Developmental psychology.pdf

412 Integration of Behavior
mother reinforces aggressiveness, the child soon will display this behavior with the
mother and, through generalization, perhaps with other females, too. If the father ignores
or punishes aggressive behavior, it will be extinguished in his presence. Friendly
behavior, if it is reinforced, will occur instead. According to this viewpoint, operant
conditioning shapes behavior just as the sculptor shapes the clay.
To find the origins of behavior, disturbed or otherwise, one must look for the
reinforcers in the environment, for they maintain that behavior. In learning theory
there is no deep-seated symbolic connection between adult behavior and the earlier
years. If reinforcement is totally discontinued, the relevant responses eventually will
disappear.
Figure 15.11
Mother-Son Relationship.
Constantly rivalrous with Ross's
girlfriends, after his death Jenny said
that he was finally "safe from other
women" (Allport, 1965).
Jenny's Reinforced Responses At age 18, when her father died, Jenny was left
as the financial head of a large family. In her twenties, after her husband's death, she
found herself in the same situation, this time with her own child to support. The learning
theorist would point to the consequences of Jenny's hard-working behavior in both
instances. Not only did she obtain food and shelter for herself but also respect and
recognition from six brothers and sisters. Later she received the affection and growing
responsiveness of the baby she supported.
While her husband was alive, Jenny felt like a "kept woman," confined to the
home. Immediately after he died, she took a job in a library to support herself and
Ross, whom she had all to herself. This self-sufficiency, acquired early in life, was reinforced
in her new circumstances, but such efforts left little time for other people. Jenny's
social skills therefore diminished (Figure 15.11).
As Jenny became less sociable, other people perhaps were less friendly to her,
interpreting her reaction as hostile. Yet she continued to receive financial and intellectual
rewards from her work. She thus became more socially isolated and more and
more combative in her attempts to make a place for herself and her son (Allport, 1965).
Jenny was assertive because assertive responses were reinforced. She was overly
attentive to Ross because this behavior was the most regularly reinforced of all, especially
in the early maternal years. These habits, strongly supported in her early
adulthood, continued throughout long periods of intermittent reinforcement later, when
Ross neglected her in favor of his girlfriends.
Social Learning Theory
There are two general approaches to learning as it relates to personality, and this second
approach also has been considered in previous contexts. Reinforcement is again a
basic concept, but in this more liberal view, called social learning theory, behavior change
can occur through observation alone, without direct reinforcement. Learning takes place
by observing someone else, which is why it is called social learning.
Modeling The person being observed is known as a model, and the learning process
is called modeling. It emphasizes that the organism can acquire new knowledge and
potential behavior without making any overt response, simply by observing and thinking.
Learning is facilitated by reinforcement but, in contrast to the operant view, learning
can occur even without any reinforcement at all. The person merely observes a model
and interprets the situation.
This concept of modeling is similar to Freud's notion of identification. However,
social learning theory emphasizes all kinds of models, temporary and enduring,
significant and relatively inconsequential. Psychoanalysis is chiefly concerned with the
parents as models, especially their demonstrations of sex roles and interpersonal relations.
But both viewpoints indicate that the adult's personal style exerts a profound
influence on the way the observing child responds to the world.