Cognitive Social Learning Theory (CSLT): Walter Mischel and Albert Bandura

Mischel: “Traits describe, but do not explain.”

Cognitive Social Learning Theory (CSLT)

• Largely a cognitive model

• Stresses the importance of both personality and the environment

  • Stresses the importance of mental representations of the world

• Focuses, too, on the process of learning

Consistency Paradox

• We intuitively see people as consistent, but research suggests that they are not!

  • The correlation between personality traits and behavior is only about .3 maximum (termed the Personality Coefficient)

  • Behavior is largely situation-specific

• CSLT does not expect behavior to be consistent across situations, but depends on the reward/punishment it produces in that situation

Why do we believe in the consistency of traits?

• Mischel argues that it is in the eye of the beholder

  • Self-fulfilling prophecy: Our belief in traits makes us see people similarly

  • We ARE the situation

    • Helps us see consistency

  • We see people in similar situations

Consistency is only expected…

• If the same behavior is reinforced across environments

  • Learning history dictates when and how a person acts in a given situation

• Or, if a person cannot discriminate between environments

  • Fits into Personality Theory because people who can discriminate between situations are well-adapted!

According to Mischel and Bandura

• Traits are not causes, but merely summary labels for multiple behavioral observations

• That is, TRAITS DO NOT EXPLAIN!

Situational Context for Behavior

• Mischel and Wright (1988)

  • People hedge their statements with conditions with people they know well (Person does X when Y)

    • E.g., Grace will cry if she is too hot

    • E.g., Beatrice will hit back when she is teased

Hartshorne & May

• Children were placed in different situations where they could lie, cheat, or steal

  • Correlation between behavior was only .3!

  • Called Personality Coefficient

• Conclusion: Traits are not useful to a psychologist who wishes to describe an individual

  • Are you the same at a party and funeral?

“Cognitive Person Variables,” not Traits

• Encoding Strategies

• Competencies

• Expectancies

• Subjective Values

• Self-Regulatory Systems

Encoding Strategies

• Style of representing information, which is different between people

• The environment influences behavior (of course!), but we all differentially interpret the environment because of:

  • Different learning histories

  • Different encoding strategies

  • Different competencies (how might someone who is blind interpret different situations?)

Prototypes

• Much behaviorism research used a very clear stimulus to signify the “environment”

  • Say, 2,000Hz tones and 10,000Hz tones indicate a possible future punishment and reward, respectively

• But what if the environment were less clear?

  • Say, a 6,000Hz tone

  • People, too, are difficult to easily categorize

    • Extrovert or introvert? It depends on how they interpret the world!

Competencies

• Cognitive and behavioral competencies

• Think about what types of competencies one needs to be a . . .

  • President

  • Orator

  • World’s Strongest Man or Woman Competitor

  • Stock Analyst

  • Professor

Expectancies

• Behavior-Outcome

  • Will my behavior have an effect?

  • Will studying help me get an ‘A’ or does the professor “have it in for me”?

• Self-Efficacy

  • Can I perform a desired behavior?

  • If I need to run a 5-minute mile to make the team, should I even try out?

• Stimulus Outcome

  • What does the environment predict and how will that influence my behavior?

  • Does Amy’s yelling signify that she will soon slap me (RUN!!) or is this tantrum just for show?

Subjective Values

• Are results desirable?

  • Do I even want to make the team?

Self-Regulatory Systems

• Distraction, delay gratification

Self-Regulatory Systems and Plans

• Helps us to overcome stimulus control (the influence of the environment)

• Freedom from Distractibility

  • ADHD

• Self-Appraisal

  • I ran a 5 minute mile. Am I happy, or should I have done better? Is it ok if I couldn’t run a 5-minute mile?

Delay of Gratification

• The ability to defer present gratification for a more desirable, future goal

• Studies with children (receive one marshmallow now or two later?)

  • Making the marshmallow visible (harder)

  • Talking about how good marshmallows taste (harder)

  • Providing distraction makes delay easier!

    • Even watching commercials about “yummy” Sugar Pops makes it easier to delay the reward!

    • By about age 5, children develop their own strategies

      • Covering up the marshmallow

      • Focusing on something different

• The ability to delay gratification is termed ego strength

  • The opposite of impulsivity

• Interestingly, ego strength is relatively stable starting at about age 5!

Social Learning Theory (SLT) - Albert Bandura

• Agrees with Learning Theory that behavior can be influenced by direct reinforcement

• Behavior need not spontaneously occur for learning to take place!

  • Need not get hit by a car to know that it’s bad!

• Most human behavior is learned, intentionally or unintentionally, by modeling

• Termed imitative learning, observational learning, or vicarious learning (interchangeable)

Modeling

• Definition: Observing others’ behavior and then mimicking it

  • Can result in NEW behaviors

  • Can modify old behaviors

The Bobo Experiment

• 3-5 year old children saw adults kicking/punching an inflatable doll (“Bobo”)

  • Some ended there, others saw the adults get praised or punished . . .

  • Then observed children play with Bobo

• Punished = less aggression; no other differences

  • 80% of kids who saw adults rewarded/non-rewarded showed the aggressive behavior towards the Bobo!

  • Only 5% of kids who saw adults punished showed the aggressive behavior

  • So violence on TV doesn’t lead to aggression?

• Well, not necessarily . . .

  • When given a future reward (juice and stickers), all the children beat Bobo exactly like the adults

    • Including those who saw the adults punished!

  • Punishment may temporarily suppress aggression, but the behaviors HAVE been learned

  • Difference between performance and learning

Moreover . . .

• When rewarded/non-rewarded groups were allowed to play with the Bobo doll after 8 months, 40% of them still showed aggressive behavior towards the doll!

Types of Models Used in Bobo

• Controller Models

  • Controlled access to highly desirable toys

• Consumer Models

  • Received rewards for their behavior

• Which would the kids imitate more?

• The kids imitated the controller models more!

  • This finding falls in line with psychoanalytic research, which suggests that kids identify more with the father than the mother

    • But this is based on a very “traditional” view of families . . . Which is ever changing!

      • Increased % of working families and 1-parent families

Standards for Behavior

• In a bowling task, children saw:

  • Adults reward themselves for only superior scores

  • For average scores and above

  • For all but the very worst scores

• Children would self-reward themselves based on the models they observed!

• However, if left to their own devices, the children would reward themselves for any behavior! (even the very worst scores!)

Models influence behavior in adulthood

• Riding with a model who wears a seatbelt increases the likelihood that the passenger, too, will wear a seatbelt

  • Interestingly, it also affects other safety measures (locking one’s door)

  • Placing a placard at a stop sign with a person “buckled up” also increases use of a turn signal!

What is necessary to follow a model

• One must attend to the model (observe them)

• One must be able to remember what the model did

  • Complex sequences of behavior are less likely to be imitated

• One must be able to perform the behavior themselves

  • No kidding!

• One must WANT to perform the behavior

  • External reinforcement

  • Vicarious reinforcement

  • Self-reinforcement

Therapy

• Should be more interested in:

  • Learning

  • Modeling

  • Role-playing

  • Trial and error behavior

• And less on talking!

• Must increase self-efficacy

  • The belief “that one can organize and execute given courses of action required to deal with prospective situations” (Bandura, 1980)

    • By role-playing

    • By having the person take new skills to their own environment

• “. . . Treatments that are most effective are built on the empowerment model. If you really want to help people, you provide them with competencies, build a strong self-belief, and create opportunities for them to exercise those competencies.”