Transcript Learning Approaches to Personality

Learning Approaches to Personality
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Basic assumptions:
1. Changes in behavior occur in predictable
ways
2. Personality is formed by person’s unique
history
3. Objectivity and rigor in testing are crucial
4. Situational specificity
Ivan Pavlov – classical conditioning
• Classical conditioning = type of learning in
which a neutral stimulus acquires the
capacity to evoke a response that was
originally associated with another stimulus
• Digestion in dogs
• Tone = neutral stimulus (became
conditioned stimulus)
Classical conditioning
Two necessary conditions:
1. Reflexive response
2. Stimulus that elicits response must be
associated in time and place with another
stimulus
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Unconditioned stimulus (UCS)
Unconditioned response (UCR)
Conditioned stimulus (CS)
Conditioned response (CR)
Classical conditioning extended
• Discrimination – being able to tell stimuli
apart (i.e. discriminate)
• Generalization – responding to different
stimuli in a similar way
• These two processes are complementary
• Extinction
• Higher order conditioning – CS-CR pair
can serve as an UCS-UCR for more
classical conditioning
Emotional conditioning
= classical conditioning in which the CRs are
emotional reactions
• Accounts for likes and dislikes,
preferences and biases from this
perspective
Phobias
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Phobia = intense fear that is not justified
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Systematic desensitization
1. Extinction
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Role of avoidance
2. Counterconditioning
Step 1: taught to relax body (incompatible “emotion)
Step 2: develop anxiety hierarchy
Step 3: relax completely, visualize lowest item on
hierarchy, allow anxiety to dissipate
Step 4: move to next level and repeat