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 likely
to occur.
Punishment Presentation of a stimulus that
makes 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 process
of:
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
peoples 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 Error
The tendency to discount the role of the
situation in affecting a persons behavior
and to over-estimate the importance of personal
or dispositional factors.

Why do we commit this error?


A key point of Lovaglias: 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 usAffirmations 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 Conditioning
Modeling
Direct Experience
Genetic Factors
Cognitive Dissonance Theory
Overturns 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 cant 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 INTERACTIONISM
George Herbert Mead
Herbert Blumer coined the term, symbolic
interactionism

Blumers 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 Ones 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 & Listening
What do we mean when we say to our interaction
partner: Are you listening to me?!

Listening requires our responsive attention.

pseudo-listening We really arent 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 emotional
responses 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_mir
ror_01.html

PERSON PERCEPTION
Data-------------------------Theory
physical behavior dispositional traits
verbal behavior (personality
appearance characteristics)

Biases:
1. Primacy Effect People rely more heavily on the
first information they get on a person and tend to discount
later information.
2. Implicit Personality Theory Network of assumptions people
make about the relationship among traits and behaviors.
3. Stereotypes Given a group membership, we assume traits
about 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 Error
2. 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 to
attribute positive outcomes to our own
dispositions and negative outcomes to
situational causes.
4. Self-Defeating Bias Undesirable behavior is
attributed to negative aspects of the self.
Harold Kelleys 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 actors behavior to others.
(low consensus implies personal cause;
high consensus implies situational cause)

3. Consistency Observe actors 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 companys desire to sell the product, or to
actual, positive attributes of the product?)
Socialization
Socialization is the process by which we acquire
those modes of thinking, acting, and feeling that
enable us to participate in the larger human community.

Agents of Socialization are persons or institutions
which influence our thoughts and behaviors.
Examples?

Reciprocal Socialization Recognizes that socialization
is 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 Theory
Socialization is a process by which the individual develops from
simple to complex. 4 stages:

1. Sensorimotor
object permanence, cause-effect, recognitory schemes
2. Pre-Operational
knowledge of symbols
3. Concrete Operational
concrete operations such as conservation
and serialization
4. Formal Operational
abstract thought
Socialization
Developmental psychologist Erik Erikson
8 Psychosocial Stages:
1. Trust vs. Mistrust
2. Autonomy vs. Doubt
3. Initiative vs. Guilt
4. Industry vs. Inferiority
5. Identity vs. Role Confusion
6. Intimacy vs. Isolation
7. Generativity vs. Self-Absorption
8. Integrity vs. Despair

Socialization
Piagets Theory of Moral Development
1. The Pre-Moral Period
2. Heteronomous Morality Strong respect for
rules. Child is likely to judge the
naughtiness of an act by its objective
consequences rather than the actors
intent.
3. Autonomous Morality Rules are viewed as
arbitrary agreements that can be
challenged.


Socialization
Kohlbergs 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 are
step-wise and sequential i.e., people go through the
stages one after another. Butmight individuals
regress in their morality? Also, might ones actual
behavior fail to correspond to his/her moral judgments?

GENDER ROLE SOCIALIZATION


Freuds Psychoanalytic Theory The key is the
process 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
Cooleys 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. Meads 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.