JULIAN ROTTER & WALTER MISCHEL’s
C O G N I T I V E S O C I A L L E A R N I N G T H E O RY
“COGNITIVE FACTORS” help shape how people will react to environmental forces. Rejecting Skinner’s explanation that behavior is
shaped by immediate reinforcement and instead suggest that one’s EXPECTATIONS of future events are prime detminants of
performance. Human behavior is best predicted from an understanding of the interaction of people with their meaningful
environments.
• ROTTER: As an INTERACTIONIST, he believes that neither the environemnt or itself nor the individual is completely responsible
for behavior. Instead, he holds that people’s cognitions, past histories, and expectations of the future are the keys to predicting
behavior.
- If we know each variables that can affect behavior potentials (reinforcement expectations and goal), then we can predict behaviot
• MISCHEL: has much common in Bandura’s social cognitive theory and Rotter’s social learning theory. He believes that cognitive
factors, such as expectancies, subjective perceptions, values, goals, and personal standards, play important roles in shaping
personality. Research on DELAY OF GRATIFICATION (the act of resisting an impulse to take an immediately available reward
in the hope of obtaining a more-valued reward in the future.) to research regarding the consistency or inconsistency of personality,
and presently to work with Yuichi Shoda on the development of cognitive-affective personality system.
- The interaction between traits, cognitive processes, the situation a person is in, and their basic goals/expectations will determine
a person’s behavior.
BASIC ASSUMPTIONS OF ROTTER’S SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY:
✦Human interact with their meaningful environment—similar with Adler’s subjective perception; humans have environment with
personal meaning to them.
✦Human personality IS LEARNED—influenced by Learning of both Skinner and Bandura, personality is built on reinforcement
✦Personality has basic unity—Adler’s Tenet that a personality of a person is consistent, it is united.
✦Motivation is GOAL DIRECTED—Teleological; our goal motivates us to do something.
✦People can anticipate events
✦Rotter built a personality that attempts to predict human behavior
JULIAN ROTTER’s
PREDICTING SPECIFIC BEHAVIORS
BEHAVIOR POTENTIAL (BP) * Psychological Situation (s) = f(Expectancy (E) + Reinforcement Value (RV))
BPs = f(E + RV)
Definition of Terms
1. BEHAVIOR POTENTIAL (BP): possibility that a particular response will occur at a given time and place. Several behavior
potentials of varying strengths exist in any psychological situation. Just ONE BEHAVIOR
2. PSYCHOLOGICAL SITUATION (s): a combination of a person’s subjective feelings and the objective reality at a given point
in time. It is not synonymous with external stimuli, although physical events are usually important to the psychological situation.
Defined as that part of the external and internal world to which a person is responding.
• For example, in a classroom that is cold, the instructor is discussin a boring subject in a monotonous way.
3. EXPECTANCY (E): refers to a person’s expectation that some specific reinforcement or set of reinforcements will occur in a
given situation. The probability is not determined by the individual’s history of reinforcements, as Skinner contended, but is
subjectively held by the person.
4. REINFORCEMENT VALUE (RV): the preference a person attaches to any reinforcement when the probabilities for the occurrence of a number of different reinforcements are all equal. (Do you really want the reinforcement?)
• Internal Reinforcement—the individual deems it to be reinforcing
• External Reinforcement—society deems it to be reinforcing
• These two can be in HARMONY or can be DISCREPANT
Example:
Eating a moldy bread
The probablity (BP) of me eating the moldy bread, given the fact that I am starving (s) is a function of [or depends on] my expectancy
that I will be full (E; reinforced if I do that behavior) + the need to receive that reinforcement or feeling of fullness (RV)
• High expectancy (E) that I will feel full when I eat the bread + I am really hungry after not eating the entire day (High RV) = high
probablity of that behavior (BP)
Sleeping in Class
• I feel as if I will not get the satisfaction of getting sleep and that I will instead be punished by my professor for sleeping + I don’t
want to be punished by my professor = Not sleeping in class
The Case of La Juan
Consider the case of La Juan, an academically gifted college student who is listening to a dull and lengthy lecture by one of her
professors. To the internal cues of boredom and external cues of seeing slumbering classmates, what is the likelihood that La Juan will
respond by resting her head on the deask in an attempt to sleep?
• The probablity of resting his head down in a sleepy situation depends on the expectancy that this behavior will lead to sleep
(reinforcement) plus his desire for the reinforcement or desire to sleep.
• Because precise measurement of each of these variables may be beyond the scientific study of human behavior, Rotter proposed a
strategy for predicting general behaviors.
NOTE: Rotter said that it is almost impossible to plug in the right values to the variables of the formula. Predicting specific behavior is
impractical and impossible. So he went on to predict GENERAL PATTERNS OF BEHAVIORS = PERSONALITY.
PREDICTING GENERAL BEHAVIORS
People are generally motivated by their goals and that we will do anything to achieve those goals because we need it.
NEED POTENTIAL (NP) = f(FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT (FM) + NEED VALUE (NV))
NP = f(FM + NV)
Definition of Terms
1. NEED POTENTIAL (NP): a set of behaviors that a person do to achieve a certian goal/reinforcement. The needs are almost the
same as the previous other theories. the possible occurrence of a set of functionally related behaviors directed toward satisfying
the same or similar goals.
• Example, people eat in a fancy retaruant and they may have different goals in doing so. Some wants to eat good food or some
just wants to instagram it for more social approval points.
2. FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT (FM): [expectancy of reinforcement] the expectations of the person that it they perform a st of
behavior it will be reinforced. is analogous to expectancy. It is one’s overall expectation of being reinforced for performing those
behaviors that are directed toward satisfying some general need.
3. NEED VALUE (NV): [priority need] the degree to which she or he prefers one set of reinforcements to another. Rotter, Chance,
and Phares (1972) defined need value as the “mean preference value of a set of functionally related reinforcements” (p. 33).
4. GENERALIZED EXPECTANCIES: prior experience of reinforcements
5. NEEDS/GOALS: (1982) defined needs as any behavior or set of behaviors that people see as moving them in the direction of a
goal.
• Recognition status
• Dominance
• Independence
• Protection/dependency
• Love and affection
• Physical comfort
Example:
Finding out if a couple would last long or not
Love and belongingess becomes their need potential (NP), the probablity of either one or both individuals to do a set of behaviors for
the sake of love and belongingness. Consider the man, what is his freedom of movement, his expectations when loving his partner,
getting rich, will work, become a responsible husband etc., will his expectations go up or not. If the FM is high, his expectations that
his love will be reciprocated will go up. His need value is also high (he looks for love and belongingness) which means if FM and NV
is high that means his NP is also high.
The Case of La Juan
Consider again the case of La Juan, the gifted student whi was having difficulty staing awake in a dull and boring class. A more
generalized prediction formula is needed to predict her need potential for gaining the recognition-status that comes from graduating
with highest honors
• To predict her need potential for working toward graduation with highest honors, we must measure her freedom of movement, that
is, her mean expectancy of beinf reinforced for a series of behaviors necessary to reach her goal, plus her need value of all those
reinforcements: that is, the value she places on recognition-status or any other need she associated with receiving academic
honors.
GENERAL EXPECTANCIES
• Rotter’s general prediction formula allows for people’s history of usuing similar experiences to anticipate present reinforcement.
That is, they have a generalized expectancy for success.
• Rotter’s most popular scales for measuring generalized expectancies is the INTERNAL-EXTERNAL CONTROL SCALE/
LOCUST OF CONTROL
INTERNAL & EXTERNAL CONTROL OF REINFORCEMENT
At the core of Rotter’s social learning theory is the notion that reinforcement does not automatically stamp in behaviors but that people
have the ability to see a causal connection between their own beahvior and the occurence of the reinforcer.
• Studying Hard (behavior) = higher grades (reinforcement); people who beleives in this notion are more likely to have internal
control of reinforcement
• The items in the exam (external) will determine a person’s grade (reinforcement); people who beleive in this notion are more
likely to have external control of reinforcement.
HOW TO MEASURE I-E CONTROL?
To assess internal and external reinforcement, or LOCUS OF CONTROL, Rotter (1986) developed I-E Control Scale, basing it on
the doctoral dissertations of two of his students, E. JERRY PHARES (1955) & WILLIAM H. JAMES (1957)
The I-E Scale attempts to measure the degree to which people perceive a causal relationship between their own efforts and
environmental consequences.
• people who score HIGH on I-Control = source of control resides within themselves and that they exercise a high level of personal
control in most situations
• People who score HIGH on E-Control = their life is largely controlled by forces outside of themselves, such as chance, destiny, or
the behavior of other people.
Common Misconceptions:
1. Scores on the scale are determinants of behavior
2. Locus of control is specific and can predict achievement in a specific situation
3. The scale divides people into two distinct types—internal and external
4. Many people seem to believe that high internal scores signify sociallt desribale traits and that high external scores indicate
socially undesirable characteristics
MALADAPTIVE BEHAVIOR: any persistent behavior that FAILS TO MOVE A PERSON CLOSER TO A DESIRED GOAL
• It frequently, but not inevitably, arises from the combination of high need value and low freedom of movement; that is, from foals
that are unrealistically high in relation to one’s ability to achieve them
• For example, the need for love and affection is realistic, but some people unrealistically set a goal to be loved by everyone. Hence,
their need value nearly exceed their freedom of movement, resulting in behavior that is likely to be defensive or maladaptive
PSYCHOTHERAPY
To Rotter (1964) “the problems of psychotherapy are problems of how to effect changes in beahvior through the interaction of one
person with another. That is, there are problems in human learning in a social situation”
• In general, the goal of Rotter’s therapy is to BRING FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT and NEED VALUE into harmony, thus
reducing defensive and avoidance behaviors.
• The therapist assumes an active role as a teacher and attempts to accomplish the threpeutic goal in two basic ways: (1) changing
the importance of goals, and (2) eliminating unrealistically low expectancies for success.
WALTER MISCHEL & YUICHI SHODA’s
COGNITIVE-AFFECTIVE PERSONALITY SYSTEMS (CAPS)
• It is almost the same as Rotter’s theory in predicting behavior BUT in
this case it is way more complex because they included the trait theory.
The big five and three factor theory can predict behavior but it is not
100%.
• CONSISTENCY PARADOX: on one hand that it legitimizes traitfactor theory to describe and predict behavior but its not the only thing.
Consistency paradox is the observation that a human being's
personality tends to remain the same over time, while their behavior
can change in different situations.
• Mischel was able to solve the consistency paradox using CAPS; he said
that there are some variables or personal variables that may set the
condition that in turn will give variability to our behavior. (Ex. If I get a
score high on oppenness to new experience, but in a scenario where I
am not willing to try a new Starbucks drink; there is a personal variable
present and not only will traits define our behavior.)
• Mischel attempted to merge TRAIT THEORIES and PSYCHODYNAMIC (cognitive/affective dynamics) theories.
• He believed that behavior stems from relatively stable personal dispositions and cognitive-affective processes itneracting with a
particular situation.
• Behavior = (personal dispositions + cognittive affective processes) x situation
• Mischel’s objection to the use of traits as predictors rested not with their temporal instabilitiy but with their inconsistency from on
situation to another. He saw that many basic dispositions can be stable over a long period of time
- High conscientiousness people may be conscientious with regards to their work but cannot clean his/her place
• Personal dispositions influence behavior only under certain conditions and in certain situations.
• Neither the situation alone nore stable personality traits alone determine behavior. Rather, behavior is a product of both
• Mischel and Shoda have proposed a cognitive-affective personality system that attempts to reconcile these two approaches to
predicting human behavior.
PERSONAL FACTORS THAT CAN AFFECT BEHAVIOR
1. Perception
2. Beliefs
3. Values
4. Goals
5. Cognitions
6. Feelings
• Apparent inconsistencies in a person’s behavior are due neither to random error nor solely to the situation. Rather, they are
potentially predictable behaviors that reflect stable patterns of variation within a person.
• Variations in behavior can be conceptualized in this framework: if A, then X; but if B then Y.
• This theory does NOT suggest that behaviors are an outgrowth of stable, global personality traits.
• BEHAVIORAL SIGNATURE OF PERSONALITY: his consistent maner of varying his behavior in particular situations.
BEHAVIOR PREDICTION
• If personality is a stable system that processes the information about situations, external and internal, then it follows that as
individuals encounter different situations, their behaviors should vary across the situations.
• It also assumes that prediction of behavior rests on a knowledge of how and when various cognitive-affective units are activated.
COGNITIVE AFFECTIVE UNITS (CAUs)
In 1973, Mischel proposed a set of five overlapping, relatively stable person variables that interact with the situation to determine
behavior. More than 30 years of research have caused Mischel and his associates to broaden their conception of these variables, which
they call cognitive-affective units (Mischel, 1999, 2004; Mischel & Ayduk, 2002; Mischel & Shoda, 1995, 1998, 1999).
1. CAU 1: ENCODING STRATEGIES — people’s ways of categorizing information received from external stimuli. People use
cognitive processes to transform these stimuli into personal constructs, including their self-concept, their view of other people,
and their way of looking at the world.
2. CAU 2: COMPETENCIES & SELF-REGULATORY STRATEGIES — it is somewhat the same with Albert Bandura’s Self
Efficacy; Our beliefs in what we can do relate to our competencies. Mischel (1990) used the term “competencies” to refer to that
vast array of information we acquire about the world and our relationship to it. By observing our own behaviors and those of
others, we learn what we can do in a particular situation as well as what we cannot do. Mischel agreed with Bandura that we do
not attend to all stimuli in our environment; rather, we selectively construct or generate our own version of the real world. Thus,
we acquire a set of beliefs about our performance capabilities, often in the absence of actual performance. OUR BELIEFS IN
WHAT WE CAN DO
3. CAU 3: EXPECTANCIES AND BELIEFS — Any situation presents an enormous number of behavioral potentials, but how
people behave depends on their specific expectancies and beliefs about the consequences of each of the different behavioral
possibilities. Knowledge of people’s hypotheses or beliefs concerning the outcome of any situation is a better predictor of
behavior than is knowledge of their ability to perform (Mischel et al., 2002).
4. CAU 4 : GOALS AND VALUES — People do not react passively to situations but are active and goal directed. They formulate
goals, devise plans for attaining their goals, and in part create their own situations. People’s subjective goals, values, and
preferences represent a fourth cognitive-affective unit.
5. CAU 5: AFFECTIVE RESPONSES — Affective responses include emotions, feelings, and physiological reactions. Mischel
sees affective responses as inseparable from cognitions and regards the interlocking cognitive-affective units as more basic than
the other cognitive-affective units. Emotions are cognition, but are not logical.
NOTE: The five cognitive-affective units are encoding (how information is processed, stored, and used), beliefs/expectations (what
outcomes an individual expects from their actions), goals/values (life goals and rewards for behavior), affect (how a person reacts
emotionally), and competencies/self-regulation (general intelligence, knowledge, and abilities). These units vary between individuals
and personality develops according to how these cognitive-affective qualities interact with situational variables and the environment.
CRITIQUE OF CAPS
High Rating in…
1. Falsifiability
2. Generation of Research
3. Organization of Data
4. Internal Consistency
5. Parsimony
Low Rating in…
1. Psychotherapy