Cognitive Social Leanring Theory Albert Bandura & Walter Mischel

- behaviourist learning approach and cognitive approach combined in this theory - no pure behavioural personality behaviour

o behaviourist don’t think that the construct of “personality” is useful, doesn’t see any value for it - introspection: ask subjects to look inside themselves, and analyze the perception into it’s component sections - professors had a lot of power, so students analyzed into elements of consciousness of which their professor

wanted/own professor’s theories literature showed contradictory views (1865~1900s) History of Behaviorism

- John B Watson: Radical Behaviorism o Began with methodological behaviourism: we have to focus as a science on things that we can

publicly observe. And behaviour is the only thing that meets that criteria o Cannot rely on the truth of introspective reports of the contents of somebody else’s unconsciousness

unreliable, unverifiable o If we rely on overt, observable behaviour (including speech) safe, everyone can repeat and get

same results o Psychology has to be rooted in publicly observable, verifiable behaviour o Methodological behaviourism (the method we should use): Recording, observing behaviour

- Went on to be more radical. Then said that there’s no thing as consciousness/thought thinking is just subtle muscle movements (imaging doing something muscles actually move a little bit)

o Psychology should not, cannot, talk about the interior life o Radical behaviourism: Nothing about thinking, emotion, nothing outside observable behaviours

they do not exist, none of them are real, therefore do not talk about them at all - Behaviourism is a method, as a way of getting information about why and how people behave, was a great

idea had taken off dramatically in mid 1920s o Became and remains the dominant way of doing psychology- you study behaviour o We are all methodological behaviourists

- Within few years of publishing behaviour manifesto, left academia as he got in trouble in an affair with a graduate student went into advertising

o Widely credited for having invented the celebrity endorsement (convinced princess of Bohemia to sell a hand cream) modify behaviour or whatever

- In 1920s, there was a split everyone remained methodological behaviourist, but some people did not want to give up on theorizing what’s going on in the head of subjects group who tried to develop a large scale model of how learning takes place (behaviourists stressed: behaviours come about primarily from learning).

- Studies demonstrating the power of learning (in relation to behaviour): o Pavlov: classical conditioning o E.L. Thorndike Instrumental Learning

Named and studied instrumental learning/operant conditioning Relationship between behaviour and consequences Animals in puzzle box: if behaviour was followed by reward/satisfying consequence, it

became more frequent. if followed by unsatisfying consequence/punishment, became less frequent

Study patterns of re-enforcement and how that impacted behaviour o Upsurge in interest in basic learning principles (could be done at lab, experimentally) dominated

for next 40 years o Maslow worked with Thorndike for several years when he was starting out o Thorndike wanted to develop a general/mathematical model of learning equation which describes

how learning takes place o General learning theory developed

Mathematical equation which describes how classical + instrumental learning takes place understand more fully how things work

Trying to figure out how processes were in a math formula, they tried to develop a mathematical model of learning:

Clark Hull (was a big deal)

Kenneth Spence (@ university of Iowa, where Bandura did his PHD later) - A second group, led by B.F. Skinner: Radical behaviourism returns

o Wanted to completely ignore internal processing, didn’t want to theorize didn’t want theory in his work

o Study relationship between patterns of reinforcement and patterns of resulting behaviour (schedules of re-enforcement)

o Wanted a purely empirical theory o Determine what relationship was between stimulus presentation and behavioural output and then

catalogue input/output relationships no theory at all - Rule in psychology was to never talk about the mind, don’t talk about things that you cannot observe - Exploring the mind was un-thinkable

History of Cognitivism

- Methodological behaviourism is dominant, but radical is dead due to a second “revolution” cognitive revolution

- difficult to pinpoint the history of cognitivism - had original roots back in experimental psychology when people were interested in mind, thought,

consciousness also came up with work on human memory disappeared in the tide of wave of methodological/radical behaviourism, came back in 1940s’: began in England during the war years, two people primarily involved:

- Alan Turing: Digital computer o Mathematician, computer guy o Previously, computer referred as a person who did computation o Part of team that first developed computer

Motivation was from the enigma machine (Germans), wanted a machine which could de-code the messages

o Metaphor for mind: mind is like a computer, wired in programs that run by itself- takes in information, spits out data/makes decisions by themselves based on built in rules (unlike telephone or something) information is being processed, thinking is happening people began to turn to cognitive view again- should be thinking, talking about the head, what happens when information comes in

o People studying memory, read list of words to subjects, asked them to repeat words back immediately afterwards the learning model is that you form a chain (associate 2nd word with 1st word etc, so when you retrieve, you start with first word, brings you to 2nd) but some people didn’t do this- they gave them in categories (e.g. furnitur, animal, flower words)- did not fit learning model how did they re-organize? there’s activity going on, what is happening?

o Need to think about it, hypothesize and infer leaning towards cognitive approach - Donald Broadbent: Selective Attention

o Why were operators not alterning fighter commands about the bomber fighters? o Began work on selective attention: paying attention to something while ignoring everything else o Developed model of auditory selective attention: noisy room, but person can focus in on one

conversation, follow in and ignore the others developed model: storage areas, different systems, flow of information etc.

o First cognitive model (multi store model of memory) What’s going on in the mind? o Became classic model of memory (developed into), short term and long term memory etc.

(Broadbent: S system and P system short term and long term- basically the same) remains powerful model of memory

o Because of the successes, cognitive approaches became more popular, replaced behaviour model of not being able to make inferences

o Late 1960s, cognitive model became dominant, replaced behavioural model Didn’t replace methodological behaviourism: still looking at overt behaviour of participants

but going beyond that, drew inferences from those: what sort of mental processes were going on to produce what we see/the data

o Methodological behaviourism + theoretical cognitism came together into one model/work of Bandura and Mischel

Bandura and Mischel - Bandura: important bobo doll study impact of exposing children to violence

o Canadian, eventually went to Standford o Release violent drives, will become less aggressive o Ran study: showed them movie of a clown playing with toys in a play room some saw clown doing

gentle things, other saw him kicking the toys etc. boys let loose in room, boys who saw peaceful interaction behaved the way they saw, and boys who saw aggressive clown did what they saw- aggressive

o People not interested as the boys did it with toys not real people o Ran study again, instead of bobo doll, had person in a clown suite sent boys in again, boys wacked

the clown as they saw o They will express against human begins if they were exposed to violence

- Mischel: younger, Jewish family from Vienna, who moved to NYC o Trained as a social worker, trained in psychoanalytic processes o Experience led him to give up psychodynamic approaches as he went into practice o Worked under number of people who were pioneers of cognitive approach became cognitivist (it’s

the way we think that matters, the way we interpret things) eventually moved off to Stanford (collaborated with Bandura), then went to Columbia- still publishing

- Classical behaviourism: classical, operant conditioning – consequences of your behaviour that mattered - Here (combination): add social learning, learning not just from being reward/punished yourself, but by

watching others (observational learning) this is how personality changes - Bandura came to fame with social learning of aggression, Mischel came to prominence in late 60s, with work

entitled Personality and Assessment still in print o When he wrote the book, dominant approach: trait approach (still is) o Mischel trained in cognitive personality, took a different angle: criticized the trait perspective, said

that it cannot possibly be the best way to look at personality if you assume the existence of stable, underlying characteristics/traits, then you expect to see high correlations between an individuals self reported traits and their behaviours in any situation, also expect there will be high correlation between behaviours of an individual in different situations

Summary: according to the trait perspective, expect high correlation between (1) measured traits and behaviour and (2) between behaviours in different situations

o Surveyed literature: if you looked at correlation between measured traits and actual behaviour in a situation, it’s

remarkably low (0.3) Square correlation: proportion of variance in those two measures (behaviour) that can be

accounted for by the correlation 0.3 correlation: only 10% of variability in behaviour can be accounted for by its relationship

with traits Then looked at correlation of behaviours in different situations of same individual expect

correlation to be high since behaviour is governed by stable underlying traits? Yet correlation was only about 0.3 only about 10% of variance between situations can be accounted for by traits, 90% variability accounted by something other than traits conclusion: highly generalized behavioural consistencies have not been demonstrated, and concept of personality traits as broad dispositions is thus untenable condemned the trait theory

o People studying trait theory were not advancing, Mischel’s critique energized the trait perspective trait theorists realized that they have problems, rethink ideas/relationships that were hypothesized, construct better measures critique set them busy, led to the increased dominance of the trait theory since the late 1970s

o Mischel has come to an understanding with the trait theory, and about how it can come together with his cognitive behaviour work come down to debate, discussion, and even compromises instead of competition

Reciprocal Determinism - response to the question: which is most responsible for determining the behaviour we exhibit in a given

situation why do we behave as we do in a given situation? - Responsibility of two sets of variables/constructs which shapes behaviour: - (1) Due to inner personality – who we are/the person - (2) The situation itself creates expectations, demands, pressure to act in a certain way - Person- situation debate: which of these two things (internal characteristics/person vs. demands of the

situation) is more responsible for our behaviour in a situation - Answer varies depending on the situation:

o E.g. in class: everyone writing notes, this is not due to the person- no indication of individual differences the primary determine of behaviour is the situation it self, and expectations that we and others have of how we should behave in this situation (class)- situation dominated behavioural pattern

o E.g. at a party- more indication of individual differences of behaviour, more dependent on “who am I” o Unclear expectations, demand/unusual the role of the person dominates how a person behaves o Clear expectations tend to see generally the dominance of situational variables of expectations in

behaviour

- What is the relationship between the situation and person in shaping behaviour? Powerful concept- reciprocal

determinism o In a situation, first thing they do is to evaluate/assess the situation: where am I, what sort of

behaviour is expected here, what behaviour will lead to what outcomes, what do I want to happen, what do I need to do

o Individual chooses behaviour o Decision often changes the situation (e.g. go into classroom, can choose to sit down and take notes or

yell “fire, everyone leave” different consequences. Or having an argument with someone, can choose to agree or argue against)- clear that the options lead to different outcomes, and the process from then on depends on what you say/do

o Once you behave, situation changes depending on behaviour now you have to re-evaluate Re-evaluate new situation, what now should I do, then make another behaviour choice,

situation changes cycle o There’s a constant reciprocal interaction: not just situation shapes behaviour or person variable

shapes behaviour both things are happening simultaneously- behaviour choices affects situation Situation is affecting you and your choices, you are also affecting the situation Continues

in cycle - We create the environment which affects us- particularly true in interpersonal relationships (when interacting

with 1+ people) o How people treat us is dependent on how we behaved towards them o End up in self-fulfilling prophecy very easily o E.g. person believe that people are out for themselves, don’t care for others, distrusts effect: they

get what they expect- people treat them with dishonesty, distrust thinks experience justifies beliefs (but in fact, they produced that situation themselves)

o What you believe leads to how you act, which in turn leads to how your experience is seem like you’re living in two different worlds due to own behaviour (created the environment themselves)

o We are largely responsible for own environment, and thus for the influence it has on our behaviour (we get back what we expect- self-fulfilling)

o Widely taught in counselling, education you get from people what you expect from them (people will meet your expectations)

- Also applies to how we see ourselves o See ourselves as confidence, assured, intelligent etc. this is how others will see us and treat us o What you believe how you behave how others treat you o We shape our experiences

- Another example- study o Had young man make phone call to women. Had a picture in-front of them. Half of the men had a

picture of a attractive woman, other half had picture of relatively unattractive woman all talked to same woman

o Those who had attractive picture, rated the person/woman has more sensitive, positive attributes o Recorded the calls: played the woman’s side of the conversation for a new group of males, half of the

males heard the woman who had been called by the male who thought the woman was attractive, other half heard female side of convo called by male who though woman was ugly

o Those new males who had never talked to female, rated the woman woman who had been spoken to by a guy who thought she was attractive- were rated as more attractive and intelligent

o Self-fulfilling prophecy- because one male assumed that she was intelligent, he brought out in her something (tone perhaps) about her that made others see her as attractive/interesting as well

o Our own beliefs about how others see us, in many cases shaped by our own behaviour/assumptions- can shape behaviour of others, and therefore alter our environment

- We have to understand personality of consisting of cognitive-social learning variables, not fixed structures like traits/types

o Not biological determined o acquired through learning- especially social learning (watching others and the response that others

have to their behaviour) social learning person variables determines (1) what about the environment we process, the

direction of our attention (what stimulus we pay attention to)

shapes the decisions of what to pay attention to also determines the (2) sort of decisions we make about how to interpret the stimulus summary: influences selection and interpretation of stimulus ~phenomenal field: lots of stimulus coming in only some paid attention to in phenomenal

field o They are active processes, not just filters actively working to select and interpret o They operate in the present

Distinguish views from psychoanalysis which focuses on things in the past and how it has shaped our underlying cognitive activity

Influenced by what’s happening right now, as well has things from the past (but not the focus?)

- These processes/variables are shaped and determined by learning

o Major difference from type/trait approach: selection/tendencies we have are built in, largely determined shortly afterbirth by genetics, learning plays a minor role

o Cognitive: almost everything/predominantly personality is shaped by learning experiences- we are what the world made us

o And the world that made us is partly determined by ourselves because of reciprocal determination, we are responsible for the world that shaped us

Social learning personal variables - So what are the social learning personal variables? (foundations of

personality in this model) o There are 5 collections of variables which overlap o Can change (variables) o Shaped, changed, modified by social-learning (through our

experiences with others, and what we observe in others’ interactions)

1. Beliefs of competency and self-efficacy

o beliefs about what it is we have in the way of skills and abilities o what in any particular situation are we capable of doing o can have evaluations like this in a number of dimensions:

what are our intellectual/cognitive capacities- how smart are we, what things can we do, cognitive skills

physical/athletic skills social skills general assessment- how good are you in general

o self efficacy/esteem: our assessment of our skills makes a difference in the behaviour choices we make

o levels of perceived self-efficacy doesn’t necessarily match reality (perceptions vs. reality as assessed by objective measure/reality)

o inconsistencies psychological problems, behavioural inconsistencies o high vs. low perceived levels of self- efficacy: o high:

more likely to take on new challenges, take more risks, make growth choices, try something new- because they estimate that they will likely succeed

persist longer in problem solving stick with it internally: I can get this, it’s coming along great, I know I can solve it e.g. training athletes- imagine the perfect __

o low: give up quickly internally, telling themselves: its horrible, I’m failing etc. e.g. I suck at math so I can’t do it belief that you cannot contributes to failure

2. Encoding strategies and Personal constructs

o closely related o Encoding strategies:

Ways in which we tend to typically select information, interpret/encode experience/information

General beliefs about how the world works Example of an encoding strategy: people who tend to see others as dishonesty, manipulative,

not trust worthy etc. they then get this behaviour more than others would reinforces their beliefs

We interpret behaviour in the context of that encoding strategy How to understand what this person has just done with the assumption that they’re going to

do something bad to me It determines our attitude: to some people, a test is a bad thing/chance to fail/demonstrate

ignorance for others, it’s a positive challenge (this is an encoding strategy) Another example: in relationships, any male who shows any interest in me is inclined to

me/romantic attachment always interpret interaction with a male as a possible romantic situation

o Personal constructs: Typical, usual ways of understanding ourselves- our typical beliefs about what sort of a

person we are constructs/beliefs about the self, determines the sort of behaviour we

engage in, which shapes behaviour we get back, which leads to self-fulfilling prophecy (world is as it believes it to be, feedback re-enforces our initial beliefs about ourselves)

Encoding strategy about you- your set of beliefs about what sort of person you are to interpret your own thoughts, behaviour, feelings

Set of beliefs/constructs about who you are determines the choices we make in behaviour

Given the sort of person I am, what should I do in a certain situation Similar to self-concept Can change- the way people treat you influences how you act people see me as __, I will

act ___ How you see yourself will influence how others see you, and that will re-enforce the idea of

who you are

3. Expectancies o very powerful o pre-conceptions about what is going to happen under a given set of circumstances o 3 different kinds of expectancies which can be significant: o Stimulus-outcome expectancies: (~classical conditioning) when something happens/stimulus

presented, what do we expect to happen next E.g. when traffic light is yellow, this stimulus leads to expectancy that next thing is red

o Behaviour-outcome expectancies: set of beliefs about what will happen next if I do X E.g. if I say this to my boyfriend, what is he going to do next Relationship between behaviour now and future consequence

o Self-efficacy expectations: perceived competency and self efficacy is global (things I can do, skills/abilities I have)-

overlaps self-efficacy expectations is more situation specific: what can I bring to this specific situation

in abilities, skills etc. o expectancies shape behaviour choices we make, it also shapes the way in which we see the world-

things we perceive in world around us (very related to encoding strategies) e.g. certain time of the year where venus overlaps or something, and there are often many

reports of “UFOs” once you have concluded that it is a UFO, you begin to see things that you would expect if it was a UFO your beliefs about what you’re looking at shapes your experiences

e.g. decided that there was a man standing with a flashlight in the room, expectations shaped behaviour as well as perceptions of the world around (thought he could hear him breathe etc.)

o placebo effect accounted by expectancies o nocebo effect: believe harm will come and it happens (e.g. believe in voodoo deaths, lie there and die)

4. Subjective Values

o ~superego, persona o What do we want to happen in a given situation, what outcomes are positive for us o We decide on our behaviour depending on what we value as an outcome, what we want to happen o E.g. Taking a course because its easy vs. enriching what do you value (what would you value as an

outcome) o E.g. going to movies with this person because I like this movie vs. this person vs. sex (conflicting

subjective values between two people)

5. Self Regulatory Systems & Plans o Plans:

uniqueness of this model: the importance of the future in shaping our behaviour now

our plans/goals for the future governs our current behaviour

e.g. students at school because they’re looking at something that they want to do in five, ten years time

teleology: effect of goals/future on our behaviour today:

extent to which people use plan to govern behaviour today depends on ability to assess, postpone gratification in service of a future goal

what shapes our ability to postpone gratification? Depends on number of things and people differ in ability to achieve this

those who had positive experience in the past of using postpone gratification to attain a goal most likely to postpone gratification to reach a goal

those around you affect you: e.g. your parents/sibling were able to postpone gratification to reach a goal see them successing and receiving a large reward

value of future goal is important as well: greater value, more likely to put in effort to postpone gratification

self efficacy beliefs about one’s ability to reach a goal (I can reach this goal, I can accomplish this if I postpone gratification) impacts ability to postpone goal

o Self-Regulatory systems: Feedback mechanisms, ways in which we judge the adequacy, competency and

appropriateness of our behaviour (in terms of academic, personal, atheletc etc.) Whether our behaviour is appropriate, effective and meets standards Whether it meets standards of performance Begins with set point: there’s a level of performance that we consider to be good enough,

and anything below is inadequate As we get feedback from performance, we judge it in terms of where it falls in term of the

adequate set point is it inadequate, better or just right If it does not fall at the adequacy level or above, then we have to make adjustments If it falls below standard two things that we can do:

(1) adjust behaviour- work harder: develop more skill, ability in that area of inadequacy- e.g. if it’s academics, then we study harder the next time

(2) adjust acceptable level: e.g. in university, you come in with expectation of how you’re going to do, expectation is often how you did in high school. It’s lower, so you adjust your expectations expect Bs instead of As

You can do both of these things simultaneously – adjust behaviour and expectations People start with different expectations which may be unrelated to competency E.g. same score can lead to different reactions because people’s self-regulatory systems are

set at different places Self regulatory systems are feedback loops that tell us how we are doing compared to our

standards when our performance fails to meet our standards, then we can adjust If performance exceeds standards: Adjust standard up feedback comes from other people if we’re talking about this in terms of social performance-

do i make friends easily, how do people perceive me Other studies:

- study 1: 15 minute self affirmation (learn something positive about yourself) improved relational security, continue to reap the benefits after 8 weeks able to re-write self-fulfilling prophecy (2 months of behaviour change)

o Andrew believes Tara doesn’t like him, so he ignores her, in response, Tara ignores Andrew, and makes Andrew believe that he was right to begin with

o Inducing participant to believe that interaction partner to like/doesn’t like him/her demonstrate reciprocal determinism

- Study 2: haunted golf club- tell people that they are using stuff from previously famous golfer told them that they were using a good putter vs. same brand as one famous golfer uses putted better

o Confidence is important in golf o Highlights impact of expectations on behaviour

What does this model say about abnormal behaviour/psychopathology/mental disorders?

- most, if not all, psychopathology arises from inappropriate expectations, particularly in appropriate expectations about self-efficacy and ability

- the belief that we are not capable of coping with the situation we are in causes anxiety and various kinds of disorders, such as depression

Criticisms

- terms are not well enough defined to help perform crisp measurement o how to assess planning, self regulatory o there are some ways to do it, can assess the ability to delay gratification- Mischel and is work with

children + marshmallows brings child in and sits him down at the table with marshmallow in front of him if you wait until i come back, i’ll give you 3 time how long they take to give up

o difficulty for assessing is similar to other personality theories (similar critic) - theory focuses on cognition/internal states no way that cognition can cause and effect behaviour - psychodynamic people says that it ignores the role of the unconscious and unconscious processing

o today, researchers in cognition generally and widely do recognize the existence and importance of unconscious processing and decision making

- unlike many of the theories, this one says little about the process of development across time o well, the theory relies on learning, especially social learning as its mechanism, so its hard to specify

which is when since each one’s lives are different o are there then certain classes of experiences which are more important than others not said in the

theory Pros

- first well formulated theory to emphasize the role/importance of cognition (thinking, selection of information and how its processed)

- another impact, shared with Jung, is the emphasis on the future o psychodynamic theories focus on the role of the past (what has happened in the past that makes you

choose the things you do today) o this theory says that what you do today is based on the future what is it that you want to happen

down the line o on the basis of future desires, goals, it influences how we behave today to achieve those goals

- has led to significant amount of research, questions which have been suggested to be asked about behaviour led to empirical research

o best supported for perceived competency and self-efficacy (e.g. self esteem), to some extent personal constructs and encoding strategies

o less research in the other components