Download Differential Psychology

Overview
Differential Psychology
Learning Perspectives
on Personality
• Introduction to Learning Perspective
• Early Learning Theories
– Classical conditioning
– Operant conditioning
• Social Learning & Social Cognitive
Theories
– Bandura
Dr Andreas Fichtinger
• Evaluation & conclusion
Introduction
Introduction to Learning
Perspective on Personality
• “The experiences of life change us, and
they do so in ways that are lawful and
predictable”. (Carver & Scheier, 2000, p. 310)
Introduction
Introduction
• Learning perspective lies at the “nurture” end of the
nature-nurture debate
• It draws on traditions of behaviourism & social
psychology
• Related concepts include: modelling, reinforcement,
social norms, etc.
• Underlying assumption of learning perspective is:
– all behaviour is learned through experiences &
by interaction with the environment
• Person viewed as entering the world as a “tabula rasa”
– But acknowledge existence of instincts and pre-set
responses to stimuli &
– preference for pleasure & desire to avoid pain
• Learning theorists view your Personality (individual
differences) essentially to arise from…
– the moulding (learning experiences) you receive in your
environment (i.e. your pattern of behaviour is shaped by experience)
• Hence learning theorists emphasise:
– environmental influences
– concrete events that can be identified & scientifically studied
• Learning theories are therefore a clear movement
against psychoanalytic perspectives due to their…
– overemphasis on unconscious, drives or instincts
– problems to verify introspective information
– abstract & difficult to measure nature of psychoanalytic theory
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Introduction
• From an early learning perspective, personality is
therefore merely the…
– sum of everything you do, not what you think or feel
Introduction
• Thus, Social Learning Theory & Social Cognitive
Theory were proposed which view humans as…
• Causes of behaviour can be directly observed
– self-directive &
• Theoretically, a person’s behaviours are derived
from…
– Classical conditioning (paired associations)
– Operant conditioning (rewards & punishments)
…found in the social and physical world.
– someone whose cognitions affect our learning
• However, many learning theorists considered these
considerations as being too simplistic
→ More elaborate theories have been developed
→ Hence, internal (cognitive) & social events are seen as
important as well as external behavioural events
• To social learning perspectives, Personality consists
therefore of…
– ...all learned tendencies a person has acquired including
those from social influences
Introduction
Example:
• Would you have been the same person you are
today had you been brought up in vastly different
circumstances in a different country?
• At least, you would have quite different beliefs &
views of the world and yourself
• Because some cultures encourage & reward certain
behaviours, whilst others value and emphasise
certain other behaviours
Early Learning Theories
• Classic Conditioning
• Operant Conditioning
• Thus, strong argument that differences in
personality across cultures due to different social
practices (particularly during childhood)
Classical Conditioning
• Classical conditioning explains how a previously
neutral stimulus can have a learned effect on
someone
• This takes place by pairing…
– an unconditioned stimulus (US; which already
produces an unconditioned response (UR))
with
– a neutral stimulus (conditioned stimulus; CS)
• In this way the organism learns to respond to the CS
with a conditioned response (CR) which is like the UR
• Learned associations are the building blocks of
behaviour & personality
Classical Conditioning
• Peoples’ preferences for persons, events, things, places
& ideas likely to be influenced by classical conditioning
processes
• Most likes & preferences and dislikes & biases that
define our personality develop through “emotional
conditioning”
– Emotional conditioning refers to classical conditioning where
conditioned responses (CRs) are emotional reactions
• Theorists claim that conditioning processes represent
important contributors to human experience &
personality
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Classical Conditioning:
Pavlov’s Dogs
Classical Conditioning Terms
• Unconditioned Stimulus (US): a stimulus that will
provoke a response without training
– e.g. food
• Unconditioned response (UR): the response to an
unconditioned stimulus
US (food)
UR (salivation)
– e.g. salivation
pair with
• Conditioned Stimulus (CS): a stimulus that is paired
with an US, and comes to provoke the same response
as the US (in the absence of the US)
– e.g. tone
CS (tone)
• Conditioned Response (CR): the same response as
the UR, but now to a CS, rather than to an US
– e.g. salivation
Classical Conditioning:
“Dog Phobia”
US (bitten by dog)
UR (fear)
NB The more often this pairing occurs the more likely that
learning will have taken place
Classical Conditioning
Acidic wine (US) – salivation (UR)
US (Dry wine)
pair with
CS (dog)
UR (Salivation)
pair with
CR (fear)
Classical Conditioning:
Hospital phobia
US (chemotherapy)
CR (salivation)
UR (nausea)
CS (Joe’s Bar)
CR (Salivation)
Advanced Concepts
→
• Conditioned stimuli rarely occur in exactly same form
as they did earlier
people can discriminate &
generalise
– Discrimination: you can discriminate “one bar” from
another & so not all bars may provoke same response (as
Joe’s bar)
pair with
– Generalisation: walking in a very similar bar may cause
the same response (CR; salivation)
OR
CS (hospital)
CR (nausea)
CS (Dr Hope)
CR (nausea)
• Also possible that conditioned responses go away:
→
– Extinction: when a CS comes repeatedly without the US
you no longer get the CR
• e.g. When you go to Joe’s bar & drink no longer dry wine, then
you no longer get the CR (salivation) when you go there
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How is this Personality?
• Remember: according to the behaviourist
approach, personality is what we do
– We are the sum-total of our observable,
measurable behaviours
Operant conditioning
– Things like dog phobia, salivating when we
hear the dinner bell, etc. define us
– Unconscious or otherwise unobservable
reasons for the things we do are irrelevant to
behaviourist approaches to personality
Operant Conditioning
Operant conditioning
• Operant conditioning is more active than classical
conditioning
• B.F. Skinner (1938) – was interested how animals learn to
operate in their world in such a way as to change it (to animals
• People are seen to act upon their environment &
• He focused on environmental conditions &
environmental determinism
– behaviour is then shaped by the response the
behaviour receives
• Operant conditioning relies on the “law of effect”
– If a behaviour results in a more satisfying state of
affairs your are more likely to do it again
– If a behaviour results in a less satisfying state of
affairs your are less likely to do it again.
Operant conditioning terms
• Reinforcement: increasing the frequency or
probability of a behaviour by presenting or
removing a stimulus following that behaviour
advantage)
– consequence of operant behaviour produces reinforcement
• Criticised psychoanalytic perspective as it cannot be
operationally defined & measured
• “Skinner box” & pigeons
– box contains bar & chute for delivery of food pellets
– pigeon placed in box, dances around first before hitting the bar &
getting food
– it begins to hit bar more often as its behaviour is reinforced by
reward of food
More on Reinforcement
• Positive Reinforcement: increasing the
frequency or probability of a behaviour by
presenting an appetitive stimulus following the
behaviour
– e.g. press lever, get food
• Punishment: decreasing the frequency or
probability of a behaviour by presenting or
removing a stimulus following that behaviour
• Negative Reinforcement: increasing the
frequency or probability of a behaviour by
removing an aversive stimulus following the
behaviour
– e.g. press lever, shock ends
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More on Punishment
Operant Conditioning
• Positive Punishment: decreasing the
frequency or probability of a behaviour by
presenting an aversive stimulus following the
behaviour
– e.g. climb pole to birdfeeder = shock (squirrels)
• Negative Punishment: decreasing the
frequency or probability of a behaviour by
removing an appetitive stimulus following the
behaviour
Stimulus added
Stimulus taken
away
Behaviour
Increases
Positive
Reinforcement
(+ appetitive)
Negative
Reinforcement
(- aversive)
Behaviour
Decreases
Positive
Punishment
(+ aversive)
Negative
Punishment
(- appetitive)
– e.g. break rules = no cigarettes (prison inmates)
Summary
• Reinforcement increases frequency of a
behaviour
– Positive reinforcement = adding something nice
– Negative reinforcement = by taking something
nasty away
Lauren & her Mum
• Lauren’s mother praises her every time
she cleans her bedroom. Soon, Lauren is
cleaning her room more and more.
Positive reinforcement
→
• Do not confuse negative reinforcement with
punishment!
– Reinforcement increases the frequency of a
behaviour
– Punishment decreases the frequency of a behaviour
Ron, the dog phobic
Lisa, problem child
• Ron is so afraid of dogs he usually leaves
his house by the back door to avoid
meeting his neighbour's puppy. Often he
tries to work up the nerve to leave the front
way, but his heart pounds and he feels
awful. As soon as he decides to chicken
out one more time, Ron feels better. Soon
he is always sneaking out the back.
Negative reinforcement
• Lisa goes outside and throws rocks at
passing cars. Her parents discuss
potentially dangerous consequences with
her by presenting her pictures or stories of
related accidents.
Positive punishment
→
→
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Ryan, the Don Juan
• Ryan dates as much as he can. The
women he dates smile and flirt with him,
until he mentions that he is married. Then
they stop smiling and flirting. Ryan stops
mentioning that he is married on his dates.
Negative Punishment
→
Advanced operant conditioning concepts
• Discrimination: being able to discriminate
between stimuli
– difference caused by variation in prior reinforcement
• Generalisation: allows responding automatically
in new settings & with new people because of
similarities with prior situations
• Extinction: occurs when behaviour that once
led to a reinforcer does not any longer
(behaviour drops off)
Advanced operant conditioning concepts
• Schedules of reinforcement: different schedules
lead to different behavioural tendencies across time
– Continuous reinforcer: behaviour is followed by a
reinforcer every single time (extinction is easy!)
– Partial reinforcer: behaviour is not reinforced every
time; happens at different ratios or intervals, such as…
• Ratio reinforcer: get reinforced after number of occurrences
of the behaviour (e.g. on average, every n responses)
• Interval reinforcer: get reinforced after period of time that
the behaviour occurred (e.g. every n hours/minutes/days;
weakly pay check)
Personality change
•
Some types of behaviour are caused by learning
•
Demonstrated by therapies used in clinical practice,
which are based on learning theories
–
•
• Phobias are acquired by classical
conditioning
– some neutral US is paired with a CS that
produces fear
• Phobias are maintained by operant
conditioning
– each time the phobic object is removed or
avoided negative reinforcement occurs
– Because the phobic object is always avoided,
the phobic never learns the object is harmless
Systematic Desensitisation
Think of dog
FEAR !!
goal to “unlearn” (extinguish) certain behaviours
So……
Systematic desensitisation (counter conditioning)
– Person learns that previously anxiety provoking stimuli now are
associated with relaxation (so a different emotion is conditioned)
•
e.g. Dog phobia treatment
1. person feels intense fear in presence of dog
2. person taught relaxation technique
3. person taken through anxiety hierarchy (from least threatening [picture
of dog] to most threatening [patting a dog])
•
Two-stage theory of phobias
Aversion therapy: pairing an unpleasant stimulus with
undesirable responses (e.g. smoking cessation)
Relaxation
Response
NO FEAR
pair with
DOG
NO FEAR
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Aversion Therapy for Smoking
Smoke
Pleasure
Social Learning theories
So……
Put nauseating
substance on
tongue
NAUSEA
pair with
Smoke cigarette
NAUSEA
Criticism of other perspectives
• Radical behaviourism is flawed
Social Learning Theory
“One difficulty with many learning theories is their
almost exclusive emphasis on the processes of
acquisition of behaviour and performance, and
their almost total neglect of the content of
personality”.
(Julian Rotter, 1972)
Social learning theory
• As a consequence Albert Bandura proposed his
Social learning theory
– by putting the “person” back into personality
• Extension of behaviourism
– using concepts of operant & classical conditioning
to explain human social behaviours
• People are moulded by their life experiences
• Learning occurs through interactions with other
people
– e.g. whilst growing up, important people such as
parents or teachers reinforce certain behaviours &
ignore or punish others
– ignores cognition and emotions
• e.g. assumes that actual reinforcement is
necessary for learning to occur
– Rejects free will
• Psychoanalytic perspectives of behaviour &
personality are flawed
– based on inferred drives/ needs/ etc. which
cannot be tested
– ignore conscious cognitions
– ignore situational influences
Social learning theory
• Learning is primary factor in development of
personality
• General social learning view is that new
behaviour is shaped by rewarding & punishing
consequences
• Bandura went further and assumed that
“behaviour can be shaped by simply observing
and imitating (or modelling) behaviour of others”
• Key concepts: (i) reinforcement & (ii) imitation
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Bandura’s Triadic Model of
Reciprocal Determinism
Overt (shown)
Behaviour
Environmental
Influences
Social learning theory
• Bandura’s biggest contribution to learning
theory are his suggestions that…
– …new patterns of behaviour can be acquired
in the absence of external reinforcement
– …we can pay attention to what others do &
repeat their actions
Personal factors
(beliefs, expectations,
self-perceptions)
Self-Regulation & Cognition
• We can exercise control over our behaviour
through self-regulation
– we are not slaves to environmental influences
– we have “free will”
• Cognition allows us to…
– …use previous experiences, rather than “trial-anderror”,
– …foresee probable consequences of our acts, and
behave accordingly
• Self-regulation allows us to…
– …choose behaviours that help us avoid punishments
– …move toward long-term goals.
Basic Processes of
Observational Learning
1. Attentional processes
•
attend to & accurately perceive model’s behaviour
2. Retention processes
•
remember the model’s behaviour
3. Motor reproduction processes
•
translate symbolically coded memories of the
model’s behaviour into new response patterns
4. Motivational processes
•
if positive reinforcement is potentially available,
enact the modelled behaviour
• i.e. we learn through observation, rather than
through direct reinforcement
Learning through Modelling
• Much of what we do is learned through observing and
speaking with others (“models”),
– not through personal experience
• We form a cognitive image of how to perform certain
behaviours through modelling
→ image is then used as a guide for later behaviours
→ our cognitive abilities give us the capability for insight &
foresight
Types of Reinforcement
in Observational Learning
• Social reinforcement
– Important form of reinforcement which shapes human personality
& behaviour in society
• e.g. reinforcers such as acceptance, hugs, approval, interest,
praise, etc.
• Self-reinforcement
– Reward or punish self for meeting or failing to meet own
standards
• e.g. I study for one hour, then I can have that piece of cake
• Vicarious reinforcement
– Vicarious positive reinforcement
• e.g. seeing people who train hard win gold medals at Olympics
reinforces physical exercise in observers
– Vicarious punishment
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Empirical Evidence
• Children who see an adult behave aggressively
might view that aggressive behaviour as a positive
thing (i.e. expect positive reinforcement of some type for
that behaviour)
• Consequently they are likely to imitate that
aggressive behaviour
Bandura’s “Bobo Doll” Study (1963)
•
•
Bandura, Ross & Ross (1963) - investigated
whether children imitate a model’s aggressive
behaviour
Method:
–
•
– Bandura & Huston, 1961
• Children imitate a model’s aggressive behaviour in the
presence of the model
– Bandura, Ross & Ross, 1961
• Children imitate a model’s aggressive behaviour in a new
setting, away from the model
Bandura’s “Bobo Doll” Study
Participants:
•
–
48 boys & 48 girls attending Stanford University nursery school
(mean age = 4.3 yrs)
Participants were matched across experimental groups for degree
of aggressive behaviour shown in nursery school interactions
Exposure to an aggressive model (4 conditions)
1.
2.
3.
4.
Observe an adult model behave aggressive
Observe same adult model & same behaviours, but on film
Observe same behaviours performed by a cartoon character
Control group (no observations)
Pictures from Bandura’s experiment on learned aggressive behaviour. When watching
An adult behave aggressively toward an inflated doll, the children in Badura’s study
imitated many of the aggressive acts of the adult model.
Key results
– Children who saw aggressive model made more
aggressive acts than those who saw the non-aggressive
model
• Physical aggression
• Verbal aggression
– Boys violence behaviour was influenced more by
aggressive male model than by aggressive female model
(104 vs. 48.4 instances)
– Girls were more aggressive in the aggressive female
condition than in the male condition (57.7 vs. 36.3 instances)
– Boys were more likely to imitate physical violence
– Girls were more likely to imitate verbal aggression
Practical implications
• Violence on TV, computer games, internet etc.
• Hot topic ever since!
• E.g. Follow-up by Bandura et al. (1963)
Conclusion
– Live adult model, model on film, cartoon
→ all produced more violent behaviours
• Optimistic note: modelled violence can be
altered under certain conditions
– Reinforcement vs. punishment
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Summary
Strengths of learning perspectives
• We acquire, maintain & modify behaviours that we
see others perform
• Impressive experimental evidence (scientific, testable,
• We decide which behaviours to keep & when to use
them, by using:
• Importance of the environment: explains situational
variations in behaviour
– Symbolic thought (“what are my long term goals?”)
– Emotion (“damn that Bobo doll”)
– Self-regulation (“I really want to scream at my boss,
but I need that job, so…”)
• Badura and other Social Learning Theorists put the
“person” back into personality by stressing the
interplay of (i) personal factors, (ii) environmental
factors & (iii) behaviour
supported by research findings)
• Building blocks can explain complex behavioural
patterns
• Social cognitive concepts have many useful
applications
• Bandura’s theory has been open to change & now
incorporates an increased emphasis on cognitive
process
Strengths of learning perspectives
Weaknesses of learning perspective
• Useful for explaining emotional reactions &
action tendencies
• Tend to explain specific behaviour & behaviour
changes but not a comprehensive theory of
personality
• Useful therapeutic applications, such as:
– Behaviour therapy is focused & effective for a variety
of behaviour problems
– Cognitive Behaviour Therapy methods are also very
popular
• Personhood seems missing
• Role of biology ignored: overlooks individual
differences present from birth
• In depth case studies are lacking
– partly because comprehensive personality
assessment tests have not been developed from the
learning perspective
References
•
•
•
•
•
•
Carver, C.S. & Scheier, M.F. (2000). Perspectives on Personality
(4th ed.) Needham Heights.
Chamorro-Premuzic, T. (2008). Personality and Individual
Differences. BPS Blackwell
Chamorro-Premuzic, T. & Furnham, A. (2004). A possible model to
understand the personality-intelligence interface. British Journal of
Psychology, 95, 249-264.
Funder, D.C. (1994). The personality puzzle. Norton: New York.
Maltby, J., Day, L., & Macaskill, A. (2006). Personality, Individual
Differences and Intelligence. Prentice Hall.
Pervin, L.A. & John, O.P. (2000). Personality. Theory and Research
(8th ed.). Wiley.
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