Learning Approches to Personality and Bandura

• Bandura's Social Learning Theory Definition

  Learning is not purely behavioral; rather, it is a cognitive process that takes place in a social context
• Social Learning Theory

  • Learning can occur by observing a behavior and by observing the consequences of the behavior (vicarious reinforcement)
  • Learning involves observation, extraction of information from those observations, and making decisions about the performance of the behavior (observational learning or modeling)
  • Learning can occur without an observable change in behavior
  • Reinforcement plays a role in learning but is not entirely responsible for learning
  • The learner is not a passive recipient of information. Cognition, environment, and behavior all mutually influence each other (reciprocal determinism)
• Old School Behaviourism

  • Evolved as a reaction to Freud
  • Wanted to limit psychology to the study of observable behaviour
  • Downplayed any innate "personality" that would explain individual differences
  • Focused on learning events that happened to the individual
  • Believed behaviour is determined by external forces, as opposed to internal traits or drives or temperaments
  • Didn't really deny the existence of cognition so much as thought that cognition was outside the scope of a scientific psychology
• Bandura's Definition of Personality

  • The Self System: Consists of cognitive structures that enables us to perceive, evaluate, & regulate behavior
  • Interconnected beliefs, aims, and capabilities that develop and function in reciprocal interaction with environment
  • Coherent patterns of conduct and experience when faced with similar situations
  • Personality is not seen as a fixed set of traits, but rather as a set of behaviors and patterns that are dynamically shaped by situational contexts and social experiences
• Bandura's View of Human Nature

  • Possess free will
  • Cognitive processes allow us to control our environment
  • The environment doesn't just act upon us; we act upon the environment
  • Personal agency - we can exert free will to change something in our environment for our own benefit
  • Proxy agency - we can engage other people to help change our circumstances
  • Collective agency - a group of people coming together for a common aim
• Aspects of Agency

  • Intentionality: Individuals' active decision on engaging in certain activities
  • Forethought: Individuals' ability to anticipate the outcome of certain actions
  • Self-reactiveness: Individuals' ability to construct and regulate appropriate behaviors
  • Self-reflectiveness: Individuals' ability to reflect and evaluate the soundness of their cognitions and behaviors
• Reciprocal Determinism

  • The person, the environment, & behavior all influence one another in a dynamic way (system)
  • The environment not only causes behavior, but is influenced by behavior
  • People choose how to act in given situations depending on their personalities & this influences their behavior
  • Behaviour - can affect an individual’s cognition, feelings and emotions; and the environment
  • Personal - cognitive, emotion and biological factors can affect environment and behaviour
  • Environment - can influence behavioural choices and personal factors
• Modelling

  1. Observing others

  2. Acquiring behaviors

  3. Influenced by observing others

  4. Don't have to produce a behavior yourself to learn the consequences
• Bobo Doll Experiment

  • No-consequences group - nothing happened to the adult in the film
  • Model-Punished group - adult was punished by another adult in the film
  • Model-Rewarded Group - adult was rewarded by another adult in the films (verbal praise, food)
• Observational Learning

  • Cognitive processes are involved such as attention and retention
  • A person must attend to something (Attention)
  • Remember what was observed (Retention)
  • Be able to perform what was observed (Motor Processes)
  • Want to reproduce those behaviours (Motivation)
• Outcome Expectancy

  • We are motivated to model behaviours that lead to positive outcomes
  • BP (Behavior Potential): Likelihood of a particular behavior occurring
  • E (Expectancy): Subjective probability that a given behavior will lead to a particular outcome or reinforcement
  • RV (Reinforcement Value): Degree to which the potential outcomes of the behavior are desirable or undesirable to the individual
  • Likely multiplicative relationship between these variables: BP=f(E&RV)
• Self-Efficacy

  • Belief in one's capabilities to organise and execute the sources of action required to manage prospective situations
  • Determines if we try, how long we persist, how results influence future behavior
• Resilience

  • Ability to absorb failure and disappointment and still believe in oneself
  • Bolstering self-efficacy against challenges leads to success in the end
• Self-Efficacy is not a fixed trait, but a dynamic, multifaceted belief system that varies across different activity domains and under different situational demands
• Determinants of Self-Efficacy

  • Our experiences trying to perform the behavior (failure or success)
  • Watching others perform same or similar behavior (vicarious)
  • Verbal persuasion (encouragement)
  • How we feel about the behavior (emotional reactions)
• Healthy Personality

  • Develop from high self-efficacy
  • Goals generated during contextual experience
  • Able to process information
  • Information is then used to achieve goals
  • Setting goals creates incentives that motivate & guide
  • Standards are set, behaviour evaluated, strategic choices made based on situation specific goal achievement
• Unhealthy Personality

  • Psychological dysfunction and maladaptiveness are understood through interactions within specific social contexts
  • Dysfunctional behavior is context-dependent, emphasizing the role of environmental factors
  • Behavioral, cognitive, and emotional responses are interconnected; issues in one can lead to problems in others
  • Dysfunction often indicates an inability to adapt effectively to various situations
• Change

  • Therapy brings dysfunctional expectancies in line with reality
  • Need new positive experiences or cognitive restructuring to change outcome expectancy
  • Self efficacy → aligning what you can do with what you think you can do – if you think you can't do something so you avoid it, your beliefs will never change
• Behavourists believe that personality develops due to environmental influences, but they didn't really put much stock in genetics, or cognition, or free will
• Bandura developed his Social Learning Theory (later turned into Social Cognitive Theory) which incorporates cognitive factors