Psychoanalytic:

1. What is the main tension this person is feeling (consciously or unconsciously)?Try to describe in psychological, symbolic terms. (e.g. struggling to assert one's self, wanting to get more nurturance form others)

2. What is one way the character deal with the energy from that conflict? (defense mechanism - ignore it, forget it, focus on other things, take it out on someone)

Social Power/Race/Gender:

1. How has this person been socialized to act, e.g. who do they expect to give orders to, who they expect to receive orders from? (Compare how Jeeves responds to Bertie (narrator) to how Bertie responds to his Aunt Agatha.)

2. Is this person comfortable stating their opinions freely? Do they know a lot about other people's preferences?

3. How might someone else in the same set of situations respond differently?

Humanistic:

1. What part of their uniqueness are they trying to express? (What kind of person are they - a dreamer, a fixer of physical things, a relationship builder)

2. How does their behavior now seem to be a result of unconditional or conditional positive regard in the past?

3. What does Bertie enjoy doing?

Culture:

1. Relate to individualist/collectivist information, e.g. do they emphasize their thoughts, feelings, and opinions, or that of others?

2. How do they talk to each other? Are statements short or long? Are there direct questions? Indirect/tag questions (e.g. we should do this, shouldn't we?)

(a definition of culture: enduring behaviors, attitudes, traditions shared by a large group of people, transmitted from one generation to the next.)

Trait:

1. If you had to sum up this person's behavior in two or three words, what would they be? (e.g. adjectives -- funny, nervous, serious, easy going)

Note:

We are focusing on 5 perspectives above, don't worry so much about social learning theory. We'll connect the "Learning Perspective" with Ch. 5 Learning.

last update: November 12, 2002