Transcript Personality Theory and Research

Personality Theory & Research:
An International Perspective
Gordon L. Flett
Prepared by
Brenda Baird, University of Ottawa
1
Chapter 8 Overview
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Ivan Pavlov and Classical Conditioning
Radical Behaviourism and John B.
Watson
Operant Conditioning and B. F. Skinner
Dollard and Miller’s Social Learning
Theory
Rotter’s Social Learning Theory
Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory
The Aggressive Personality and the
Learning of Aggressive Behaviour
2
Ivan Pavlov and Classical
Conditioning
The Learning Perspective
• Views individual differences in personality
as the result of learning and different
environmental experiences
• Learning – the process whereby behaviour
changes in response to external and
situational contingencies
3
Ivan Pavlov and Classical
Conditioning
Ivan Pavlov: Classical Conditioning
• If a neutral stimulus is paired with a nonneutral stimulus, the organism will learn to
respond to the neutral stimulus as it does to
the non-neutral stimulus
4
Ivan Pavlov and Classical
Conditioning
The Unconditioned and Conditioned
Stimulus and Response
• Unconditioned stimulus (US)
– Elicits a reflexive, innate response in the
absence of learning
• Unconditioned response (UR)
– The reflexive, innate response to a
stimulus in the absence of learning
5
Ivan Pavlov and Classical
Conditioning
The Unconditioned and Conditioned Stimulus
and Response
• Conditioned stimulus (CS)
– Elicits a learned response after pairing a
unconditioned stimulus
• Conditioned response (CR)
– The learned response to a conditioned
stimulus
6
Ivan Pavlov and Classical
Conditioning
7
Ivan Pavlov and Classical
Conditioning
The Unconditioned and Conditioned Stimulus
and Response
• Extinction is the gradual disappearance of a
conditioned (learned) response that occurs
when a conditioned stimulus is no longer
paired with an unconditioned stimulus
• Flooding is a therapeutic technique that
relies on the principles of extinction to treat
phobias
8
Ivan Pavlov and Classical
Conditioning
The Unconditioned and Conditioned
Stimulus and Response
• Differentiation is learning to distinguish
and respond to only one conditioned
stimulus among similar stimuli
• Generalization is responding to several
stimuli that are very similar to a
previously conditioned stimulus
• A blocking effect occurs when a
response to a second UCS is blocked by
an established UCS
9
Ivan Pavlov and Classical
Conditioning
Personality Differences among Pavlov’s Dogs
• Pavlov observed a form of experimental
neurosis in his dogs when they were forced
to make a choice between two equally
strong CRs
• Specifically, highly active dogs became
more active (excitation), and less active
dogs became depressed and helpless
(inhibition)
10
Radical Behaviourism and
John B. Watson
• John B. Watson formulated radical
behaviourism with a sole focus on
observable behaviours that can be
measured, predicted, and controlled
• For Watson, the environment is more
important than genetics in determining
behaviour (radical environmentalism)
• “Albert”, an 11-month old boy, was
conditioned to fear a white lab rat by pairing
its arrival with a loud noise, showing even
emotions can be conditioned
11
Radical Behaviourism and
John B. Watson
Watson’s Views on Personality
• Watson believed that personality is the
result of habit systems: repeated
behaviours to eternal contingencies formed
in early childhood and set by age 30, which
he called nest attachments
• Watson emphasized the power of the
situation in releasing habit systems
• Watson believed that unconditioning bad
habit systems could result in personality
change
12
Radical Behaviourism and
John B. Watson
Classical Conditioning with People
• Plaud and Martini (1999) observed
conditioned sexual responses in males but
not females
• Aversion therapy pairs a noxious stimulus
with an undesirable behaviour to reduce its
occurrence
• Covert sensitization pairs aversive thoughts
with an undesirable behaviour to reduce its
occurrence
13
Radical Behaviourism and
John B. Watson
Classical Conditioning with People
• Exposure therapy involves confrontation with
a feared stimulus to treat anxiety and
phobias
• Wolpe’s (1958) systematic desensitization
pairs relaxation techniques with a hierarchy
of fears to combat phobias
14
Radical Behaviourism and
John B. Watson
Sensitivity to Punishment and Reinforcement
• Current research investigates individual
differences in sensitivity to punishment and
reward
• Eysenck’s (1957) postulate of individual
differences asserts personality differences
result from differences in excitation and
inhibition during conditioning (introverts are
more easily conditioned than extroverts)
15
Radical Behaviourism and
John B. Watson
Sensitivity to Punishment and Reinforcement
• Eysenck’s (1957) typological postulate
linked extroversion and introversion to
different levels of cortical arousal and
associated clinical conditions:
– Extroverts are slow to generate excitatory
potentials
– Introverts are quick to generate excitatory
potentials
16
Radical Behaviourism and
John B. Watson
Sensitivity to Punishment and Reinforcement
• Gray (1972, 1981) extended Eysenck’s work
to differentiate between reward and
punishment
• Gray suggested that extroverts learn better
from reward whereas introverts learn better
from punishment, based on a differential
sensitivity to positive and negative outcomes
17
Radical Behaviourism and
John B. Watson
Sensitivity to Punishment and Reinforcement
• Gray (1981) described two
neurophysiological systems to explain
differences in approach and avoidance
behaviours:
–
–
Behavioural Approach System (BAS):
sensitivity to reward (linked to extroversion)
Behavioural Inhibition System (BIS):
sensitivity to punishment (linked to
introversion)
18
Operant Conditioning and
B.F. Skinner
• Skinner based his principles of operant
conditioning and stimulus-response paired
learning (S-R) on Thorndike’s law of effect
• The Law of Effect: Thorndike’s idea that the
consequences of a behaviour determines
the probability that the behaviour will be
repeated in the future
–
–
Positive outcomes have a higher probability
Negative outcomes have a lower probability
19
Operant Conditioning and
B.F. Skinner
• Skinner coined several terms of operant
conditioning:
–
–
Positive reinforcement increases likelihood of
behaviour due to positive consequences
following a behaviour
Negative reinforcement increases likelihood
behaviour due to the removal of aversive
consequences following a behaviour
• Primary reinforcers are inherently rewarding
(food)
• Secondary reinforcers are rewarding via the
link with a primary reinforcer (money for food)
20
Operant Conditioning and
B.F. Skinner
• An important distinction is that punishment
refers to decreasing the likelihood of a
behaviour occurring, whereas reinforcement
increases the likelihood
• Shaping is a learning technique that
involves successive approximations to
desired behaviour (e.g., learning to form
letters and then to write)
• As in classical conditioning, discriminative
stimuli and stimulus generalization also
apply
21
Operant Conditioning and
B.F. Skinner
Schedules of Reinforcement
• Skinner outlined four schedules of
reinforcement in the environment as a
function of time or probability:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Fixed ratio schedule: reinforcement occurs after a
fixed number of responses (frequent buyer cards)
Fixed Interval schedule: reinforcement occurs
after a fixed period of time (pay dates)
Variable ratio schedule: reinforcement occurs
after a variable number of responses (gambling)
Variable Interval schedule: reinforcement occurs
after a variable period of time (fishing)
22
Operant Conditioning and
B.F. Skinner
Schedules of Reinforcement
• Partial enforcement schedules, such as a
variable ratio schedule, result in behaviour
that is highly resistant to extinction because
the failure to receive reinforcement on one
trial does not indicate a permanent absence
of reinforcement on subsequent trials
• The VR schedule explains gambling
behaviour
23
Operant Conditioning and
B.F. Skinner
Skinners’ Views on Personality and Individual
Differences
• Skinner viewed personality as a product of
genetics and one’s personal history of
reinforcement
• Skinner rejected subjective measures (selfreport, questionnaires) and advocated an
objective analysis of an individual’s
reinforcers and punishers
24
Operant Conditioning and
B.F. Skinner
Skinners’ Views on Culture
• Skinner believed that cultures shape
behaviours, and behaviours differ across
cultures due to differences in behavioural
contingencies
• For Skinner, cultural change results when a
society changes the behaviours that are
reinforced or punished
25
Operant Conditioning and
B.F. Skinner
Skinners’ Views on Humanistic Psychology
• Skinner outlined three points in his
argument that behaviourism was
humanistic:
1. Analysis of rewards and punishment leads to
a greater understanding of people
2. Effective environments bring out the best in
humanity
3. Promoting the self is misguided; selfactualization should place more importance
on the culture as a whole
26
Dollard and Millers’
Social Learning Theory
•
1.
2.
3.
4.
•
Social learning theory is centred on four
terms:
Drive is the motivational state
Cue is a stimulus that elicits a behaviour
Response is the behaviour
Reinforcement is the reward following a
behaviour
Response hierarchy acknowledges that
although the same cue can incite several
different responses, one response is
dominant
27
Dollard and Millers’
Social Learning Theory
Types of Imitation
• Bandura, Miller, and Dollard (1941)
identified three types of imitative
behaviour:
–
–
–
Same behaviour
Matched-dependent behaviour
Copying
28
Dollard and Millers’
Social Learning Theory
Drives, Motives, and Conflicts
• Miller (1944) outlined three forms of
conflict:
1. Approach-avoidance
2. Approach-approach
3. Avoidance-avoidance
• Dollard et al.’s (1939) frustrationaggression hypothesis isolated frustration
as a specific conflict situation
29
Rotter’s Social Learning Theory
•
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Rotter’s theory focuses on five basic
concepts:
Behavioural potential
Expectancy
Reinforcement value
Psychological situations
Needs
30
Rotter’s Social Learning Theory
Behavioural Potential
• The potential of a behaviour to occur is a
function of reinforcement
• Rotter stressed the potential of both
implicit and explicit behaviours
31
Rotter’s Social Learning Theory
Expectancy
• Rogers emphasized differences in the
probabilities held by individuals for a
reinforcer to occur following a specific
behaviour
• Individual differences in expectancy form the
basis for the concepts of external and
internal locus of control
32
Rotter’s Social Learning Theory
Reinforcement Value
• Reinforcement value is the personal value
placed on a particular reinforcer
• Rogers hypothesized that the behavioural
potential is a mathematical function of both
expectancy and reinforcement value
BP = f (E & RV)
33
Rotter’s Social Learning Theory
Psychological Situations
• The psychological situation includes
reinforcement value and associated cues for
reinforcement
• For Rogers, a psychological situation was
defined by a range of cues that incite various
expectations of reinforcement for specific
behaviours
34
Rotter’s Social Learning Theory
Needs
• Rogers viewed a need as providing direction for
behaviour, and not as a state of deficiency
• Rogers stressed an interpersonal component to
six needs:
–
–
–
–
–
–
Recognition
Independence
Protection
Love/Affection
Dominance
Physical Comfort
35
Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory
• Bandura believed that personality is
influenced by external factors in the
environment, particularly the imitation of
other's behaviours
• Personality is comprised of behaviours
shaped by operant conditioning and
observational learning
• Bandura’s (1963) Bobo Doll Study is a
classic study on aggression that
demonstrates the power of imitation
36
Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory
37
Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory
Observational Learning in Action
• Bandura identified four processes in
observational learning:
1. Attention
2. Retention
3. Motivation
4. Reproduction
38
Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory
Social Learning, Imitation, and Sex Role
Development
• Sex role development refers to the
acquisition of culturally defined emotional,
cognitive, and behavioural characteristics
of a sex
• Research has identified that the role of
learning in the development of sex roles is
based in imitating the same-sex parent
39
Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory
Self-Efficacy
• Self-efficacy is the personal belief in one’s
ability to perform a specific behaviour
• Bandura stressed the roles of internal
dialogue and self-regulation in the
reinforcement of behaviour:
–
–
Self-reinforcement: internal self-talk
Self-regulation: self-reward and selfpunishment
40
Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory
Reciprocal Determinism
• Bandura’s (1978) Model of Reciprocal
Determinism depicts the view that personal
characteristics and behaviours constantly
interact with environmental variables
• The interactive concept is also referred to
as triadic reciprocal causation
41
Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory
42
The Aggressive Personality and the
Learning of Aggressive Behaviour
• Significant findings from Eron’s (1987) study on
aggression (aggression was defined in terms of
injury to another person, regardless if intent)
–
–
–
–
Aggression reflects confluence of multiple
learning processes and influences
Cognitive factors play an important role in the
learning of aggression and long-term
development of aggressive personality
There are changes over time in the predictors of
aggression
There is long-term stability in aggressive
behaviour when people are studied as children
and into adulthood
43
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd. All rights reserved.
Reproduction or translation of this work beyond that permitted by Access
Copyright (the Canadian copyright licensing agency) is unlawful.
Requests for further information should be addressed to the Permissions
Department, John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd. The purchaser may make
back-up copies for his or her own use only and not for distribution or
resale. The author and the publisher assume no responsibility for errors,
omissions, or damages caused by the use of these files or programs or
from the use of the information contained herein.
44