BEHAVIORIST THEORY

The Behaviorist's theory is another attempt to explain human personality. It is in conflict with the Psychoanalytic and the Humanistic theory (discussed in next room) in several important ways. Most important of these are the ways in which each claims how human personality is formed. The Behaviorist in particular believes that cultural and sub-cultural conditioning molds and shapes behavior and subsequently the personality. The unconscious is of little concern to the behaviorist. A human being, according to the behaviorist, has his life determined for him since he is a product of the culture that causes him to be as he is. The theory, therefore, is very deterministic. 

Therapy in the Behaviorist model bases on the principles of learning, with all of learning's processes or methods: conditioning, reinforcing (rewards, denials, punishment), desensitization, aversion therapy, modeling, imitation, etc.

B. F. Skinner’s entire system is based on operant conditioning.  The organism is in the process of “operating” on the environment, which in ordinary terms means it is bouncing around its world, doing what it does.  During this “operating,” the organism encounters a special kind of stimulus, called a reinforcing stimulus, or simply a reinforcer.  This special stimulus has the effect of increasing the operant -- that is, the behavior occurring just before the reinforcer.  This is operant conditioning:  “the behavior is followed by a consequence, and the nature of the consequence modifies the organisms tendency to repeat the behavior in the future.”

Imagine a rat in a cage. This is a special cage (called, in fact, a “Skinner box”) that has a bar or pedal on one wall that, when pressed, causes a little mechanism to release a food pellet into the cage.  The rat is bouncing around the cage, doing whatever it is rats do, when he accidentally presses the bar and -- hey, presto! -- a food pellet falls into the cage! The operant is the behavior just prior to the reinforcer, which is the food pellet, of course.  In no time at all, the rat is furiously peddling away at the bar, hoarding his pile of pellets in the corner of the cage. 

A behavior followed by a reinforcing stimulus results in an increased probability of that behavior occurring in the future.

 

What if you don’t give the rat any more pellets?  Apparently, he’s no fool, and after a few futile attempts, he stops his bar-pressing behavior.  This is called extinction of the operant behavior. 

A behavior no longer followed by the reinforcing stimulus results in a decreased probability of that behavior occurring in the future.

 

Now, if you were to turn the pellet machine back on, so that pressing the bar again provides the rat with pellets, the behavior of bar-pushing will “pop” right back into existence, much more quickly than it took for the rat to learn the behavior the first time.  This is because the return of the reinforcer takes place in the context of a reinforcement history that goes all the way back to the very first time the rat was reinforced for pushing on the bar! 

Rotter's Expectancy Theory 

 A theory by one, Julian Rotter, to explain why people do things. As the name suggests, the theory states that a person's decision to undertake an action is based upon what they expect to follow and how valuable the outcome based upon that expectation is. This expectation is a result of experience and past learning. For example, a student wears stylish clothes to school because past experience has told them that this will gain them acceptance among their peers and they value that acceptance a lot. 

Rotter classified people into two categories: [internals and externals. Internals are more likely to believe that happenings are due to their own efforts. Externals, on the other hand, attribute them to factors such as luck which cannot be controlled by them. Studies have shown that internals are more likely to do better at school, score higher on standardised tests, work harder at being healthy, wear seat belts and avoid drugs and alcohol.

Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory

Social cognitive theory provides a framework for understanding, predicting, and changing human behavior. The theory identifies human behavior as an interaction of personal factors, behavior, and the environment (Bandura 1977; Bandura 1986).

In the model, the interaction between the person and behavior involves the influences of a person’s thoughts and actions. The interaction between the person and the environment involves human beliefs and cognitive competencies that are developed and modified by social influences and structures within the environment. The third interaction, between the environment and behavior, involves a person’s behavior determining the aspects of their environment and in turn their behavior is modified by that environment.

According to Jones (1989) “the fact that behavior varies from situation to situation may not necessarily mean that behavior is controlled by situations but rather that the person is construing the situations differently and thus the same set of stimuli may provoke different responses from different people or from the same person at different times.”

In conclusion, social cognitive theory is helpful for understanding and predicting both individual and group behavior and identifying methods in which behavior can be modified or changed.