Trait Theory/ Behaviorism/ Mischel's Critique

I. Conclusion of Trait Theories (Eysenck & 'The Big Five')

Conclusions on Trait

• Most assume that human personality is largely the product of genetics and not the environment.
• All are data-driven approaches meaning that theory is developed based empirical results.
• The trait approaches to personality search for a small number of core dimensions that can usefully summarize a person's consistent patterns of responding.

Behaviorism: Skinner

• Behaviorism emerged from laboratory studies of animals and humans.
• Avoids speculations about hypothetical constructs and concentrates almost exclusively on observable behavior.
• Skinner rejected the notion of free will and he emphasized the primacy of environmental influences on behavior.

A. Precursors to Skinner's Behaviorism

• Thorndike observed that learning takes place mostly because of the effects that follow a response-- law of effect.
• Law of Effect-- stated that responses followed by a satisfier tend to be learned and responses that are followed by an 'annoyer tend not to be learned.
• John Watson argued that psychology must deal with the control and prediction of behavior.

B. Scientific Behaviorism

• human behavior is subject to the laws of science and psychologists should not attribute inner motivations to it.
• Although he rejected internal states as being outside the realm of science-- insisted that they should not be used to explain behavior.

C. Operant Conditioning

• Skinner recognized two kinds or conditioning-- respondent (Pavlovian or Classical) and Operant.
• respondent conditioning-- a response is drawn out of the organism by a specific stimulus
• Case of Little Albert (Watson)--
• operant conditioning-- a reinforcement is used to increase the probability that a given behavior will recur or be emitted.
• Three factors are essential in operant conditioning: (1) the antecedent; (2) the behavior ; and, (3) the consequence that follows the behavior.

D. Shaping-- reinforcement of successive approximations of a behavior until the target behavior is achieved.

• Different reinforcement histories result in operant discrimination meaning that different organisms will respond differently to the same environmental contingencies.
• People may also respond similarly to different environmental stimuli-- generalization.

E. Reinforcement

• Anything within the environment that strengthens a behavior is a reinforcement.
• Positive reinforcement is any stimulus that, when added to a situation, increases the probability that a given behavior will occur.
• negative reinforcement is the strengthening of behavior through the removal of an aversive stimulus.
• punishment-- the presentation of an aversive stimulus or the removal of a positive one.
• Effects of punishment include: (1) the suppression of behavior; (2) the conditioning of negative feelings toward the punisher; and, (3) the inappropriate spread of effects.

F. Conditioned and Generalized Reinforcers

• conditioned reinforcers-- those things that are not by nature satisfying but that become so because they are associated with a primary reinforcer.
• Generalized reinforcers-- are conditioned reinforcers that have become associated with several primary reinforcers.

G. Schedules of Reinforcement

• Reinforcement can follow behavior on either a continuous schedule or on an intermittent schedule.
• Intermittent reinforcement is more effective at maintaining behavior and more resistant to extinction.

H. Extinction-- The tendency of a previously acquired response to become progressively weakened upon nonreinforcement.

Operant Conditioning Applied to Personality

• Skinner believed that human behavior is shaped by three forces: (1) natural selection; (2) the evolution of cultures, and (3) the individual's personal history of reinforcement.

A. Natural Selection

B. Cultural Evolution

C. Control of Human Behavior-- ultimately, all human behavior is controlled by the environment-- will power plays no part.

• Societies exercise control over their members.
• Skinner identified 4 basic methods of social control: (1) operant conditioning; (2) describing contingencies; (3) deprivation and satiation; and (4) physical restraint.

D. The Unhealthy Personality

• 3 basic strategies for counteracting social control-- escape, revolt, or use passive resistance.
• Inappropriate behavior follows from self-defeating techniques of counteracting social control or from unsuccessful attempts at self-control.

1. Taking drugs

2. Engaging in excessively vigorous behavior to escape from an aversive stimulus

3. Using extremely restrained behavior,

4. Blocking out reality

5. Expressing inappropriate behaviors that are based on defective self-knowledge

6. Using aversive self-stimulation such as self-mutilation

Summary and Conclusions

• Behaviorists start with simple stimuli and responses of lower animals and try to build up an understanding of human complexity.
• According to Skinner, "personality" is a repertoire of observable behavior learned from an organized set of environmental contingencies.
• Drives of the id = biological reinforcers of the environment
• Superego= social constraint

II. Mischel's Critique (1968)

• A person's behavior varies so much from situation to situation that it simply did not make sense to think in terms of broad personality traits.
• could not validly predict what an individual was going to do based on a previous measure of that person's traits.
• Mischel claimed that most correlations between behavior and traits were less than 0.30.
• There were three main results of this critique:

1. Emphasized the variability in behavior

2. Emphasized the importance of moderating variables

3. Gave rise to cognitive theories of personality.

• Rescorala demonstrates the cognitive aspects of conditioning.

Mischel's Cognitive Theory

• Proposed an interactional model of personality: a Person X Situation Model, in which characteristics of the person such as traits, cognitive abilities, goals, expectancies, and interests interact with characteristics of the situation to predict behavior.
• The person and the situation are viewed as interdependent

A. A Conditional View of Personal Dispositions

• Mischel believes that behavior is shaped mostly by people's perception of themselves in a particular situation.
• His conditional view of personal dispositions holds that behavior is governed mostly by specific goals, rather than global traits.

B. The Consistency Paradox- refers to the observation that, although people tend to believe that behavior is quite consistent, research suggests that it is not.

C. Cognitive-Affective personality System

• Part of the consistency of personality seems to be due to similarity of the perceived features of situations-- behavioral signatures.

D. Situation Variables- include all those stimulus inputs that people attend to in a particular situation.

E. Cognitive-Affective units

• Cognitive-affective units include all those psychological, social, and physicological aspects of people that allow them to interact with their environment with a relatively stable pattern of variation.

1. Competencies--

2. Encoding Strategies--

3. Expectancies and beliefs--

4. Goals and values--

5. Affective Responses --

F. Summary

• Stresses the importance of cognitive processes and other moderating variables in predicting behavior: Person X Situation interaction.
• Views individuals as goal directed, cognitive animals whose perceptions of events are more crucial than the events themselves.
• Cognition enables different people to see the same situation differently and to place different values on the reinforcers that follow their behavior.

Bandura: Social Cognitive Theory

Overview

• Personality is molded by an interaction of behavior, personal factors (especially cognition), and the environment.
• In contrast to Skinner, Bandura believes that: (1) responses need not occur to be learned; (2) chance encounters and fortuitous events often shape behavior; (3) observational learning occurs; (4) cognitive factors are important in learning; and, (5) reinforcement is mediated by prior cognition.
• Eastern vs. Western Philosophy:

Social Cognitive Theory

• Social cognitive psychology concerns how people make sense of other people and themselves.
• Bandura's social cognitive theory of personality rests on several assumptions:

6. Humans are largely a product of learning.

7. Humans have a tremendous capacity for symbolization

8. Human functioning is molded by the reciprocal interaction of personal factors (including cognition), environmental events, and our own behavior-- reciprocal determinism.

Basic Principles of Social-Cognitive Theory

1. Reciprocal causation--

2. Centrality of cognitive construals

3. Social Embeddedness of "self" and "Personality"

4. Person as self-regulating agent

A. Reciprocal Determinism/Causation

• Similar to Mischel, Bandura viewed human action as produced by the interaction between three variables: the environment, the behavior, and the person.
• By the person, Bandura means internal factors such as cognition.
• All factors are interdependent-- they influence and are influenced by all other factors.
• Bandura sees no incompatibility between human agency and determinism.
• Further, people often choose the situations that they enter.
• Notes the importance of chance encounters and fortuitous events in determining behavior.

B. Centrality of Cognitive Construals

• Cognitive mediation
• people cognitively construe (construct, built) a reality.
• schemas-- organized bodies of knowledge about a particular topic or situation.
• social "schemas" or constructions then influence how we process information about the world
• we try to predict and explain the behavior of self and others
• We learn vicariously by observing others and develop expectations of consequences that control behavior
• we self-reflect and self-monitor.

C. Social Embeddedness of Self and Personality

• Cognitively and socially we build a conception of self and other people.
• We define self and others largely by observing social behaviors and constructing patterns

1. Observational learning

• Personality is not brought to interactions, but is created in interactions
• Personality assessment involves understanding what people have constructed, not what they are or what they have.

2. Self-System-- the set of cognitive processes by which a person perceives, evaluates, and regulates his or her own behavior so that it is appropriate to the environment and effective in achieving the individual's goals.

• In Bandura's theory the self system gives some consistency to personality by influencing both the environment and behavior.

D. Person as self-regulating agent

• people are actors not just reactors
• people envision goals
• use goals to set standards for ongoing behaviors
• we use standards to self-regulate behavior
• we enter or avoid situations based on their relevance to our goals
• Develop a sense of self-efficacy that influences the goals we set and how we respond to success and failure.
• Self-regulating strategies include (1) redefining the behavior; (2) diffusing responsibility; (3) disregarding the consequences of behavior; and, (4) blaming the victim.

E. Self-Efficacy-- people's beliefs about their abilities to control events that affect their lives.

• Sources of self-efficacy: (1) mastery experiences; (2) vicarious experiences; (3) verbal persuasion; (4) physical arousal (e.g., anxiety).

Dysfunctional Behavior

• Psychological maladaptiveness is seen as situational ineffectiveness.
• ineffective patterns of cognition, emotional, and behavior in specific situations lead to ineffective goal-setting and self-regulation.
• continuity between adaptive and maladaptive.
• central theme is the analysis of the situations in which problems occur.
• Dysfunctional behavior is learned

Depressive Reactions

• people who develop depressive reactions often:

(1) underestimate their successes and overestimate their failures,

(2) set personal standards that are too high or are unreasonable

(3) treat themselves badly for their faults

Summary and Conclusions

• Bandura sees humans as being relatively fluid and flexible.
• People can store past experiences and then use this information to chart future actions.
• Social-cognitive theory involves the integration of learning theories and cognitive theories.