Personality Theory Notes

Exam 2 Material

Karen Horney (Psychoanalytic Social Theory)

• Psychoanalytic theory - heavily influenced by Freud

• Basic concepts

  • Social and cultural conditions, especially childhood, are largely responsible for shaping personality

  • Combat basic anxiety by adopting one of three fundamental styles of relating to others

    • Moving toward people

    • Moving against people

    • Moving away from people

  • Modern culture based on competition

  • Competitiveness and basic hostility spawn feelings of isolation

    • This leads to intensified needs for affection and overvaluing love

• Biography

  • Went to university against the wishes of her father

  • “New Ways in Psychoanalysis” 1939

  • “Neurosis and Human Growth” 1950

  • Needed romantic relationships in her life

    • Depressed when out of relationships

  • First to recognize the impact of culture

    • Acknowledge genetic factors

    • Culture influences neurotic and normal personality development

• Importance of Childhood Experiences

  • Neurotic conflict can stem from almost any developmental stage

  • Childhood is the age from which the vast majority of problems arise

  • Difficult childhood is primarily responsible for neurotic needs

    • Needs become powerful as they are the only means of gaining feelings of safety

• Basic Hostility and Basic Anxiety

  • Each person begins life with the potential for healthy development

  • Need favorable conditions for growth

    • Love and warmth

    •  Not overly permissive

    • Genuine love

    • Healthy discipline 

• Basic Hostility

  • Result of parents not satisfying child’s needs for safety and satisfaction

  • Repressed and not aware of it

    • Leads to feelings of insecurity and vague sense of apprehension (Basic Anxiety)

• Defenses Against Basic Anxiety

  • Affection

    • Does not always lead to authentic love. Some may try to purchase love with self-effacing compliance, material goods, or sexual favors

  • Submissiveness

    • Neurotics may submit themselves either to people or to institutions such as an organization or religion

  • Power

    • Defense against real or imagined hostility of others and takes the form of a tendency to dominate others

  • Withdrawal

    • Develop an independence from others or by becoming emotionally detached from them

• Ten Neurotic Needs

  • Affection and approval

  • Powerful partner

  • Restric ones life within narrow borders

  • Power

  • To exploit others

  • Social recognition or prestige

  • Personal admiration

  • Ambition and personal achievement

  • Self-suffiency and independence

  • Perfection and unassailability

    • Grouped into three general categories, related to attitude toward self and others

      • Moving TOWARD people

        • Not always in a spirit of genuine love, need to protect oneself against feelings of helplessness

      • Moving AGAINST people

        • Inherently aggressive, everyone is hostile, compulsive

      • Moving AWAY from people

        • Solve basic conflict of isolation by being detached, intensified need to be strong and powerful

• Neurotic Search for Glory

  • As neurotics come to believe in the reality of their idealized self, they begin to incorporate it into all aspects of their lives, their goals, their self-concepts, and their relations with others

  • Comprehensive drive toward actualizing the ideal self 

    • Need for perfection

      • Drive to mold the whole personality into the idealized self, the tyranny of the shoulds

    • Neurotic ambition

      • Compulsive drive for superiority

    • Drive toward a vindictive triumph

      • Most destructive, disguised as drive for achievement, grows out of childhood desire to take revenge for real or imagined humiliations

Erik Erickson (Post-Freudian Psychoanalytic Theory)

• Key Concepts

  • A person faces conflict and challenges in each stage

  • Modify personalities to adjust successfully to social environments

  • Begins in childhood

  • Child success in early stages depends largely on parents

  • Ongoing process

• 8 stages of psychosocial crises 

  • Each stage has one question that must be answered

• Trust vs. Mistrust

  • Develop trust

    • Respond quickly when the child cries

    • Hold

    • Cuddle

    • Play

    • Talk to child

    • love/care

  • Develop mistrust

    • Receive inconsistent care

    • Little love and attention

    • Fear and suspicion toward the world and everyone in it

• Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt

  • Autonomy 

    • Child develops sense of independence

    • Develop minds of their own

    • Saying no

    • Allow children to practice new motor skills, want to do everything themselves

    • Let them practice life skills and make simple choices

    • Give a sense that they can control their own behavior and environment

    • Builds confidence

    • Look forward to meeting greater challenges

  • Shame and Doubts

    • Not allowing children to do things for themselves

    • Doubt abilities

    • Critizing children for not being perfect

    • Question worth and abilities to control themselves and world

    • View themselves and world with shame

• Initiative vs. Guilt

  • Initiative

    • Initiate activities

    • Imagines what they want to do then thinks of ways to do it

    • Need to know their ideas, questions, and concepts matter to others

    • Chances to create play ideas and put them into action

  • Guilt

    • Scold instead of encourage

    • Play ideas not praised

    • Ridicule children

    • Punishing children for acting on ideas

    • No encouragement to be creative

    • Parent convey to children that their ideas are not valuable or worthwhile

      • Child feels less confident

• Industry vs. Inferiority

  • Industry

    • Capacity to make productive effort

    • Encourage children to build or make projects

    • Stress importance of seeing a task through to completion

    • Praise and reward them for their efforts

  • Inferiority

    • Feel incapable of succeeding in their efforts

    • Discouraged from doing and making things on their own

    • Not praised, feel like they cannot do anything right

    • Passively accept failure or misbehave to compensate

• Identity vs. Role Confusion

  • Identity

    • develops sense of self

  • Role confusion

    • who am i?

    • divided self image

    • inability to establish intimacy

    • time urgency

    • reject family or community

• Young Adulthood

  • Intimacy

    • ability to fuse ones identity with that of another person without dear of losing it

    • achieved after formation of a stable ego

  • Isolation

    • incapacity to take chances with one’s identity by sharing true intimacy

• Middle Adulthood

  • Generativity

  • Stagnation

Erich Fromm (Humanistic Psychoanalysis)

• Overview

  • modern-day people have been torn away from prehistoric union with nature and with one another

  • have the power of reasoning, foresight, and imagination

  • lack of animal instincts and presence of rational thought makes humans the freaks of the universe

• Humanistic Psychoanalysis

  • Assumes that humanity’s separation from the natural world has produced feelings of loneliness and isolation (basic anxiety)

• Biography

  • born in Frankfurt, Germany (1900)

  • social critic, psychotherapist, philosopher, biblical scholar, cultural anthropologist, psychobiographer

  • evolutionary view of humanity

  • Humans lost animal instincts but gained an increase in brain development

• Basic Assumptions

  • individual personality can be understood only in light of human history

  • torn away from union with nature

  • no powerful instincts to adapt to a changing world, instead acquired facility to reason (Human Dilemma)

  • ability to reason - blessing and curse

• Existential Dichotomies

  • Life and Death - self awareness and reason tell us that we will die, but we try to negate this dichotomy by postulating life after death

  • Capable of conceptualizing the goal of complete self-realization - recognize that life is too short to reach those goals

  • We are ultimately alone yet we cannot tolerate isolation - aware that we are separate individuals but also believe that their happiness depends on uniting with their fellow human beings

• Existential needs - prevent insanity, relate back to existential dichotomies

  • Relatedness

    • the drive for union with another person

    • three ways in which a person may relate to the world

      • submission

      • power

      • love

    • love is the only route by which a person can become united with the world, and also achieve individuality and integrity

    • Art of Loving (1956)

      • basic elements are common to all forms of genuine love:

        • identified care

        • responsibility

        • respect

        • knowledge

  • Transcendence

    • the urge to rise above a passive and accidental existence and into purposefulness and freedom

    • create means to be active and care about what you create

    • OR destroy it and rise above slain victims'

    • Malignant agression

      • kill for reasons other than survival

  • Rootedness

    • need to establish roots/feel at home in the world

    • evolution caused loss of home in the natural world

    • sought in productive or nonproductive strategies

    • fixation

      • seeking rootedness through a nonproductive strategy, tenacious reluctance to move beyond the security provided by mother

  • Sense of Identity

    • capacity to be aware of ourselves as a separate entity

    • cannot retain sanity without this

    • provides power motivation to do anything to acquire sense of identity

• Authoritarianism

  • the tendency to give up the independence of ones own individual self and to fuse ones self with somebody or something outside of oneself in order to acquire the strength which the individual is lacking

  • Masochism

    • results from feelings of powerlessness, weakness, and inferiority

    • aimed at joining the self to a more powerful person or institution

• Three Personality Disorders

  • psychologically disturbed people are incapable of love and have failed to establish union with others

  • Necrophilia

    • love of death and usually refers to sexual perversion in which a person desires sexual contact with a corpse

    • generalized sense to denote attraction to death

    • alternative character orientation to biophilia

    • hate humanity

      • racists, warmongers, love bloodshed and destruction

  • Malignant Narcissism

    • impedes the perception formality so that everything belonging to a narcissist is highly valued, others belongings are devalued

    • Moral Hypochondriasis

      • preoccupation with guilt about previous transgressions

    • defensive, dismissive, dominant

  • Incestuous Symbiosis

    • extreme dependence on the mother/mother surrogate

    • exaggerated form of benign mother fixation

    • inseparable from the host person that their personalities are blended with

    • other person and individuality/identities are lost

Exam 3 Material

Abraham Maslow (Humanistic/Existential)

• Holistic-Dynamic

  • aka: Humanistic, transpersonal, third force, fourth fource (personality), needs theory, self-actualization

• theory investigates motivation

  • basic and complex behaviors

• View of Motivation

  • holistic, whole person and not single part is motivated

  • motivation is complex and may spring from separate motives

  • motivated by needs

    • arranged in hierarchy

• Hierarchy of Needs

  • conative needs- striving or motivational character

  • physiological needs

    • basic biological needs

    • food, water, oxygen

    • different in they can be completely satisfied

    • recur

  • safety needs

    • physical security, stability, dependency, freedom from threatening forces, protection from natural disasters and others

  • love and belongingness needs

    • desire for closeness with others

    • those who no not get enough love are motivated to seek it

    • no experience of love, cant give love

  • esteem needs

    • self-respect

    • confidence

    • competence

    • knowing that others hold them in high esteem

  • self actualization

    • not everyone gets here

    • can be met after esteem needs met

    • self fulfillment

    • realization of all of ones potential

      desire to be creative

  • Criteria for self actualization

    • free from psychopathology

    • progression through hierarchy of needs

    • embracing B-values

      • 14 B-values

      • truth, goodness, beauty, wholeness, aliveness/spontaneity, uniqueness, perfection, completion, justice, simplicity, richness/totality, effortlessness, playfulness, autonomy

    • full use of talents/capacities

    • qualities of self-actualized

      • more efficient perception of reality

      • peak experience

      • gemeinschaftsgefühl

      • profound interpersonal relations

      • democratic character structure

      • discrimination between means and ends

Carl Rogers (Person-Centered)

• Overview

  • humanistic

  • developed humanistic theory that grew out of experience as a therapists

  • prolific researcher

  • called for empirical research to support

  • concepts went unchanged, but several name changes

    • non-directive, client-centered, person-centered

  • positive in nature

• Basic Assumptions

  • formative tendency

    • tendency for all matter (organic and inorganic) to evolve from simpler to more complex forms

    • examples in nature

      • unorganized mass into galaxies, formless vapor into snowflakes, primitive unconsciousness into highly organized awareness (logic, reasoning, abstract thought)

  • actualizing tendency

    • tendency within all humans

    • only motive people possess

      • satisfy hunger drive, express emotions, accept one’s self

    • helps maintain and enhance ourselves

      • maintenance needs similar to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (lower levels)

• The Self and Self-Actualization

  • concept of self begins in infancy with “I” or “me” experiences

  • tendency to actualize self begins to evolve when infants establish self-structure

  • self-actualization is subset of actualizing tendency (not synonymous)

  • actualization -

    • organismic experiences of the individual, refers to whole person (conscious and unconscious, physiological and cognitive)

  • self-actualization

    • tendency to actualize self as perceived in awareness

  • Self-Concept

    • includes aspect of ones being and experiences that are perceived in awareness

    • not always accurate

    • not identical with organismic self

    • established self-concept makes change difficult

      • change occurs in atmosphere of acceptance, which reduces anciety and threat to take ownership of previously rejected experiences

  • Ideal Self

    • second subsystem of the self

    • person’s view of how they wish to be

    • aspirational attributes

• Characteristics of Actualized People

  • open to experience

  • trust themselves

  • internal source of evaluation

  • willingness to continue growing

• Characteristics Required for Change

  • relationship with someone who is congruent

    • congruence

      • most important

      • therapist are real, genuine, integrated, and authentic

      • no false fronts

      • model human being

    • unconditional positive regard

      • communicate deep and genuine caring for client

      • caring is unconditional

      • non-judgemental

    • accurate empathic understanding

      • therapist should understand clients experience/feelings with sensitivity/accuracy as they are revealed in the moment

      • sense clients feelings as if their own without getting lost in those feelings

• Barriers to Psychological Health

  • not everyone is psychologically healthy

  • most experience

    • conditions of worth (i am loved only if)

    • incongruence between self concept and ideal self

    • defensiveness (barriers against positive change)

    • disorganization (of thoughts)

Rollo May (Existential Psychology)

• Love and Will (book)

  • struggles with love and intimate relationships

• principal American spokesman for European existential thinking in psychotherapy

• philosophical approach

  • rejects deterministic view of human nature

• Overview

  • rooted in philosophy of Kierkegarrd, Nietzche, Heidegger, and Satire

  • May evolved new way of looking at humans

  • based on clinical experience

  • people live in world of present experiences, responsible for who they become

  • many lack courage to face destiny, give up freedom in process from fleeing from destiny

  • concerned with trend of dehumanization

  • emphasized balance between freedom and responsibility

  • acquire freedom of action through expanding self awareness and assuming responsibility of actions

• What is Existentialism

  • existence takes precedence over essence

  • opposes split between subject and object

  • search for meaning in life

  • people responsible for who they are

  • antitheoretical

• Being in the World

  • phenomenological approach for understanding humanity

  • world best understood from our own perspective

  • alienation from self/world leads to anxiety and despair

    • alienation - illness that manifests in three areas

      • separation from nature

      • lack of meaningful interpersonal relations

      • alienation from one’s authentic self

• Propositions

  • basic conditions according to existential approach

    • 1: The Capacity for Self-Awareness

      • ability to reflect and make choices, capable of self-awareness

      • choose to expand/restrict consciousness

      • aim of all counseling is to increase self-awareness

      • become aware that:

        • we are finite

        • have potential to take action

        • meaning is product of searching

        • subject to loneliness

    • 2: Freedom and Responsibility

      • free to choose among alternatives, shape our destiny

      • the manner in which we live is result of our choices

      • accept responsibility for directing our lives

        • avoid this reality by making excuses

    • 3:

      • Striving for Identity and Relationship to Others

        • preserving uniqueness and centeredness

        • interest in going outside of self

        • sell out by becoming what others expect

      • The Courage to Be

        • courage to learn how to live from inside

        • clients fear discovering that there is no substance, merely reflections of expectations

      • The Experience of Aloneness

        • part of human condition

        • get strength from looking to ourselves and sensing our separation

      • The Experiences of Relatedness

        • depend on relationships

        • another’s presence is important in our world

        • therapy - help client distinguish between erotically dependent attachment and life-affirming relationships

      • Struggling with Identity

        • shy away from accepting aloneness and isolation

        • therapy - clients begin to examine ways that they lose touch with identity

    • 4:

      • The Search for Meaning

        • struggle for purpose in life

        • therapy challenges client to find meaning

      • Meaninglessness

        • leads to emptiness, existential vacuum

        • Existential guilt (realization that one is not what one might have become)

    • 5: Anxiety as Condition of Living

      • therapists help client come to terms with paradoxes of existence

      • recognize and deal with anxiety

    • 6: Awareness of Death and Nonbeing

      • death not negative

        • awareness is basic human condition

      • death gives significance to living

      • fear death - fear life

Exam 4 Material

Gordon Allport (Psychology of the Individual)

• Overview

  • emphasized uniqueness of individual

  • general terms rob people of individuality

  • trait theories rob uniqueness

  • used case studies for in depth study

  • study of the individual - morphogenic science

    • contrasted with nomothetic methods (study of groups)

  • advocated eclectic approach to theory building

• Approach

  • 49 definitions of personality

  • 50th definition (1961) - “the dynamic organization within the individual of those psychophysical symptoms that determine his characteristic behavior and thought”

    • personality is integrated

    • organized and patterned

    • psychological and physical

    • personality is an action

    • characteristic implies individuality/uniqueness

  • personality is product and process (possess capability of change)

• Role of Conscious Motivation

  • choice of change

  • healthy adults aware of their actions and reasons for actions

  • did NOT ignore existence/importance of unconscious processes

    • emphasized conscious motivation

• Characteristics of a Healthy Person

  • proactive behavior

    • react to environment, cause environment to react to them

  • likely to be motivated by conscious processes

  • relatively trauma-free childhood

  • participate in outside events

  • warm relating of self to others

  • emotional security or self-acceptance

  • realistic perception of environment

  • insight and humor

  • unifying philosophy of life

• Structure of Personality

  • dispositions

  • distinguished between common and individual traits

    • common traits - many people hold, good for studies

    • personal dispositions - singular individual

      • stable such as sociable or introverted

      • states (temporary) such as angry or sad

  • levels of personal dispositions

    • Cardinal Dispositions

      • ruling passion that dominates life

      • obvious, cannot be hidden, actions revolve around them

    • Secondary Dispositions

      • less obvious

      • greater in number than cardinal

      • occur with regularity

      • responsible for specific behaviors

    • Proprium

      • disposition close to core of personality

      • “That is me”, “This is Mine”

      • warm, central, and important in life

      • behaviors

        • basic drives

        • tribal customs (wearing clothes, saying hello, driving on right side)

        • habitual behaviors (smoking, brushing teeth), performed automatically and not crucial to sense of self

• Research Focus

  • understanding and reducing racial prejudice

    • important component was contact

    • Contact Hypothesis

      • optimal conditions - 1) equal status between two groups, 2) common goals, 3) cooperation between groups, 4) support of authority

  • intrinsic and religious orientation

    • religious commitment is mark of mature individual

    • Religious Orientation Scale

      • consists of 20 items (11 extrinsic, 9 intrinsic)

Costa and McCrae (Five Factor Model)

• influenced by trait theorists using research method called factor analysis

  • Raymond Cattell

    • factor analysis research

    • 16 personality traits

    • Beyondism

      • eugenics, competition between racial groups, white nationalism

      • voluntary eugenics, natural genocide

• Basics

  • includes Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism (OCEAN)

  • based on factor analysis

    • complicated statistical technique

    • scores of sub-factors are correlated (factor loading)

    • can be unipolar or bipolar

      • big five factors are bipolar

  • search for big five began in 30s but prominent in 70s and 80s

• Description of Five Factors

  • bipolar and follow bell shaped distribution

  • Neuroticism and Extraversion are strongest traits

  • behavior predicted by two central components and three peripheral ones

    • central = neuroticism and extraversion, peripheral = other three

Interpret NEO

• NEO-PI-3

  • five basic personality traits

  • bipolar scales

  • each trait has 4-5 sub-traits/facets

  • T>55 = (HIGH SCORING)

  • T<45 = (LOW SCORING)

• Interpretation

  • Neuroticism

    • N1 - Anxiety

      • jittery, anxious, worry

    • N2 - Angry Hostility

      • easily angered, hotheaded

    • N3 - Depression

      • deep sense of guilt/sinfulness, sad

    • N4 - Self Consciousness

      • easily embarrassed, feel inferior

    • N5 - Impulsiveness

      • difficulty resisting, give into impulse and regret

    • N6 - Vulnerability

      • fragile self esteem, susceptible to emotional injury

  • Extraversion

    • E1 - Warmth

      • friendly, enjoy talking to people

    • E2 - Gregariousness

      • like to be surrounded by people

    • E3 - Assertiveness

      • dominant, forceful, leader types

    • E4 - Activity

      • active, fast-paced life

    • E5 - Excitement Seeking

      • crave excitement, thrill

    • E6 - Positive Emotions

      • cheerful, high-spirited

  • Openness

    • O1 - Fantasy

      • active imagination, daydreamer

    • O2 - Aesthetics

      • enjoy art and nature

    • O3 - Feeling

      • wide range of emotions/feelings

    • O4 - Actions

      • like to learn, develop new hobbies

    • O5 - Ideas

      • enjoys theories/abstract ideas, problem solving

    • O6 - Values

      • broad minded, tolerant

  • Agreeableness

    • A1 - trust

      • believe that others are honest/trustworthy

    • A2- Straightforwardness

      • not craft/sly, could not deceive

    • A3 - Altruism

      • help others

    • A4 - Compliance

      • cooperate over compete

    • A5 - Modesty

      • humble

    • A6 - Tender Mindedness

      • all worthy of respect

  • Conscientiusness

    • C1 - Competence

      • problem solvers, common sense

    • C2 - Order

      • organized

    • C3 - Dutifulness

      • get things done

    • C4 - Achievement Striving

      • clear goals, work hard

    • C5 - Self-Discipline

      • productive

    • C6 - Deliberation

      • think things through

Hans J. Eysenck (Biologically Based Factor Theory)

• derived three (rather than five) dimensions of personality

  • extraversion/introversion

  • neuroticism/stability

  • psychoticism/superego function

• Biography

  • born in Berlin, lived in England (nazi escape)

  • Dimensions of Personality (1947)

  • controversial

• Factor Theory

  • criteria for identifying factors

    • psychometric evidence

    • heritability

    • make sense theoretically

    • social relevance

  • called factors “Superfactors” (genetic)

    • E (extraversion)

      • social, optimistic, impulsive, quick wit, rewarded sociability

      • quiet, passive, pessimistic

      • difference = cortical arousal

        • extraverts low (not as easily overstimulated)

        • introverts high

    • N (neuroticism)

      • overreact emotionally, difficulty calming down after emotional event

      • genetic or physiological predisposition to vulnerability that can be activated by stress

    • P (psychoticism)

      • egocentric, cold, nonconforming, impulsive, hostile, psychopathic, antisocial

David Buss (Evolutionary Theory)

• rooted in Darwin theory

• artificial selection

  • breeding that occurs when humans select particular desirable traits in a breeding species

• natural selection

  • more general form of artificial selection in which nature rather than people select traits

• Principles

  • Why is the human mind designed the way it is?

  • How is the human mind designed?

  • What function do the parts of the mind have?

  • How do the evolved mind and current environment interact to shape human behavior?

    • attempts to explain

      • the grand view of human nature “big picture theory”

      • personality origin

      • function

      • structure

      • personality differences - byproducts of evolved adapted strategies or “noise”

• Adaptive Problems and Solutions

  • Mechanisms

    • adaptive solutions to problems of survival

    • dozens to hundreds

    • can be complex

  • Physical Mechanisms

    • physiological organs/systems

  • Psychological Mechanisms

    • cognitive, motivational, and personality systems that solve survival and reproductive problems

  • Evolved Mechanisms

    • internal processes

    • goals, drives motives

    • emotions

    • personality traits

      • power

      • intimacy

• Personality Traits as Evolved Mechanisms

  • similar to big five

  • surgency/extraversion/dominance

    • disposition to experience positive emotional stability to be social learning and self-confident

  • agreeableness

    • willingness to help the group

  • conscientiousness

  • emotional stability

    • response to danger and threat (fight or flight)

  • openness/intellect

Skinner (Operant Conditioning)

• neo-behaviorism

• operant conditioning - learning process by which a particular action is followed by something desired (repeat) or unwanted (less likely to repeat)

  • aka instrumental conditioning

• built on Pavlov with experiments

• Basics

  • reinforcement - when a behavior is followed by something desired, such as food for a hungry animal or welcoming smile for a lonely person

  • shaping - consists of the reinforcement of close and closer approximations of a desired response

  • extinction - the gradual weakening and disappearance of a reasponse because the response is no longer followed by a reinforcer

  • favorable outcome is more likely to strengthen response if outcome follows immediately

  • types of reinforcers

    • primary reinforcer - events that are inherently reinforcing because they satisfy biological needs, ex. food or drink

    • secondary reinforcer - events that acquire reinforcing qualities by being associated with primary reinforcers, ex. money to buy food

  • schedule of reinforcement

    • determines which occurrences of a specific response result in the presentation of a reinforcer

      • continuous - occurs when every instance of a designated response is reinforced (getting reward every time task is completed)

      • intermittent - occurs when a designated response is reinforced only some of the time

    • Fixed Ratio - the reinforcer is given after a fixed number of non-reinforced responses

    • Variable Ratio - the reinforcer is given after a variable number of non reinforced responses

    • Fixed Interval - the reinforcer is given for the first response that occurs after a fixed time interval has elapsed

    • Variable Interval - the reinforcer is given for the first response after a variable time interval has elapsed

      • positive reinforcement - occurs when a response is strengthened because it is followed by the presentation of a reward

      • negative reinforcement - response strengthened by the removal of an adverse stimulus

      • punishment - decreases behavior; must be applied swiftly, severe enough, consistent, explained

Bandura (Social Cognitive Theory)

• Overview

  • chance encounters taken seriously

  • Basic Assumptions

    • humans have flexibility to learn in a variety of situations

    • triadic reciprocal causation model: capacity to regulate life

      • made possible by chance encounters and fortuitous events

    • agentic perspective: humans can exercise control over their lives

    • conduct regulated through external and internal factors

      • EXTERNAL: physical and social environements, INTERNAL: self observation, judgemental process, self reaction

    • regulate behavior through moral agency in morally ambiguous situations

• Triadic Reciprocal Causation Model

  • self efficacy

    • confidence to perform behaviors that will produce a desired outcome in a particular situation

    • not the expectations of action’s outcomes

    • mastery of experiences, social modeling, social persuasion, physical and emotional states contribute to self efficacy

• Observational Learning

  • observation allows people to learn without performing any behavior

  • more efficient than learning through direct experiences

  • modeling - core of observational learning

    • involves adding and subtracting from observed behavior and generalizing one observation to another

    • several factors determine if someone can learn form modeling

      • people who lack status, skill, power are most likely to model

      • high status people make better models

  • have to focus on behavior to model it

  • verbal coding increases speed of modeled behavior

    • rehearsal enhances performance of modeled response