PERSONALITY

PSYCHOLOGY
Week 8
Fall 2022
Hajrah Rahman
WHAT IS BEHAVIOURISM?

This school of thought believes that:

• All behaviours are learnt and acquired through experience
• The environment determines human behaviour
• Only observable actions can be studied scientifically
• Internal processes behind behaviour (e.g. moods or cognition) cannot be studied or observed so
they are explained in behavioural terms
• Any (realistic) behaviours or abilities could be taught regardless of individual differences by
conditioning
 THE HISTORY OF
BEHAVIOURIST THEORIES
Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936)
• Examined digestive processes in dogs with assistants bringing them food
• Dogs would start salivating at the sight of the assistant
• i.e. the dogs had become conditioned to associate the assistant with food

• Salivating was a conditioned response

Classical conditioning
• This involves an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) being paired with a neutral
stimulus to achieve a conditioned response (CR)
• If a CR is achieved, the formerly neutral stimulus has become a conditioned
stimulus (CS)
• If the CS appears without the UCS too much, the CR becomes extinct

• Spontaneous recovery occurs if the CR reappears in time

 John Broadus Watson (1878-1958)
• Inspired by Pavlov’s findings on classical conditioning
• Wanted to see how they could be used on people (specifically infants)
• Carried out the controversial ‘Little Albert’ experiment with Rosalie Rayner in 1920
• A 9 to 11-month old infant was conditioned to fear previously neutral stimuli like rabbits, mice and masks
after they were paired with a loud noise behind him
• Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGn_EoHiOvc

Methodological behaviourism
• Watson believed that people were like a
blank slate (tabula rasa) and would be
shaped by their environment
• Behaviour could be understood only by
studying what was observable i.e. not
the internal processes behind it

Little Albert with a rabbit before conditioning Little Albert with a rabbit after conditioning
Edward L. Thorndike (1874-1949)
• Tested learning skills in cats by putting them in a puzzle box and
placing food out of reach outside the box
• The cats would learn how to open the box’s latches so it could
reach the food
• In later attempts, it would be able to exit the box faster as it
understood what it had to do
• Thorndike called this the Law of Effect
• Behaviours and actions that led to feelings of satisfaction (i.e. being able to eat the
food) would be more likely to be repeated
• Behaviours and actions that led to feelings of discomfort would be unlikely to be
repeated
BURRHUS FREDERIC SKINNER (1904-1990)
• Born in Pennsylvania, USA, and had a happy childhood
• Was a keen inventor as a child; in adulthood, he created the ‘Skinner
box’ as well as other inventions like the baby tender
• Majored in English but was initially an unsuccessful novelist
• Studied psychology at Harvard
• Worked on Project Pigeon during WWII
• Had a ‘dark year’ and identity crises in his life which lasted for a long
time
• Published his sci-fi novel Walden Two in 1948
• Taught as a professor at the University of Minnesota, Indiana
University and Harvard
• Received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American
Psychological Association in August 1990
• Died of leukaemia less than two weeks later
SKINNER’S PERSONALITY
THEORY
What do you think Skinner believed about the personality?

Radical behaviourism
 The person’s behaviours and environmental influences better explain their psychological state
than internal processes
 Everything we do is because we have been conditioned to do so i.e. our individual differences
would be due to the different environmental and learning experiences we have had
 What traits we have, they do not determine our behaviour
SKINNER’S EXPERIMENTS
Skinner was influenced by Thorndike’s research on animals
learning behaviours

The operant conditioning chamber AKA the Skinner Box

• Had a controlled sound-and light-proof environment
• Pressing/pecking a lever or key could lead to a positive outcome
(e.g. food pellets) or stopping a negative outcome (e.g. the floor
being electrified until then)

Learning was observed by the changes in the rate of responding

If the behaviour stops resulting in positive or negative outcomes,

it will eventually stop - extinction
OPERANT
CONDITIONING
This type of conditioning changes the likelihood of behaviours and actions being repeated
• i.e. either the behaviour increases or decreases

 Reinforcement – increases the likelihood of the behaviour/rate of responding

• Positive reinforcers – being given desirable stimuli e.g. the food pellets

• Negative reinforcers – removing unpleasant stimuli e.g. the lever stopping electric shocks

 Reinforcers can be primary (unlearned) or secondary (learned)

 Punishment – decreases the likelihood of the behaviour/rate of responding

• Positive punishers – being given aversive stimuli e.g. the lever causing electric shocks

• Negative punishers – taking away desirable stimuli e.g. food being taken away

Can you think of examples of operant conditioning from your life?

Given gold stars to encourage work Studying to avoid poor grades

Being scolded when using swear words Tablet access being taken away when misbehaving
SCHEDULES OF
REINFORCEMENT
When learning behaviours, should reinforcement occur after every action?

Continuous reinforcement occurs every time the desirable behaviour happens

• Leads to faster learning of behaviour but that is more likely to fall to extinction if reinforcement does not occur

Partial/intermittent reinforcement occurs occasionally after a desired behaviour happens

• Causes slower learning of behaviour but is more likely to resist extinction if reinforcement does not occur

The 4 basic intermittent reinforcement schedules are:

• Fixed-interval
• Variable-interval
• Fixed-ratio
• Variable-ratio

Which schedule would be the most resistant to extinction?

DISCUSSI
ON
How do you think behaviours would be learnt when there is no reinforcement?
• Would they not be learnt?

• If there is no reinforcement, the behaviour will stop i.e. extinction

Skinner believed that all behaviours, including complex processes, could be explained by
operant conditioning
• i.e. our ‘personality’ consisted of operant behaviours

What do you think about this belief?

What other factors could affect operant conditioning?

 Deprivation and Satiation

• The effectiveness of a particular consequence will depend on the need or desire for it

 Stimulus Generalisation and Discrimination

• Responding to stimuli similar to the CS in the same or different manner
REMEMBER…
 B.F. Skinner had primarily worked with and observed animals

 Could the same research and results be applied to humans?

• e.g. ‘superstitious’ behaviour in pigeons

• Yes, humans do display superstitious behaviour

• What could be problems with generalizing the animal studies’ results on people?
BEHAVIOURAL TECHNIQUES
Therapies that use classical conditioning:
Exposure therapy
 Systematic desensitization
• Joseph Wolpe (1958)
• The individual is exposed to the stimuli that causes anxiety/fear
at gradually increasing levels
• Has been used for anxiety disorders and phobias

 Flooding
 Directly exposing the individual to the stimuli that causes
anxiety/fear
 Can be distressing for certain individuals
Aversion therapy
• Pairing an aversive stimulus with the stimulus that causes
‘maladaptive’ behaviour
• The person associates discomfort with the undesirable
behaviour
• Has been used to stop unwanted habits (e.g. nail biting) or
substance use
• Should be used with proper consent

Covert sensitisation
• A milder form of aversion therapy The Ludovico Technique from A Clockwork Orange

• Involves imagining yourself partaking in the undesirable

behaviour and imagining a discomfort
• The use of aversive imagery is such that imagining leaving that
situation leads to relief
Therapies that use operant conditioning:
Token economy
• Initially used for negative symptoms of schizophrenia
• Increasing desired behaviour/decreasing unwanted
behaviour by tokens as reinforcers
• Tokens have no value of their own but can be traded for
other things

Applied behaviour analysis

• Using the Antecedent-Behaviour-Consequence (ABC)
approach to modify behaviours
• Chaining – breaking up tasks into steps in order
• Shaping – specific behaviours taught by reinforcing
• Fading – reducing the need for assistance with tasks
• Controversial in the ‘treatment’ of autism
TIME-
OUTS
 Coined by Arthur W. Staats
 Giving the child a ‘time-out’ from positive reinforcers by
removing them from that environment
 Used as discipline in children
 Time-out would end when the undesirable behaviour did

How effective do you think time-outs would be for behaviour

modification?
OVERVI
EW
According to behaviourists:
• Your personality is what you do
• Behaviour is determined by your interaction with external factors
• People’s behaviour can be changed by modifying/manipulating the environment
• Individual differences are accounted by the differences in the learning environments
• Unhealthy behaviours persist because they have been reinforced e.g. gambling
CRITICIS
M
 Skinner explained learning without the internal cognitive processes
• e.g. Skinner’s ‘verbal behaviour’ explanation for language has been criticized (including by Noam
Chomsky) i.e. that language is learnt by imitating others
 Behaviours of animals being generalized to people
 Reductionist and does not look an internal processes
 Lack of free will in the theories
BIBLIOGRAPHY
 Cloninger Susan, C. (2013). Theories of personality: Understanding persons. Cram101, Incorporated.

 Ewen, R. B. (2014). An introduction to theories of personality. Psychology Press.

 Feist G. J. Roberts T.-A. & Feist J. (2021). Theories of personality (Tenth). McGraw Hill Education.

 Lim, A (2020, July 02). Schedules of reinforcement. Simply Psychology. Retrieved 25 th October, 2022 from:
www.simplypsychology.org/schedules-of-reinforcement.html
 McLeod, S. A. (2018). Edward Thorndike. Simply Psychology. Retrieved 24 th October, 2022 from:
www.simplypsychology.org/edward-thorndike.html
 McLeod, S. A. (2021). Aversion Therapy. Retrieved 26 th October, 2022 from:
https://www.simplypsychology.org/aversion-therapy.html
 Schultz, D. P., & Schultz, S. E. (2016). Theories of personality. Cengage Learning.

 Sincero, S. M. (2012). Behaviourist Theories of Personality. Retrieved 24 th October, 2022 from Explorable.com: 
https://explorable.com/behaviourist-theories-of-personality
 http://www.minddisorders.com/Br-Del/Covert-sensitization.html

 https://www.thoughtco.com/abc-antecedent-behavior-and-consequence-3111263

 https://www.verywellmind.com/behavioral-psychology-4157183

 https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-a-skinner-box-2795875