Chapter 18 Notes

Question 1

Overview of Cognitive Social Learning Theory

Answer 1

Julian Rotter and Walter Mischel each rest on the assumption that cognitive factors help shape how people will react to environmental forces

one’s expectations of future events are prime determinants of performance

object to Skinner’s explanation that behavior is shaped by immediate reinforcement

As an interactionist, he believes that neither the environment itself nor the individual is completely responsible for behavior

Question 2

Rotter’s Social Learning Theory 5 hypothesis

Answer 2

• People’s reaction to environmental stimuli depends on the meaning or importance that they attach to an event
• personalities possess relative stability
• motivation is goal directed (rejects the notion that people are primarily motivated to reduce tension or seek pleasure)
• Rotter’s empirical law of effect, which “defines reinforcement as any action, condition, or event which affects the individual’s movement toward a goal”
• people are capable of anticipating events

Question 3

Rotter’s behavior potential (BP) is

Answer 3

the possibility that a particular response will occur at a given time and place

Question 4

Rotter’s behavior potential (BP) is a function of both:

Answer 4

expectancy and reinforcement value

Question 5

Rotter’s 2 kinds of expectancy

Answer 5

Generalized - I went to see zeppelin and they were rock so I’ll go tonight to see bad company and expect to have fun too

Specific

Question 6

Rotter’s Reinforcement Value

Answer 6

goals with the highest reinforcement value are most desirable / Desire alone, however, is not sufficient to predict behavior

Internal reinforcement is the individual’s perception of an event

external reinforcement refers to society’s evaluation of an event

Reinforcement-reinforcement sequences suggest that the value of an event is a function of one’s expectation that a particular reinforcement will lead to future reinforcements

Question 7

Rotter’s four variables that must be analyzed in order to make accurate predictions in any specific situation

Answer 7

behavior potential
expectancy
reinforcement value
the psychological situation

Question 8

Rotter’s Psychological Situation

Answer 8

interaction between person and environment is a crucial factor in shaping behavior

Question 9

Rotter’s Basic Prediction Formula is

Answer 9

a hypothetical means of predicting specific behaviors

Question 10

Rotter’s Needs

Answer 10

difference between needs and goals is semantic only. When focus is on the environment, Rotter speaks of goals; when it is on the person, he talks of needs

Question 11

Rotter’s six broad categories of needs:

Answer 11

Recognition-Status 
Dominance
Independence
Protection-Dependency 
Love and Affection
Physical comfort

Question 12

Rotter’s A need complex has three essential components:

Answer 12

need potential
freedom of movement
and need value

Question 13

Rotter’s Need potential is

Answer 13

analogous to the more specific concept of behavior potential.

The difference between the two is that need potential refers to a group of functionally related behaviors, whereas behavior potential is the likelihood that a particular behavior will occur in a given situation in relation to a specific reinforcement

Question 14

Rotter’s freedom of movement (FM) is

Answer 14

Freedom of movement is the average “expectancy” that a set of related behaviors will be reinforced

how many alternative ways do you have of getting to your goal) is analogous to expectancy. If I have more FM then I’ll have more/higher Expectancy

a person with a strong need for dominance could behave in a variety of ways to satisfy that need. She might select her husband’s clothes, decide what college curriculum her son will pursue

Question 15

Rotter’s need value (NV) is

Answer 15

the degree to which she or he prefers one set of reinforcements to another

Question 16

Rotter’s Internal and External Control of Reinforcement

popularly called “locus of control scale”

Answer 16

I-E Scale attempts to measure the degree to which people perceive a causal relationship between their own efforts and environmental consequences

(popularly called “locus of control scale”)

Question 17

Rotter’s Interpersonal Trust Scale

Answer 17

high trust is not only desirable but essential for the survival of civilization

Pair skating demands a high level of interpersonal trust

Question 18

Maladaptive behavior in Rotter’s social learning theory is

Answer 18

any persistent behavior that fails to move a person closer to a desired goal

(1) conflict between goals, (2) destructive goals, and (3) unrealistically lofty goals.

maladjusted individuals are characterized by unrealistic goals, inappropriate behaviors, inadequate skills, or unreasonably low expectancies of being able to execute the behaviors necessary for positive reinforcement

It frequently, but not inevitably, arises from the combination of high need value and low freedom of movement

people generalize: a physically weak adolescent who lacks the skills to be an accomplished athlete
may erroneously see himself as unable to compete for a role in the school play

Question 19

the overall goal of Rotter’s therapy is to

Answer 19

bring freedom of movement and

need value into harmony, thus reducing defensive and avoidance behaviors.

Question 20

2 goals of Rotter’s psychotherapy

Answer 20

(1) changing or adjusting (too high/low) the importance of goals
(2) eliminating unrealistically low expectancies for success/low freedom of movement/generalization

Question 21

more lessons of Rotter’s therapy

Answer 21

teach patients to look for alternative courses of action

teach these patients to look at ways in which they may
be contributing to the other person’s defensive or negative behavior

help patients look at the long-range consequences of their
Behaviors

enter into a
previously painful social situation, but rather than speaking as much as usual, they
are asked to remain as quiet as possible and merely observe

Question 22

characteristics of Rotter’s therapist

Answer 22

a therapist should be an active participant in
a social interaction with the patient. An effective therapist possesses the characteristics of warmth and acceptance not only because these attitudes encourage the patient to verbalize problems but also because reinforcement from a warm, accepting therapist is more effective than reinforcement from a cold, rejecting one

Question 23

Mischel’s Consistency Paradox

Answer 23

some basic traits do persist over time, but little evidence exists that they generalize from one situation to another

Question 24

Mischel’s objection to the use of traits as predictors of behaviors rested

Answer 24

on their inconsistency from

one situation to another

Question 25

Mischel proposed a set of five overlapping, relatively stable person variables that interact with the situation to determine behavior variables, which they call

Answer 25

cognitive-affective unit

Question 26

5) cognitive-affective unit

Answer 26

(1) encoding strategies, or how people construe or
categorize an event;

(2) competencies and self-regulating strategies: that is, what
people can do and their strategies and plans to accomplish a desired behavior;

(3) behavior-outcome and stimulus-outcome expectancies and beliefs regarding a
particular situation;

(4) subjective goals, values, and preferences that partially determine selective attention to events

5) affective responses, including feelings
and emotions as well as the affects that accompany physiological reactions

Question 27

Locus of Control and Holocaust Heroes

Answer 27

Being oriented more toward an internal sense of control was found to relate to
being a Holocaust hero

stronger sense of social responsibility, were more tolerant (less authoritarian),
were more empathetic, and exhibited higher levels of altruistic moral reasoning

outcome of events is not all chance, is a critical element to being able to
help others

Question 28

Locus of control is

Answer 28

a generalized expectancy that refers to people’s belief that they can or cannot control their lives

Question 29

Mischel’s Personality System

Answer 29

cognitive factors, such as expectancies, subjective perceptions, values, goals, and personal standards are important in shaping personality

behavior is best predicted from an understanding of the person, the situation, and the interaction

Question 30

Discuss Mischel’s conditional view of personal dispositions

Answer 30

If personal traits were solely responsible for behavior, then a person would always respond in a consistent and characteristic fashion, even to different events. Because neither of these conditions is valid, something other than the environment or personal traits must shape behavior. Rotter’s social learning theory hypothesizes that the interaction between person and environment is a crucial factor in shaping behavior.

Question 31

Discuss Mischel and Shoda’s cognitive-affective view of personality.

Answer 31

However, Mischel does not believe that inconsistencies in behavior are due solely to the situation; he recognizes that inconsistent behaviors reflect stable patterns of variation within a person. He and Shoda see these stable variations in behavior in the following framework: If A, then X; but if B, then Y. People’s pattern of variability is their behavioral signature, or their unique and stable pattern of behaving differently in different situations.

Question 32

Name and briefly discuss Rotter’s two most famous scales for measuring generalized expectancies

Answer 32

Internal-External Control Scale and the Interpersonal Trust Scale