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Personality Theory

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Title: Personality Theory


1
Personality Theory
  • Chapter 12 Learning Theories of Personality The
    S-R Theory of John Dollard and Neal Miller

2
An Introduction to S-R Theory
  • The distinction between content and process in
    theories of personality
  • Psychoanalysis and its derivative theories are
    content theories.
  • They propose structural concepts (e.g., id, ego,
    self-dynamism) that are hypothetical components
    of personality.
  • They are concerned with the content of mental
    life, both unconscious and conscious.

3
  • Learning theories are concerned with process -
    how behaviour is learned, maintained, and
    changed.
  • Radical behaviourist theories focus only on
    observable behaviour
  • Other learning theories of personality (S-R
    theory, the theories of Rotter and Bandura) make
    inferences to covert processes.

4
  • Learning theories have profited from the clinical
    evidence of content theories
  • e.g., the nature of personality disorder, details
    of child development.
  • S-R theory originated in the 1930s with Dollard,
    Miller, and other members of the Yale Institute
    of Human Relations.
  • It was based on the learning theory of Yale
    professor Clark Hull.

5
  • Its antecedents were Dollards Caste and Class in
    a Southern Town, Dollard et al.s Frustration and
    Aggression, and Miller and Dollards Social
    Learning and Imitation.
  • Frustration and Aggression introduced the
    approach, based on principles and conditions of
    learning.
  • Frustration and Aggression proposed that
    frustration is a significant condition for
    aggression.
  • Many studies confirmed this basic relation.

6
  • Dollard and Miller took the principles-conditions
    idea and the theory of learning to social
    psychology, studying imitation in the acquisition
    of social behaviour.
  • In 1950, they turned to personality, disorders of
    personality, and the process (psychotherapy) by
    which normality is learned.

7
John Dollard
  • John Dollard was born in 1900 in Menasha,
    Wisconsin.
  • After the death of his father, his mother moved
    with the children to Madison, WI, so the children
    might attend the university there.

8
  • He earned a BA at 22, then worked at the
    university
  • Met physicist Max Mason, who took an interest in
    Dollard and brought him to the University of
    Chicago when he became the university president.
  • He obtained his PhD in sociology in 1931.
  • Greatly influenced by the Chicago sociologists,
    especially Edward Sapir

9
  • Awarded a travelling fellowship, he went to
    Germany to study psychoanalysis
  • Completed a training analysis with Hanns Sachs,
    and was supervised in the treatment of control
    patients by Karen Horney.
  • Invited to join Yale Institute of Human Relations
    as research associate

10
  • An extraordinary career at Yale in sociology,
    psychology, and psychoanalysis
  • Among his books Caste and Class in a Southern
    Town Frustration and Aggression (with Miller and
    others) Social Learning and Imitation (with
    Miller) Personality and Psychotherapy (with
    Miller) Steps in Psychotherapy (with Auld and
    White)

11
  • Honoured as a teacher and pioneer, he died in
    1980.

12
Neal Miller
  • Neal Miller was born in Milwaukee, WI, in 1909.
  • His family moved to Washington state where his
    father became professor of educational
    psychology.
  • He earned a BA at University of Washington
    (1931), an MA from Stanford (1932), and a PhD
    from Yale (1935) under learning theorist Clark
    Hull.

13
  • Granted the same fellowship as Dollard, he went
    to Vienna in 1935-6 to study psychoanalysis.
  • He was analyzed by Heinz Hartmann.
  • He returned to Yale and the Institute of Human
    Relations
  • He conducted experimental studies of S-R theory
    hypotheses, developing the theory and writing
    collaboratively with Dollard and others.

14
  • Went to Rockefeller University in 1966 to study
    the physiological basis of drives and the
    voluntary basis of autonomic responses, important
    in biofeedback.
  • Awarded the National Medal of Science in 1964.
  • Died at age 92 in 2002

15
Emphases
  • The S-R theory mantra drive, cue, response,
    reward.
  • Learning requires
  • The arousal of a drive.
  • Cues or stimuli that identify the response to be
    made, where, and when.
  • The response when drive is aroused and cues are
    present.
  • That the response be rewarded.

16
  • Drives motivate behaviour through the arousal of
    drive stimuli.
  • Hunger, thirst, and sexual arousal are examples
    of primary drives whose drive stimuli are
    familiar.
  • There are also many secondary drives
  • e.g., approval, affection.
  • Fear is a notable secondary drive.
  • Secondary drives are learned during socialization.

17
  • Responses that are instrumental in reducing drive
    stimuli are reinforced and are likely to be
    repeated.
  • This is the basis of reinforcement (reward).
  • The basic concept in S-R theory is habit
  • Habit is a learned association between stimuli
    and a response.

18
  • The relation between drive and habit strength is
    multiplicative
  • R (response) D X H (habit).
  • This is necessary since zero drive or zero habit
    strength will not result in behaviour.
  • Strong stimulation arouses both drive stimuli and
    internal responses
  • e.g., emotional responses, muscular contractions,
    and thoughts.

19
The Major Concepts of S-R Theory
  • Dollard and Miller follow Freud in using neurosis
    as a model for personality processes in general.
    Thus, they adopt the continuity assumption.
  • Psychotherapy gives us a window to mental life,
    a way to look in on thinking, learning,
    unconscious processes, and child development.
    Necessarily, this must be done with neurotic
    patients.

20
  • What is a neurosis?
  • Mowrers concept of the neurotic paradox
    behaviour that is self-perpetuating and
    self-defeating
  • An particular problem for learning theories to
    explain.

21
  • In neurosis, we have to account for
  • Its persistence
  • How it generalizes
  • Why neurotic people cant use their minds to
    solve their problems

22
  • The nature of learning
  • Learning is systematic and involves the
    replacement of responses in an initial hierarchy
    by learned responses in a resultant hierarchy.
  • Learning dilemmas cause non-reinforced responses
    to extinguish so that new responses may occur.

23
  • Learned responses reduce drive stimuli.
  • We can classify drives as primary (e.g., hunger)
    and learned (secondary), which develop in
    association with primary drives early in life.
  • There are primary and secondary reinforcements.
  • Secondary reinforcements acquire their
    reinforcing ability through association with
    primary drive reduction in early childhood.

24
  • Cues determine when and where responses will be
    made, and which responses will be chosen.
  • Cues may be external stimuli or produced by the
    person.
  • These are response-produced cues.
  • Cue-producing responses direct much of our
    thinking and facilitate generalization and
    discrimination.

25
  • The basis of neurosis lies in the association of
    fear with situational cues.
  • Fear then may become attached to thoughts (of the
    fearful situation) and to emotional arousal to
    it.
  • This is secondary generalization.

26
  • Fear-reducing responses may include stopping
    thinking about the source of fear.
  • This is the S-R theory analysis of repression.

27
  • An experimental model of fear arousal and
    avoidance learning
  • An animal is shocked in one compartment of a
    2-compartment apparatus and can escape through
    open door
  • Subsequently, when placed in this compartment
    without shock, it immediately escapes.

28
  • Next, the animal must turn a small paddle wheel
    to escape. It learns to do this to reduce fear.
  • So, fear is a learned drive and fear reduction a
    learned reinforcement.
  • Animals or people (children) can also be taught
    what not to do.
  • This is passive avoidance learning.
  • We train children to inhibit dangerous or hurtful
    responses.

29
  • Passive avoidance learning can be enduring if
    punishment is strong, and it can block normal
    behaviour.
  • Fear is important because it can be intense, can
    be readily become attached to new cues, and
    because it is a significant the motive in most
    conflicts.

30
  • A theory of psychological conflict
  • The most significant conflicts in neurosis are
    between fear and approach motivation
    (approach-avoidance) and between 2 feared
    alternatives (avoidance-avoidance).
  • Conflict sufferers are unable to approach and
    vacillate at a distance from the feared goal.
  • They are in misery.

31
  • Faced with avoidance-avoidance alternatives, the
    person vacillates at a point equidistant from
    each feared possibility.

32
Millers Conflict ModelApproach-Avoidance
Conflict
  • Four Assumptions
  • The tendency to approach a goal increases with
    nearness (gradient of approach).
  • The tendency to avoid a feared goal increases
    with nearness (gradient of avoidance).
  • The gradient of avoidance is steeper than the
    gradient of avoidance.
  • Increasing motivation to approach will increase
    conflict and misery.

33
The Conflict ModelAvoidance-Avoidance Conflict
  • Gradients of approach or avoidance of two
    situations, X and Y.
  • If X and Y elicit approach, then a person
    starting at P will go to X since strength of
    approach gradient at P is greater.
  • If X and Y elicit avoidance, a person starting at
    P will retreat to intersection of gradients and
    vacillate in misery.

34
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35
Personality Development
  • The learning of neurosis is a model for
    personality development.
  • Normal and neurotic personalities start early in
    life.
  • Childhood learning is difficult, both for
    helpless and dependent infants and for parents
    who lack knowledge and skill.
  • Its a pity we dont have a science of
    childrearing that can be taught readily to
    parents.

36
  • Learning in early childhood is difficult. Small
    children have major things to learn under
    conditions of strong drive and the absence of
    language.
  • Essential generalization and discrimination are
    thus much harder.

37
  • There are four critical child training
    situations.
  • Feeding
  • Cleanliness training
  • Early sex training
  • Anger management training

38
  • The feeding situation.
  • Hunger is a strong drive, and parents may not be
    alert to the intensity their infants experience.
  • Leaving an infant alone to cry itself out is
    bad practice.
  • Weaning is a challenge to parents and infants.
  • This is a critical period for socialization, and
    poor training can have disastrous lasting
    consequences.

39
  • Cleanliness training.
  • Freud was correct in pointing out that the
    effects of cleanliness training go beyond the
    learning of toilet habits.
  • Cultural attitudes of revulsion tend to make
    parents impatient and angry.

40
  • Early sex training.
  • Sexual exploration and growing up often occur in
    a family atmosphere of secrecy.
  • Labeling of drive arousal is difficult.
  • Emotional intensity may be high.
  • Embarrassment and guilt may be inculcated by
    moralistic parents.

41
  • Anger management training.
  • Children do become angry
  • Parents are often intolerant of angry displays
  • Creates fear and resentment.

42
  • Correct labelling of feelings, drives, and
    thoughts is important, but parents sometimes
    teach their children to mislabel.
  • Cognitive distortions and defences such as
    repression may be the result.

43
  • Dollard and Miller singled out these 4
    childrearing situations because they contain the
    seeds of problems that may appear in adult
    neurosis.
  • Remember that we need to know about the
    conditions of learning.

44
Research
  • A significant feature of S-R theory is the amount
    of experimental and field research on its
    hypotheses
  • A major sociological study of racial
    discrimination in the U.S. South.
  • Experimental studies of the role of imitation in
    social learning.
  • The effects of frustration on aggression.
  • Experimental studies of learnable drives,
    especially fear.

45
  • Experimental tests of conflict theory assumptions
    used rats
  • Measured the strength of pull toward food in the
    goalbox (approach) and away from the same goalbox
    after shock.
  • Gradients of approach and avoidance established,
    with a steeper avoidance gradient
  • In the approach-avoidance conflict, the animals
    approached part way, then stopped, showing signs
    of fear and indecision.
  • Said Miller The same thing is observed
    clinically.

46
  • Studies of displacement
  • Displacement occurs when people cannot respond to
    a target person and direct their responses to a
    substitute person.
  • Some (reduced) gratification is obtained.
  • Dollard and Miller displacement is an instance
    of stimulus generalization,
  • The response (e.g., aggression) is directed
    toward a similar substitute target.
  • We cant curse schoolteachers or professors, but
    we can yell at our roommates.

47
  • The process the target (e.g., of anger) is
    inaccessible because of fear or remoteness.
  • Anger is directed at the most similar target.
  • The greater the anger, the more dissimilar the
    target may be.
  • This is a gradient of stimulus generalization.

48
  • An animal experiment
  • 2 rats are shocked in a small compartment.
  • A high probability response is to rear up, and
    its likely the rats will strike each other.
  • This terminates the shock.
  • Now one rat is removed, and the remaining animal
    is shocked.
  • Result It strikes a small celluloid doll.

49
  • A human experiment.
  • Men at a remote work camp are promised a rare
    movie, but have to take some tests first.
  • In the control group, this is just what happens.
  • In the experimental group, the tests are
    prolonged and the movie cant be shown.
  • One of the tests measures attitudes toward
    Hispanic Americans.
  • Negative attitudes and hostility are greater in
    the experimental group.

50
S-R Theory in Perspective
  • An exemplary theory.
  • It uses process concepts from the psychology of
    learning.
  • It casts the clinical observations of
    psychoanalysis in process terms.
  • Concepts of the theory were examined in detail in
    experimental studies.

51
  • It did have its critics.
  • Radical behaviourists objected that Dollard and
    Miller made inferences to unobservable events and
    didnt stick to observable behaviour.
  • Psychoanalysts thought it too simple in its
    analysis of neurosis, defenses and symptoms, and
    social behaviour.
  • Remember that psychoanalysts were deeply
    committed to Freudian theory and accepted its
    scientific validity.

52
  • Cognitive psychology thought the basic unit of
    S-R theory - the habit - too discrete and
    mechanical. S-R theory did not deal well with
    processes and concepts.
  • S-R theory was a bridge to modern cognitive
    psychology and made significant contributions.

53
  • Its analysis of psychotherapy is rich with ideas
    on how to approach and treat neurotic patients,
    and how their relearning proceeds.

54
Take-Home Messages
  • S-R theory is a process theory based on concepts
    from the psychology of learning.
  • It does not have structural concepts or emphasize
    mental content.
  • Beginnings in the Yale University Institute of
    Human Relations.
  • Emphasis on principles and conditions of learning.

55
  • A research-based theory
  • Experimental studies of basic hypotheses (e.g.,
    fear as a learnable drive)
  • Studies of major social questions and problems
  • Racial prejudice
  • Frustration and aggression
  • Imitation and social behaviour
  • Personality and psychotherapy

56
  • Personal histories
  • John Dollard
  • PhD, sociology, Univ. of Chicago
  • Trained in psychoanalysis
  • Research associate, Yale Institute of Human
    Relations
  • Sociologist, anthropologist, psychologist,
    psychoanalyst
  • Research and theory building with Neal Miller and
    others

57
  • Neal Elgar Miller
  • PhD, Yale University
  • Trained in psychoanalysis
  • Professor, Yale Institute of Human Relations
  • Research and theory building with Dollard and
    other Institute members
  • Rockefeller University in 1966 to study
    physiological basis of drives

58
  • Emphases in S-R theory
  • The basic elements in learning drive, cue,
    response, reward.
  • Primary and secondary (learned) drives.
  • Reinforcement reduces drive stimuli.
  • The central concept of habit
  • R D X H (remember why this is multiplicative)
  • Internal responses (physiological, cognitive) can
    produce stimuli with drive properties.

59
  • Major concepts of S-R theory
  • Using neurosis and psychotherapy to study
    personality and personality change
  • Neurotic paradox self-defeating and
    self-perpetuating behaviour
  • A critical concept fear, a learnable drive
  • A critical distinction between primary and
    secondary (learned) drives
  • The distinction between primary and secondary
    reinforcements

60
  • Cues guide behaviour.
  • Note both external and response-produced cues.
  • The basis of neurosis is fear associated with
    fear-arousing cues.
  • Defenses and symptoms reduce fear.

61
  • An experimental test of fear as a learnable drive
  • Remember passive avoidance learning.
  • The role of stimulus generalization in fear
    arousal.

62
  • A theory of conflict
  • 4 assumptions
  • Approach-avoidance
  • Avoidance-avoidance

63
  • Personality development
  • 4 critical child training situations
  • Feeding
  • Cleanliness training
  • Early sex training
  • Anger management training
  • We dont have a science of child-rearing and
    dont convey well what we know to parents.

64
  • Research
  • Experimental studies of basic processes
  • e.g., fear as a learnable drive
  • Experimental studies of conflict
  • Studies of displacement
  • An animal experiment
  • A human experiment

65
  • S-R theory in perspective
  • An exemplary process.
  • The theory of personality applied to the clinical
    observations of psychoanalysis.
  • A wealth of support in experimental and field
    studies.

66
  • Criticisms
  • Behaviourists too inferential
  • Psychoanalysts too simple
  • Cognitive psychology too mechanical
  • A theory at the transition from behaviourism to
    cognitive psychology that made many
    contributions.
  • A perceptive analysis of psychotherapy.
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