem, for it is this loss that produces feelings of anxiety.

– If self-concept must constantly defend itself from assault, growth opportunities are limited.


Self-verification

• The process of seeking out and interpreting situations so as to confirm one's self-concept.


Attitude• An attitude is "a psychological tendency that is

expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor" (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993, p. 1).

• A widely accepted definition of an attitude is offered by Judd, Ryan, & Parke, (1991). – "evaluations of various objects that are stored in memory".


Attitude

• According to the tri-component model, an attitude includes affect (a feeling), cognition (a thought), and behavior (an action).


Attitude• Component Characteristics Examples:• Affect: Emotional reactions"I like ..."; -or- ".... makes me angry“• Cognition: Internalized mental representations, beliefs,

thoughts; "My co-workers should ..."; -or- "If .... then ....“• Behavior: The tendency to respond or overtly act in a particular

way toward the attitude object; "I always do ...."; -or- ".... makes me angry"


Attribution

• The process by which people use information to make inferences about the causes of behavior or events.


Belief • An estimate of the probability that something

is true. • Belief in the psychological sense, is a

representational mental state that takes the form of a propositional attitude.

• In the religious sense, "belief" refers to a part of a wider spiritual or moral foundation, generally called faith.


Belief • Belief is considered propositional in that it is an

assertion, claim or expectation about reality that is presumed to be either true or false (even if this cannot be practically determined, such as a belief in the existence of a particular deity).

• Historically, philosophical attempts to analyze the nature of belief have been couched in terms of judgement.

• Both David Hume and Immanuel Kant are both particularly well known for their analyses using this framework.


Values

• Enduring beliefs about important life goals that transcend specific situations.

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5. Reaction to the Appraisal:• The person channels his or her appraisal into some

form of coping (from the middle French - cuper, to strike or cut). The strength of the reaction is a direct function of the value of the goal concerned and the degree of certainty that the event will thwart or enhance goal attainment.

• The reaction to the appraisal can be either cognitive or emotional. Normally, when goals appear to be thwarted or enhanced by an event, emotions precede cognition.

• These emotions can last for less than a second or for a lifetime, partly depending on whether we will the cognitive part of the reaction to ultimately subdue the emotional part.


Appraisal results in “Representation”

• People often appraise an Event (about a person, an object, or a situation) selectively, focusing on some features while disregarding others.

• They interpret the features in terms of previously acquired concepts and knowledge.

• Moreover, they often infer characteristics of the event that were not actually mentioned in the information, and construe relations among these characteristics that were not specified ("going beyond the information given", Bruner, 1957b).


Representation• In short, the cognitive representations that people

form of an event differ in a variety of ways from the information on which they were based.

• Yet it is ultimately these representations, and not the original event, that govern subsequent thoughts, judgments, and behaviors.

• Eve reacted emotionally to the Event of Temptation Filtering through her Self Esteem (emotional) aspect of her Self Concept (“I want to make myself wise like God”); and succumbed to the temptation -- the First Backslider!

Hypocrites and Backsliders: Lesson 014 10 Steps to Temptation: The First Sin in Genesis 3:1-6.

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Transcript of Hypocrites and Backsliders: Lesson 014 10 Steps to Temptation: The First Sin in Genesis 3:1-6.