PERSONALITY BY LEARNING

1
PERSONALITY BY LEARNING

• STUDY UNIT 3

2

• What are the main contributions of behaviourism
  and why is it important in psychology?
• Discuss the background to the behaviourist view
  of human nature
• Name and discuss the basic assumptions of
  behaviourism
• Discuss the response patterns in personality
  structure
• Describe the structure, development, motivation
  and adjustment of personality according to
  behaviourism
• Describe learning and psychological health.

3
Behaviourist view of human nature

• Personality
• develops through a learning process
• is characterised by and recognised in patterns of
  responses
• Peoples existence is dependent on their
  abilities to repeat specific behaviours in
  general and specific situations
• Behaviourist theories
• Type 1 Classical or radical behaviourist
  perspective
• Personality and behaviour viewed as mechanical
• Personality like behaviour determined by
  conditioning
• Personality can be studied only through
  observable behaviour
• Type 2 Social learning or social-cognitive
  learning
• Reaction to stimuli based on motivational value
  of stimuli or behaviour
• People are more in control of events through
  internal motivation.

4
Assumptions of the behaviourist

• Observable behaviour
• Controlled experiments and field studies
• Environments and situations shape behaviour
• Nurturing factor behaviour is informed by
  environmental situational influences
• Environmental and situational stimuli cause
  conditioned responses
• Personalitys relationships to learned responses
• All human behaviour is learned
• Stimulus-response (S-R) relationship
• S-O-R principle
• Self control
• People are co-shapers of personality
• Learning and unconscious factors
• Thinking happens at a level of unawareness or
  parallel processing.

5
Response patterns in personality structure

• Responses are learnt or recurrent patterns of
  behaviour
• Respondent behaviour behaviour which follows
  from known stimuli
• Simple, automatic or involuntary response, such
  as a reflex
• Complex response such solving a mathematical
  problem
• Positive reinforcers and negative rewards are
  used to structure peoples behaviours
• Response tendencies and hierarchy of responses
  are the result of multiple learning experiences
• Drive reduction and habits
• Consistency is one of the ideals of personality
  researchers
• Situationism personality and behaviour can be
  situation-specific.

6
Motivation

• Reinforcement
• Variable emphasis of reinforcement bydifferent
  learning approaches
• Responses are activated by internal andexternal
  stimuli
• Behaviour is shaped and maintained through
  positive, negative and partial reinforcement
• Habituation
• Forming of habits
• Drives as activators
• Drives are stimuli which activate particular
  responses
• Drives can be internal biological states or
  acquired social states
• Homeostasis creating balance or stability in
  behaviour.

7
Conditioning processes
8
More concepts of motivation

• Person-environment interaction
• Cognitive control
• Behaviour regulation
• Social cognitive theory
• Situationism
• Interactionism.

9
Positive behavioural concepts

• Psychological situation
• Signature situations
• Self regulatory plans
• Expectancies generalised expectancy
• Locus of control internal and external
• Personal hardiness,
• Self efficacy
• Vicarious learning
• Learned resourcefulness
• Learned helplessness.

10
Learning in personality development

• Key concepts in learning-development approaches
  include
• Social reinforcement
• Critical situations
• Identification
• Modelling
• Imitation
• Personality development is a process of gradual
  or continuous learning through reinforcement
• Determined by physical and psychosocial
  environmental factors
• Over time, people develop contingencies or
  particular types of responses applicable to
  different situations
• Become an individuals enduring, consistent and
  core characteristics of personality
• May change as experience of consequences or
  environment changes or when purpose of behaviour
  is no longer served.

11
Learning in personality development (continued)

• Life long process of learning, changing and
  unlearning
• Simple and passive processes (trial and error)
• Active and complex (rational and active
  intervention)
• Most learning takes place via classical or
  operant conditioning
• Environmental stimuli important determinants or
  influences on personality
• Physical, psychological and socioeconomic
• Observational learning through vicarious
  reinforcement
• Model or imitate behaviour of others
• Social learning and empathy
• Competency.

12
Learning and psychological health

• Behaviourist theories do not see the need to
  describe symptoms or classify people in
  categories of maladjustment
• Emphasise psychological health rather than mental
  disorder
• Faulty learning result of unadapted habits or
  response patterns, lack of life skills and
  knowledge
• Classical conditioning can be responsible for
  many fears, anxieties and stress reactions
• Operant conditioning can be responsible for
  behaviour deficiencies
• Therapy based on same principles as behaviour
  change positive and negative reinforcement to
  learn new behaviours
• Social-cognitive therapies thinking skills
  taught.

13
Techniques of behaviour modification

• Aversion therapy
• Implosive therapy
• Assertiveness training
• Systematic desensitisation
• Modelling and role-play
• Token economies
• Various forms of self-control programmes
  systematic relaxation and bio-feedback
• Cognitive learning techniques of rational-emotive
  therapy and thought stopping.

14
Thank you.