Personality Psychology Chapter 10 - PDF

PERSONALITY PSYCHOLOGY CHAPTER 10 BEHAVIORISM  Basic Overview of behavioral theories  Classical Conditioning: Conditioned/Unconditioned stimulus/response (on board) (including generalization and discrimination, as well as extinction)  Operant Conditioning (including functions of behavio...

PERSONALITY PSYCHOLOGY CHAPTER 10 BEHAVIORISM  Basic Overview of behavioral theories  Classical Conditioning: Conditioned/Unconditioned stimulus/response (on board) (including generalization and discrimination, as well as extinction)  Operant Conditioning (including functions of behavior)  Learning theory  If I had to summarize behavioral theory in two sentences: the human mind is like a machine; we can influence it by linking outside events to internal physical experiences, or rewarding/punishing behavior. This theory is deterministic in that outside forces or prior events determine what will happen later. BEHAVIORISM  Important to remember: to a behavioralist, thoughts and feelings are behaviors, but can also be stimulii. We use terms like “internal verbal behavior” or “learned response”  To a strict behavioralist, we wouldn’t really need to study personality. Instead, variability between humans can be explained through rewards and punishments. Our theories of personality describe behaviors which were influenced by the environment.  Important factor: situational specificity of behavior supports this.  Discussion: What do you guys think? Why do you like or dislike this theory? Why does it seem odd to many people that this is my chosen theoretical orientation? BEHAVIORISM  So how do we study behavior?  Animals! We use rats, pigeons (Skinner trained some pigeons to guide missles!), etc.  Why?  Ethics  Direct observation (unlike other theories)  Simplicity  Control  Four points of emphasis in behavioral theory:  Empirical research is the cornerstone of theory and practice (this is much different from other theories!)  Personality theory and practice should be based on principles of learning  Behavior is responsive to reinforcement variables in the environment and is situation specific  The medical symptom-disease view of psychopathology is rejected, and emphasis placed on learning and behavior change BEHAVIORISM  What might this look like in practice? (AKA, why this is my jam)  Applied Behavior Analysis - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPfErTUYNkY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWR3AUu_iRs  Mood Tracking  Behavioral Tracking  Contingency Management  Does it make more sense now as a explanation for behavior/personality? BEHAVIORISM  John Watson  Founded behaviorism at U of C.  Focused on animals, Baby Albert then on marketing  Pavlov  We talked about him and his dogs  His work led to conditioned emotional reactions when linked with Watson’s work  Then we moved on to change – uses for extinction BEHAVIORAL THEORIES  Psychopathology and change  Back to the initial information: the concepts of discrimination, generalization and extinction  When these are applied to human emotions, we have “conditioned emotional reactions” – The Little Albert experiments  Little Albert generalized his fear to all white, fuzzy objects  We can use the concept of extinction to treat psychopathology  Extinction means pairing the feared stimulus (CR) with either a positive stimulus, or no stimulus. In time, the association breaks  Let’s talk on the board about extinction and how it works in therapy we call this systematic desensitization (where we use a hierarchy of fear). I’ll share an example.  We also use counterconditioning which uses an incompatible response (like relaxation)  We often see an extinction burst, which makes people feel like they’re getting worse BEHAVIORAL THEORIES  How might these theories explain/apply to racism?  How might these theories explain/apply to depression? Anxiety?  How might these theories explain/apply to drug addiction? BEHAVIORAL THEORIES  BF Skinner  Skinner read Watson and Pavlov and used the operant conditioning procedure to control environments and produce lots of animal behavior  He also used this to create a “baby box” (which was not as drastic as some might say)  He wrote a book called Walden Two  His emphasis was on rewards – they are more powerful and produce longer-lasting effects than punishments. Furthermore, they’re easier to control BEHAVIORAL THEORIES  Skinner’s theory of personality:  Structure – less important than others, but focused on operants (the behaviors of an organism that are NOT caused directly by outside forces)  Process – Operant Conditioning  This includes generalized reinforcers (reinforcers that associate with other reinforcers)  Schedules of reinforcement – variable, interval, fixed and ratio (on the board)  Shaping – getting closer to the target behavior  Growth and Development – Not emphasized, but we learn through operants  Psychopathology/Change – All psychopathology can be explained by behaviorism BEHAVIORAL THEORIES  So how do we assess behaviorally?  Functional analysis/ABC assessment  We must operationalized each part, and look for function