Social learning approach to personality

Tema	Anglų kalba
Tipas	Topikas
Aprašymas	In contrast to both trait and psychodynamic approaches to personality, social learning (further S.C.) approaches emphasize the importance of environmental, or situational, determinants of behavior. For S.C. theorists, behavior is the result of a continuous interaction between personal and environmental variables.
Patalpinta	2005-05-09
Parsisiuntė	240
	Parsisiųsti4 KB

Išsamus aprašymas

Environmental conditions shape behavior through learning; a person’s behavior, in turn, shapes the environment. Persons and situations influence each other reciprocally (abipusishkai). To predict behavior, we need to know how the characteristics of the individual interact with the characteristics of the situation. The S.C. approach is the contemporary descendent of behaviorism and its outgrowth, stimulus-response psychology, which were dominant in the first half of this century.
Like the psychoanalytic approach, the S.C. approach to personality is very deterministic. In contrast to the psychoanalytic approach, however, it pays very little attention to biological determinants. Like its parent, behaviorism, the social learning approach has been strongly influenced by the ideas of Darwin. The processes of learning shape the individual’s behavioral repertoire to be adaptive to his or her environment.
Through its emphasis on specifying the environmental variables that evoke specific behaviors, S.C. theory has made a major contribution to both clinical psychology and personality theory. It has led us to see human actions as reactions to specific environments, and it has helped us to focus on the way in which environments control our behavior and how they can be changed to modify behavior. The careful application of learning principles has proved successful in changing maladaptive behavior. S.C. theorists have also challenged the notion that individuals are cross-situanionally consistent, forcing other personality theorists to reexamine the fundamental assumptions of their approaches.
S.C. theorists have been criticized for overemphasizing the importance of situational influences on behavior and thus losing the person in personality psychology. Many personality theorists are unwilling to concede that personality has as little cross-situational consistency as social learning implies.

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