Personality

Behavioral and Social Learning Theories

Theories in this group tend to explain behavior (personality) in terms of reaction to external stimuli and events. John Watson is credited with beginning this school of thought. He believed that behavior was not related to the mind or human consciousness; rather, behavior was the result of reflexes and conditioning. B. F. Skinner carried Watson's work further and developed the principle of operant conditioning. In addition to responding to their environment, people “operate” on their environment as well as produce certain consequences. Operant conditioning is the situation [Page 744]where when a response is no longer followed by a consequence (it is not reinforced), it will cease to occur. Related to this is the social learning theory developed by Albert Bandura (who also may be categorized as a cognitive social learning theorist). He suggested that memory and feelings operate in conjunction with environmental influences. If one displays an incompatible behavior, the original behavior ceases to be displayed.

Many of the concepts and terminology used in understanding and describing student learning and behavior are derived from behaviorism. Classroom management of students is often described and developed based on behavior principles such as successive approximation (reward successive steps to the final desired behavior), continuous reinforcement (promote new behavior by rewarding every small step toward it), negative reinforcement (to increase a desired behavior, arrange/allow escape from a mild aversive situation by behaving appropriately), modeling (observe a significant person demonstrating the desired positive behavior), and cueing (to remember to act at a specific time in response to an arranged cue, rather than after the fact).

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