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Background Discussion for Writing Assignment:
While the first major camp or perspective in psychology is psychoanalysis; behaviorism is the second. Skinner, one of the founders of radical behaviorism, would not have considered himself a personality theorist, and hence, his chapter is skipped. However, Bandura, who takes behaviorism and mixes it with social and cognitive influences, makes a very practical theory of personality. Bandura is the only living theorist that you will be exposed to in this course. Not surprisingly, his theory serves as a foundation for much psychological work today. You see it applied in sports psychology, school psychology, and counseling psychology.
One of his most important contributions is his emphasis on the interaction between the person and their environment in determining behavior?known as reciprocal determinism. He also is known for detailing the steps involved in vicarious or observational learning. For example, as the youngest sibling in my family, one obvious application of this concept can be seen when older siblings send their younger sibling in to sneak a cookie before dinner. If the younger sibling gets caught, they face the punishment instead of the older one. And if a cookie is successfully stolen, then the older sibling learned vicariously that it?s safe for them to go snag a cookie as well.
Writing Assignment:
Apply Bandura?s theory to the following case study by answering the questions below.
Evonne is sitting at the table with a cup of tea. She has just tucked her kids into bed, and this is the first time she has had to herself all day. She wonders if her decision to stay at home was the right one. Her days as a mother and homemaker are certainly more exhausting than her days were when she worked as an accountant at a physician?s office. She is continuously cleaning the house or meeting the demands of her children. It is amazing how much mess such little people can make. It seems as though they drop what they have in their hands anywhere they stand. Her son Joe, for example, comes in from school, takes off his coat, and drops it, along with his backpack, on the kitchen floor in front of the door he came in. He places his hat and mittens on the kitchen table next to the door. Sometimes, when he is excited to show his mother something he made at school, Joe dumps his backpack out onto the floor to find it. When he is through, he leaves the rest of the stuff on the floor and runs off to play with his sister. Although Evonne keeps reminding Joe to pick up his stuff and put it where it belongs, he doesn?t seem to remember to do it from one day to the next. Not surprisingly, Joe often cannot find the things he needs because he did not put them in their place when he was through with them. Actually, he is a lot like his father, Blake, in that way. Blake is always losing and looking for things, especially his wallet because he does not put his belongings in the right place either. Now that Evonne thought about it, Blake seemed to drop things wherever he was standing also, and although Evonne scolded Joe for it, she rarely complained to Blake about his sloppiness?at least not in front of the children.
As Evonne thought about this similarity between Blake and Joe, she also noticed other similarities in behavior. Lately, Joe has been trying to deflect punishment for wrong doing by charming his way out of it. It struck Evonne that this was similar to Blake?s behavior when he made her angry: He would often try to alleviate the mood and avoid an argument by complimenting her or joking about his or her behavior that they were discussing. Sometimes it worked, and she laughed, hugged, and kissed her husband; sometimes it didn?t work. Now Joe was doing the same thing. When he said something to her that he shouldn?t have, for example, Joe would laugh and give her a big smile and bat his eyelashes at her. Sometimes she couldn?t help but laugh back.
At other times, Joe would just try to make his mother laugh by telling jokes. He loved to see her smile. Most of the time, his jokes were pretty bad, but every once in a while he would tell a good one, and Evonne would chuckle. Recently, Joe has been asking whether his jokes were good or not. He is disappointed when his mother tells him that his joke is not one of his best and ecstatic when she says it is good.
Joe does other things that his father does as well. For example, Joe calls out, ?Special night!? when he wants to just have fun that evening and watch a video and eat popcorn. Blake would sometimes call out that phrase or something similar when he wanted to have fun with his family and when there would be no work that day. Joe even wants a ?beer??which for him means a root beer?when his dad has an actual beer.
Joe seems to have his father?s self-confidence also. For example, Joe, at the age of 8, is a little computer whiz. He had seen his father working on their home computer and his peers working on the computers at day care when he was younger. He had had no qualms about sitting
down at the monitor and trying to play various games. He became frustrated at times, but Blake encouraged him. Joe eventually learned how to use the mouse and became quite proficient at computerized tasks. This amazed Evonne because, although she now knows how to use the computer, she at first was terribly intimidated by it; she thought she would never be able to understand them. Joe had no such reservations. Yes, there really were quite a few similarities between Joe and Blake. The phrase, ?like father, like son,? comes to Evonne?s mind.
Writing Assignment:
Using Bandura?s social cognitive theory, explain the similarities between Joe and Blake?s personalities by answering the following questions
1. How could Bandura?s social cognitive theory explain the similarity between Joe?s and Blake?s behaviors?
2. List two examples of observational learning from the case study.
3. What factors determine whether or not we will learn from a model, according to Bandura?s theory? Choose one example of behavior learned through modeling from the case study and explain the influence of these factors.
4. Find an example of self-regulation that Joe engages in. Explain it.
5. How would Bandura?s theory explain Joe?s confidence in using computers and his competence in using them?
Length of paper: 2-3 pages, typed, double-spaced
Case study & questions reference:
Ashcraft, D. (2003). Personality Theories Workbook (2nd Ed.). Wadsworth/Thomson Publishing: Belmont, CA.
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