COURSE NOTES: Personality

denotes a term that you should know how to define, and to recognize and give examples. denotes an important person. You should remember this person's name and what (s)he has done. denotes an important research finding. denotes an issue that you should be able to discuss or explain.

THE LEARNING PERSPECTIVE

• Personality is defined in terms of behavior. What a person does constitutes his or her personality (Richards, 1986; Watson, 1924/1970).
• Behavior (and therefore personality) is determined by external factors in the environment, specifically reinforcements and discriminative stimuli.
• Behaviorism claims that it is possible to influence people for the better by changing environmental conditions, including social changes.
• Behaviorism asserts that change can occur throughout a person's life.
• Behaviorism studies the individual person (idiographic approach). It does not presume that the factors influencing one person will necessarily have similar influences on someone else.

Watson: "Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I'll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select—doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors." (Watson, 1924/1970, p. 104)

Are we genetic clones of one another? Is the environment so powerful that genetic differences (within normal limits) are overpowered by the environment?

Chapter 10: 

Skinner and Staats: The Challenge of Behaviorism

Radical Behaviorism: Skinner

Behavior as the Data for Scientific Study

• overt, observable behavior
• causes outside the organism, instead of internal (prescientific) causes
• mentalism: thoughts do not cause behavior

The Evolutionary Context of Operant Behavior

operant conditioning: learning in which the frequency of responding is influenced by the consequences that are contingent upon a response

• bar-pressing in rats, reinforced by food
• smiling in a child, reinforced by parental approval

Most of Skinner's research studied rats (and hungry ones, at that!).

The Rate of Responding

• Skinner box
  • controls the environment
• operant response
• response

Learning Principles

Reinforcement: Increasing the Rate of Responding

• positive reinforcer
• base rate
• primary reinforcer
• secondary reinforcer
• negative reinforcer

Punishment and Extinction: Decreasing the Rate of Responding

• punishment: a stimulus contingent upon a respons and that has the effect of decreasing the rate of responding
• extinction: reduction in the rate of responding when reinforcement ends

distinguishing punishment from negative reinforcement

• Negative Reinforcement: increases responding
• Punishment: decreases responding
  • for example: Johnny talks back (response), so as a consequence, Johnny receives a slap on the derriere.

Extinction: withholding reinforcement

• decreases responding

Immediate reinforcers control behavior, not long-term consequences.

Additional Behavioral Techniques

• shaping: reinforcement of successive approximations of behavior
• chaining: one response produces or alters some of the variables that control another response
• discrimination learning: learning to respond differentially, depending on environmental stimuli
• generalization: responding to stimuli that are similar to, but not identical to, the stimuli present during training

Schedules of Reinforcement

Partial Reinforcement

• fixed ratio schedule (FR)
• variable ratio schedule (VR)
• fixed interval schedule (FI)
• variable interval schedule (VI)

Applications of Behavioral Techniques

• behavior modification
• functional analysis
• token economies

Education

• teaching machines (programmed instruction)

Radical Behaviorism and Personality Theory: Some Concerns

unique human capacities (including language)

freedom and dignity

Psychological Behaviorism: Staats

Reinforcement

• removal of a disruptive child from a school class, to improve behavior

Reinforcement

• based on emotion
• contrast with Skinner's radical empiricism
• contrast with Dollard and Miller's drive reduction

Basic Behavioral Repertoires

• The Emotional-Motivational Repertoire
• The Language-Cognitive Repertoire
• The Sensory-Motor Repertoire

Personality as a Basic Behavioral Repertoire [See Figure 10.2 in the Cloninger text on page 309]

Personality as Behavioral Repertories

• BBRs
• "basic behavioral repertoire"
• 3 classes of BBRs
  • Language-cognitive repertoire
  • Emotional-cognitive repertoire
  • Sensory-motor repertoire

Language-Cognitive Repertoire

• Examples of Behaviors
  • speech
  • reading
  • thinking
  • planning
  • social interaction
• Examples of Related Personality Tests
  • intelligence tests (many items)
  • reading readiness tests
• language elicits emotions
  • "sex is dirty and sinful"
  • "abortion is murder"
• learning to read
• learning to imitate words
• concrete, then abstract (cookies, God)
• learned competencies in art, music, dance
• Don't cry over spilt milk" can be a useful element in our language repertoire.

Emotional-Motivational Repertoire

• Examples of Behaviors
  • responses to punishment and reward
  • emotional responses to social interactions with friends and family
  • sexual arousal
  • enjoying work and recreation
  • religious values
  • depression
  • anxiety
  • reinforcing or punishing self-talk
  • emotional responses to music and art
  • Type-A behavior
• Examples of Related Personality Tests
  • interest tests (Strong Vocational Interest Blank)
  • values tests (Allport-Vernon-Lindzey Study of Values)
  • Edwards Personal Preference Schedule
  • motivation tests
  • attitude tests
  • anxiety tests
  • depression tests
• classical conditioning (anxiety)
• approach pleasant stimuli
• avoid unpleasant stimuli
  • ex: food, sex
  • ex: pain
  • ex: parental frowns/smiles
• Classical Conditioning of One Emotional Response (Fear) [See Figure 10.3 in the Cloninger text on page 311]

Sensory-Motor Repertoire

• Examples of Behaviors
  • feeding
  • toilet training
  • writing
  • aggressive behavior
  • active-passive behavior
  • behavior judged "masculine" or "feminine"
  • athletic activities
  • social skills
• Examples of Related Personality Tests
  • intelligence tests (some items, such as Geometric Design and Mazes)
  • behavioral assessments
  • Sensation-Seeking Scale
  • expressive behavior measures
• using tools
• performing work
• combing hair
• toilet training
• cleaning house
• sports
• body movements (feminine, masculine)
• accents in foreign language
• practice! to become a champion
• left-handedness?

"Push" or "pull" lever to words related to religion/transportation

• High-religious Ss pull lever toward them faster in response to religious words.
• Low-religious Ss do the opposite. (Staats & Burns, 1982)

Situations

• A: affects and attitudes
• R: reinforcements
• D: direct behavior

Psychological Adjustment

for example:

• emotions (phobias, depression, anxiety)
• social skills
• positive self-concept
• standards for behavior (perfectionism)

The Nature-Nurture Question from the Perspective of Psychological Behaviorism

learning builds on nature

biology can influence a person

• before learning
• during learning
• after learning

example of teaching BBR

• Father holds up 2 raisins.
• Father asks child, "How many?"
• (prompting as needed)
• reinforcement: raisins (and approval)
• gives a head start for school

Personality is learned. What are we teaching them? [graphic in lecture]

Personality Assessment from a Behavioral Perspective

The Act-Frequency Approach to Personality Measurement

• affiliation needs assessed by frequency of choosing to work with friends
• dominance assessed by frequency of interrupting others

Contributions of Behaviorism to Personality Theory

• http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/
  works/us/skinner.htm
• http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Skinner/Pigeon/
• http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Skinner/Theories/
• http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Skinner/Theories/
• "Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It" (historic 1913 paper by John B. Watson)
  http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Watson/views.htm
• B. F. Skinner Foundation
  http://www.bfskinner.org/
• Biography of B. F. Skinner
  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/bhskin.html
• Los Horcones: A Planned Community based on Skinner's Walden Two
• APA Division 25: Division for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior
  http://www.apa.org/divisions/div25/
• The Association for Behavior Analysis
  http://www.abainternational.org/

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