Chapter 14 - Learning to be a Person: Behaviourism and Social Learning Theory

Question 1

What is learning?

Answer 1

Stimulus + Response

Question 2

What are learning based approaches concerned with?

Answer 2

Emphasizing objectively, publicly observable data

- only considers things that can be directly observed

Question 3

What is the implication of the learning theories?

Answer 3

People in the same environment SHOULD react the same

Question 4

What does behaviourism say that personality is?

Answer 4

It is the sum of everything a person does

- its goal is functional analysis

Question 5

What is functional analysis?

Answer 5

Determining how behaviour is a function of one’s environment

Question 6

What were the three philosophical roots of behaviourism?

Answer 6

1. empiricism: experience is the direct product of reality
   - in opposition to rationalism (the idea that the mind is important in understanding experiences)
2. associationism: many things are associated because on caused the other
3. hedonism: seeking pleasure and avoiding pain (so you keep doing rewarded behaviour)

Question 7

What are the three kinds of learning?

Answer 7

1. habituation: a decrease in sensitivity to a stimulus due to repeated exposure
   - variety decreases habituation
2. classical conditioning: Stimulus + Response = Conditioned Reflex (involuntary)
3. operant conditioning: rewards increase desired behaviour and punishments decrease desired behavious

Question 8

What is shaping?

Answer 8

Consistently rewarding or punishing to get the response you want

Question 9

What is the best alternative to punishment?

Answer 9

Reward behaviour that is incompatible with behaviour you want to eliminate

Question 10

What are some ways to make punishment more effective?

Answer 10

• give it right away
• give warnings
• avoid mixed messages

Question 11

What are some dangers with punishment?

Answer 11

1. arouses emotion (both in the recipient and giver)
2. it’s difficult to be consistent
3. difficult to gauge severity of punishment

Question 12

What did Köhler find out when he was testing his chimpanzees?

Answer 12

They gained insight - lead to the conclusion that behaviourism doesn’t tell the whole story

Question 13

What does behaviourism ignore?

Answer 13

Motivation, thought and cognition

• ignores social dimension
• implies that we are passive and that our environment makes our choices for us

Question 14

How did Bandura revolt against the ideas that behaviourism was setting forth?

Answer 14

He created Social learning theory:

• emphasizes the social nature of learning
• added reciprocal determinism: the idea that people are not passive; that the self system affect behaviour independent of the environment

Question 15

Describe the cognitive-affective personality system (CAPS)?

Answer 15

• the most cognitive version of social learning theory
• combines 2 important ides:
  1. the individual’s construal of the environment is important
  2. thoughts proceed simultaneously on multiple tracks that occasionally intersect (when they interact determines how we act)

Question 16

What is the most important idea in CAPS?

Answer 16

The person is important

Question 17

What are if-then contingencies?

Answer 17

aka behavioural signatures

• if [situation] then [trait]
• describes how the situation interacts with behaviour

Question 18

What are the advantages to if-then contingencies?

Answer 18

• specificity

- more sensitive to behaviour changes across situations

Question 19

What have been the contributions of learning approaches to personality?

Answer 19

• establishing psychology as an objective science
• recognition that behaviour depends on the environment
• used to develop interventions such as phobia treatments

Question 20

What are the limitations of behavioural theories?

Answer 20

• leads to the question of whether therapies are generalizable and long lasting
• the ways in which people think can lead to different responses, therefore there is an under appreciation of cognition