BEHAVIORAL LEARNING THEORY

Response-Stimulus-Response model of learning (R-S-R)

Behavior produces an environmental effect which affects the likelihood of similar behavior in the future.

*Behaviors are shaped by the consequences they produce.

Positive Reinforcement – When stimulus events have the effect of increasing the probability that a response will occur again.

Negative Reinforcement – Removing a stimulus, usually an aversive one, when this removal makes a specified response more likelyto occur.

Punishment – Presentation of a stimulus thatmakes a specified response LESS likely.

The bottom line is: We repeat behaviors which have, in the past, produced reinforcement, and we shy away from behaviors which have produced punishment.

Other Important Terms:

Extinction – A decrease in strength of a conditioned response when it is no longer reinforced.

Shaping – Reinforcing successive approximations to some final response.

Social Learning Theory

A person learns through conditioning, but also by vicarious reinforcement (i.e., observers increase behavior for which they have seen others

reinforced). The heart of this approach says that we learn through observation/imitation. This is a processof: Acquisition

Retention Motor Reproduction Motivation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IK4NPc7HCnY

SOCIAL EXCHANGE THEORY

Individuals are viewed as trying to maximize rewards and minimize costs.

Outcomes = Rewards – Costs

(Rewards include anything positive, desirable.

Costs include anything negative, undesirable.)

STRUCTURAL ROLE THEORY

One of the most reliable sociological findings is that people’s attitudes and behaviors vary according to the social position they occupy in the social structure.

Structural Role Theory would say that people are like actors following a script (role consensus is assumed).

Consider the term, role conflict. In essence, this can occur when a person experiences two of his/her

roles “colliding”.

The Fundamental Attribution ErrorThe tendency to discount the role of the situation in affecting a person’s behavior and to over-estimate the importance of personal or dispositional factors.

Why do we commit this error?

A key point of Lovaglia’s: The situation is much more powerful than we think!

How might a person use this information?

Affirmations Statements about what is good and

positive for you.

Techniques: making positive statements (in writing and/or verbally); visualizing

Can affirmations work?? If so, why? Social Psychology tells us…Affirmations

are behavior; we become what we do.

Self-Perception Theory

Just as we observe others’ behavior, we also observe our own behavior. We infer how we

feel by observing our own behavior.

Attitudes

Consider your attitude on an important topic. List the people and experiences that have contributed to

the development of this attitude.

What is an “attitude”?A relatively enduring organization of beliefs around an object or situation. (Each attitude is really a package of beliefs).

How do we acquire attitudes?Instrumental ConditioningModelingDirect ExperienceGenetic Factors

Cognitive Dissonance TheoryOverturns the common sense notion that:

Attitudes-------Behavior

“Dissonance” is a state of tension produced when elements are in conflict.

Think of it this way (Equilibrium Process Model):

equilibrium-----------dissonance-producing situation-------------------dissonance ----------attitude change---------equilibrium

How can we reduce dissonance? Selective attention Lower expectations Seek support CHANGE ATTITUDE

When is dissonance likely?

1. After making a big decision.2. When there is inadequate external justification for behavior.

(“external justification” is situationally-determined)e.g., Festinger & Carlsmith study, 1957)

The key idea: If we can’t find sufficient external justification for our behavior, then we attempt to justify internally, by changing our attitude in the direction of our behavior.

APPLICATIONS?

SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISMGeorge Herbert Mead

Herbert Blumer coined the term, “symbolic interactionism”

Blumer’s Propositions:1. Human beings act toward things on the basis of the meanings that

things have for them.2. These meanings arise out of social interaction.3. Social action results from a fitting together of individual lines of

action.

Two Schools of Thought: the Chicago School and the Iowa School

Symbolic Interactionism

This perspective emphasizes the production of society as an ongoing process of negotiation among social actors.

Assumptions:1. Symbols transfer meaning in human interaction.2. The individual becomes humanized (socialized) through interaction with people.3. Reality is a process.4. Human beings have the ability to act upon

the environment.

What kind of image do we get of the human actor?active, creative, shapers of our own reality, goal-seeking

Symbolic Interactionism

Key Terms:

Meaning

Definition of the Situation – One’s cognitive idea

of his/her place in social time and space

that constrains behavior.

Taking the Role of the Other

Application: Labeling

Symbolic Interactionism

Distinction between signs and symbols:

A sign is directly connected to an object

or event and calls forth a fixed or

habitual response.

A symbol is something that people

create and use to stand for

something else. (e.g., object,

gesture, word)

Symbolic Communication & Language

Communication requires 2 things: Speaking & ListeningWhat do we mean when we say to our interaction

partner: “Are you listening to me?!”

Listening requires our responsive attention.

“pseudo-listening” – We really aren’t paying attention to what the other person is saying, although we act as if we are.

What are some listening situations that are difficult?

Symbolic Communication & Language

Two types of meaning:denotative meaning – The literal, explicit

properties associated with a word.(The dictionary meaning)

connotative meaning – Cognitive and emotionalresponses one has to a word.(These meanings are personal)

Importance of social context – Who are we with, and what is the situation?

Symbolic Communication & Language

Nonverbal Communication

paralanguage – All vocal aspects of speech other than words.

body language – The silent movement of

body parts.

interpersonal spacing – How we position ourselves at varying distances and angles from others.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buufiBQvIPs

choice of personal effects – Choices of clothing, etc.

Fun with images

What do you see here?

Two Group Portraits

What's that in the middle?

Young Woman/Old Woman

Perception

The perceptual process involves a sequence of external events followed by internal events.

Visual agnosia is a neurological disorder characterized by the inability to recognize familiar objects.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/teachers/activities/2020_mirror_01.html

PERSON PERCEPTION

Data-------------------------Theoryphysical behavior dispositional traitsverbal behavior (personalityappearance characteristics)

Biases:1. Primacy Effect – People rely more heavily on the

first information they get on a person and tend to discountlater information.

2. Implicit Personality Theory – Network of assumptions peoplemake about the relationship among traits and behaviors.

3. Stereotypes – Given a group membership, we assume traitsabout a person.

ATTRIBUTION

Attribution – The process of inferring the

cause of others’ behavior.

Attribution Theory is concerned with how

people assign causes to events.

2 types of explanations of behavior:

dispositional & situational attributions

Attribution

Biases:1. Fundamental Attribution Error2. Actor-Observer Differences – A difference

between two points of view (that of the actor and the observer).

3. Self-Serving Bias – The tendency we have toattribute positive outcomes to our owndispositions and negative outcomes to situational causes.

4. Self-Defeating Bias – Undesirable behavior isattributed to negative aspects of the self.

Harold Kelley’s Attribution Theory

We use 3 types of information in making decisions about the causation of action in a situation:

1. Distinctiveness – Observe actor in similar situations. (low distinctiveness implies personal cause; high distinctiveness implies situational cause).

2. Consensus – Compare actor’s behavior to others’.(low consensus implies personal cause;high consensus implies situational cause)

3. Consistency – Observe actor’s behavior over time.(low consistency implies situational cause; high consistency implies personal cause)

Attribution

Other factors that are relevant to attribution: Do we like the person whose behavior we are observing? Is there a reward or punishment attached to the behavior?

Attribution

Applications of Attribution Theory: Appraisals (e.g., self/peer/subordinate) Marketing (e.g., advertising – do consumers attribute claims

about a product to the company’s desire to sell the product, or to actual, positive attributes of the product?)

Socialization

Socialization is the process by which we acquirethose modes of thinking, acting, and feeling thatenable us to participate in the larger human community.

Agents of Socialization are persons or institutionswhich influence our thoughts and behaviors.

Examples?

Reciprocal Socialization – Recognizes that socializationis not a one-way process; e.g., kids influence adults.

Examples?

Socialization

Developmental psychologist Kenneth Kaye

“frames” – Tools that parents/adults use

to organize time and space for child.

Examples: nurturant, protective,

instrumental, feedback,

discourse

Socialization is like an apprenticeship (i.e., it is

a process; it is relational).

Socialization

Social Learning Theory

Socialization is accomplished through two processes:

1. Direct Learning – We are first

socialized via our parents’ rewards

and punishments (i.e., external

reinforcement). Over time, we control our

own behavior through self-reinforcement

(internalization makes this possible).

2. Observation/Modeling

Socialization

Piaget – Cognitive Developmental TheorySocialization is a process by which the individual develops from simple to complex. 4 stages:

1. Sensorimotor object permanence, cause-effect, recognitory

schemes2. Pre-Operational

knowledge of symbols3. Concrete Operational

concrete operations such as conservation and serialization

4. Formal Operationalabstract thought

Socialization

Developmental psychologist Erik Erikson8 Psychosocial Stages:

1. Trust vs. Mistrust2. Autonomy vs. Doubt3. Initiative vs. Guilt4. Industry vs. Inferiority5. Identity vs. Role Confusion6. Intimacy vs. Isolation7. Generativity vs. Self-Absorption8. Integrity vs. Despair

Socialization

Piaget’s Theory of Moral Development1. The Pre-Moral Period2. Heteronomous Morality – Strong respect for

rules. Child is likely to judge thenaughtiness of an act by its objectiveconsequences rather than the actor’sintent.

3. Autonomous Morality – Rules are viewed asarbitrary agreements that can bechallenged.

Socialization

Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development – 3 levels:1. Pre-conventional – Oriented to personal needs.2. Conventional – Oriented to social rules.3. Post-Conventional – Oriented toward making

autonomous decisions.

These developmental models feature stages that arestep-wise and sequential – i.e., people go through thestages one after another. But…might individualsregress in their morality? Also, might one’s actual behavior fail to correspond to his/her moral judgments?

GENDER ROLE SOCIALIZATION

Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory – The key is theprocess of identification.

Social Learning Theory – Imitation, reinforcement.Cognitive Development Theory – Gender is an

organizing scheme for the developing child.Symbolic Interactionism – “doing gender” refers

to seeing gender as an activity accomplished through social interaction.

Resocialization – The process through which adults

learn new values, norms, and expectations when they

leave old roles and enter new ones.

Total Institutions – Place where individuals are cut off from the wider society for an appreciable period and where together they lead an enclosed, formally administered life.

Contact with outside world controlled; new recruits & inmates not allowed to see family, old friends, former associates. Examples: Army, prisons, mental hospitals, convents,

monasteries The “Stripping process”

Resocialization

SELF

Cooley’s Looking-Glass Self

The process through which we develop our sense

of self based upon the reactions of other people

to our actions.

G.H. Mead’s Stages to Becoming a Self:

1. The Play Stage

2. The Game Stage

3. The Generalized Other

Two aspects of the self: “I” and “Me”

SELF

self-concept: The sum total of beliefs you have

about yourself.

self-esteem: The evaluative component of the

self-concept.

situated self: The subset of self-concepts that

constitutes the self we know in a particular

situation.

self-monitoring: Extent to which people use information

about the environment as a basis for modifying

behavior.