Social Behavioral

Scarcity

(the less available something is) increases the value of the reward.

The rule of distributive justice

is based on the idea that rewards should be proportional to their costs, and profits proportional the investments.

Aversive stimuli

like those applied to punishment, are also important, and when people learn to avoid an aversive stimulus, it is called avoidance learning.

Satiation or diminished marginal utility

occurs when a reward has been received repeatedly and its ability to motivate becomes diminished.

B,F. Skinner identified two types of reinforcers for humans:

primary reinforcers and secondary (or conditioned) reinforcers.

The norm of reciprocity

refers to the expectations that if one receives a reward, the favor will be returned in some way, such as in the exchange of gifts.

status congruence

refers to the preference for participants to be of the same status.

status

refers to the relative rank of individuals

Primary reinforcers

are unconditioned stimuli like food, water, and warmth that do not require learning to be effective reinforcers.

Behaviorism, social learning, and exchange theories

- Focus our attention on observable behavior - Analyze external factors involved in learning - Examine how cognition and emotion mediate behavior - Explain human interaction in terms of the rewards and benefits - Assist us in formulating assessment and treatment plans for individuals and groups Behaviorism focuses on learning and the way in which behavior is shaped by its antecedent conditions and consequences. In rejecting mentalistic constructs such as mind, consciousness, and other internal processes, behaviorism stresses the importance of studying observable behavior rather than phenomena that cannot be empirically verified. Social learning theory developed many years later as a reaction to behaviorism's failure to account for internal processes that affect human behavior. Social learning theory posits that learned behaviors are mediated by thoughts, expectations, and emotions and stresses the importance of observational learning or modeling. Exchange theory, which evolved from behavioral psychology, functional anthropology, and utilitarian economics, seeks to explain human interactions through the dynamics of rewards and benefits. Although there are a variety of theorists writing in this tradition, rational, purposive behavior is believed to underlie all exchange.

12 theoretical propositions that are useful in understanding the essence of exchange:

1. Individuals choose those alternative from which they expect the most profit. 2. Costs being equal, they choose alternative from which they anticipate the greatest rewards. 3. Rewards being equal, they choose alternatives from which they anticipate the fewest costs. 4. Immediate outcomes being equal, they choose those alternatives that promise better long-term outcomes. 5. Long-term outcomes being perceived as equal, they choose alternatives providing better immediate outcomes. 6. Costs and other rewards being equal, individuals choose the alternatives that supply or can be expected to supply the most social approval (or those that promise the least social disapproval). 7. Costs and other rewards being equal, individuals choose statuses and relationships that provide the most autonomy. 8. Other rewards and costs equal, individuals choose alternatives characterized by the least ambiguity in terms of expected future events and outcomes. 9. Other costs and rewards equal, they choose alternatives that offer the most security for them. 10. Other rewards and costs equal, they choose to associate with, marry, and form other relationships with those whose values and opinions generally are in agreement with their own and reject or avoid those with whom they chronically disagree. 11. Other rewards and costs equal, they are more likely to associate with, marry, and form other relationships with their equals, than those above or below them. (Equality here is viewed as the sum abilities, performances, characteristics, and statuses that determine one's desirability in the social marketplace). 12. In industrial societies, other costs and rewards equal, individuals choose alternatives that promise the greatest financial gains for the least financial expenditures.

Negative reinforcer

A consequence (such as shutting off a loud alarm clock or getting out of the rain by opening an umbrella) that is removed from the environment.

Classical Behaviorism (Edward Thorndike)

A contemporary of Watson, Edward Thorndike independently proposed a theory of learning that similarly was built on the foundation of stimulus and response. He held that although human learning resulted from changes in the internal nature and behavior of people, the changes could only be known by their apparent, observable behavior. For Thorndike, behavior meant anything that humans do, including thoughts and feelings as truly as movements ... with no assumptions concerning the deeper nature of any of these. Like Watson, Thorndike eschewed and emphasized on consciousness over observable behavior and rejected introspection in data collection; any activity internal to the person could only be discerned through overt behavior and then could only be known as behavior rather than as consciousness. Thorndike was concerned with inner responses and connections as well. He noted that situations could occur wholly in the mind, such as when one emotion or idea evokes another. To explain the more sophisticated skill acquisition and problem solving in humans, he proposed the notion of learning by ideas. He believed that failure to account for these phenomena reflected overzealous behaviorism. In addition, he argued that teaching a dog to salivate at the sound of a tone failed to meet the criteria for behavioral theory, because the stimulus and response could not truly be said to belong together; rather, one simply followed the other in time. Thorndike also noted that there did not seem to be any reward for the animal that would result in a strong connection between stimulus and response. He believed that Pavlov demonstrated only the prototype of learning and, while valuable in its own right, it fell short of a true learning model. In his reformulation, Thorndike emphasized the role of consequences that could serve to strengthen and waken the S-R connection. He proposed that some consequences could be "satisfier" (a condition that may be actively sought), while the others could be "annoyers" (which are actively avoided). Thus, learning could be stamped in, or reinforced, by what Thorndike dubbed, the "Law of Effect". Thorndike's work was highly influential; his efforts to move beyond associational learning and conditioned reflexes and to account for behavioral consequences as well as highly complex cognitive processes represented a substantial leap forward for behavioral psychology.

self-efficacy

A sense of personal competence.

Positive reinforcer

A specific consequence (such as food, money, or praise) that is added to the environment.

Fixed interval schedules

A specific interval of time is identified (e.g., 1 minute), and the first correct response after the interval is reinforced.

Cognitive social learning theory

A theory in the social behavioral perspective that sees behavior as learned by imitation and through cognitive processes. Also known as behavioral theory or social cognitive theory, with Albert Bandura as its chief contemporary proponent, suggests that behavior is also learned by imitation, observation, beliefs, and expectations. In this view, the "learner" is not passively manipulated by elements of the environment but can use cognitive processes to learn behaviors. Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT_, developed in the 1960s, focuses on helping people to better understand the thoughts and emotions that lead to problematic behavior and to develop new ways of thinking and behaving. Observing and imitating models is a pervasive method for learning human behavior. Bandura proposes that human behavior is also driven by beliefs and expectations. He suggests that self-efficacy (a sense of personal competence_ and efficacy expectation (an expectation that one can personally accomplish a goal) play an important role in motivation and human behavior. Bandura has extended his theory of self-efficacy to propose three models of agency (the capacity to intentionally make things happen): personal agency of the individual actor, proxy agency, in which people reach goals by influencing others to act on their behalf, and collective agency, in which people act cooperatively to reach a goal.

Operant conditioning theory

A theory in the social behavioral perspective that sees behavior as the result of reinforcement. Sometimes known as instrumental conditioning, sees behavior as the result of reinforcement. It is built on the work of two American psychologists, John B. Watson and B.F. Skinner. In operant conditioning, behavior is learned as it is strengthened or weakened by the reinforcement (rewards and punishments) it receives or, in other words, by the consequences of the behavior. Behaviors are strengthened when they are followed by positive consequences and weakened when they are followed by negative consequences. A classic experiment demonstrated that if a pigeon is given a food pellet each time it touches a lever, over time the pigeon learns to touch the lever to receive a food pellet. This approach looks at consequences - what comes after the behavior - as the mechanism for learning behavior.

Classical conditioning theory

A theory in the social behavioral perspective that sees behavior as the result of the association of a conditioned stimulus with an unconditional stimulus. Also known as a respondent conditioning, sees behavior as learned through association, when a naturally occurring stimulus (unconditional stimulus) is paired with a neutral stimulus (conditional stimulus). This approach is usually traced to a classical experiment by Russian psychologist Ivan Pavlov, who showed, first, that dogs naturally salivate (unconditioned response) to meat powder on the tongue (unconditioned stimulus). Then, a ringing bell (conditioned stimulus) was paired with the meat powder a number of times. Eventually, the dog salivated (conditioned response) to the ringing of the bell (conditioned stimulus). Classical conditioning plays a role in understanding many problems that social work clients experience. This approach looks at antecedents of behavior - stimuli that precede behavior - as the mechanism for learning.

Bandura also recognized that random, chance event could significantly alter a person's life course.

Although self-efficacy may be an important factor in helping people avoid getting deeply ensconced in bad situations, Bandura noted that the most important determinants of life paths often arise through the most trivial of circumstances.

Social behavioral perspective

An approach that sees human behavior as learned when individuals interact with their environments. Sometimes called social learning perspective, suggests that human behavior is learned as individuals interact with their environments.

Efficacy expectation

An expectation that one can personally accomplish a goal.

Drives

Are central to behavior and our basic motivation stems form our need to reduce either innate or learned drives.

Secondary reinforcers

Are learned and developed through pairing with primary reinforcers. Secondary reinforcers such as money, attention, approval, and affection are extremely important in shaping human behavior.

Primary reinforcers

Are unconditioned stimuli like food, water, and warmth that do not require learning to be effective reinforcers.

Social capital theory

As a more recent outgrowth of exchange theory and rational choice theory, social capital theory conceptualizes social relationships as resources that can be used in beneficial exchange to accomplish goals and facilitate collective action.

Bandura also noted that people regulate their behavior based on both external standards set by others and standards that they set for themselves.

As people develop standards for themselves, they strive to meet these standards. In doing so, they are rewarded by self-reinforcement when these standards are met and are punished by self-imposed feelings such as guilt when self-standards are not met. Thus, to a large extent, behavior becomes self-governed and self-regulated.

Intermittent schedules

Can be based on interval or ratios and can be fixed or variable.

Neobehaviorism (B.F. Skinner)

Concerned with misconceptions about the behaviorist position, Harvard University research psychologist B.F. Skinner attempted to lay a clear foundation for analytic behaviorism. He acknowledged the role of innate endowment in behavioral development in an attempt to counter the claim that behaviorism disregards genetic determination. Drawing on Darwin and other evolutionists, Skinner held that people are shaped by natural selection, a process through which individual characteristics are favored, or selected, in interaction with the environment. He posited that the drive to survive is a primary motivator and, through evolution, the characteristics that lead to success in the person-environment interaction are favored over those that are less successful.. One relationship between behavior and environment concerns reflexes, historically taken to refer to physiological processes such as breathing. for B.F. Skinner, however, a reflex was only descriptive of behavior, not a causal explanation, and he believed that person-environment relations were too complex to be understood in reflexive terms. Skinner believed the conditioned S-R response to be the simplest example of learned behavior, noting that people have evolved the capacity to make connections between environmental stimuli and behavior, drawing on reinforcement as a means of maintaining the behavior over time. In line with the S-R theorists, he held that the process of respondent conditioning was clearly linked to conditioned stimuli, and he concurred with the idea that some behavior are leaned this way. However, he argued that a different strategy, that of operant conditioning, was necessary for people to deal effectively with new environments. In contrast to respondent conditioning, which focuses on the antecedents of behavior, operant conditioning is concerned with the consequences of behavior, what happens after the behavior occurs. In line with Thorndike's Law of Effect, he proposed that behavior is shaped and maintained by its consequences. Things such as food, water, sexual contact, and escape from harm are crucial to survival and any behavior that brings these things about has survival value. These environmental factors may be said to be a consequence of the behavior rather than antecedent to it, and behavior with a survival consequence is likely to be repeated. Thus, the behavior is strengthened by its consequence and the consequence itself is the reinforcer for the behavior. In sum, when behavior results in a consequence that is reinforcing, it is more likely to occur again. Because operants do not depend on an antecedent stimulus, they are said to be emitted rather than elicited. The term operant behavior indicates that people operate on their environment to produce desired consequences. The consequences of a response lead to either a strengthening or a weakening of the response. Consequences that increase the likelihood of the response are called reinforcers, while consequences that result in a decrease are called punishers. It should be noted that punishment is not the same as negative reinforcement because both positive and negative reinforcement leads to strengthened response. A positive reinforcer is a specific consequence (such as food, money, or praise) that is added to the environment. A negative reinforcer is a consequence (such as shutting off a loud alarm clock or getting out of the rain by opening an umbrella) that is removed from the environment. In other words, to increase the likelihood that a behavior occurs again, negative reinforcement involves the removal of an aversive stimulus. In contrast, punishment is the application of an aversive consequence (such as a slap in the face) or the removal of a positive reinforcement (such as withholding TV privileges) that is added to the environment to weaken the response. Skinner's primary contribution to behaviorism was to reduce its dependency on antecedent conditions in explaining human behavior. Additionally, his emphasis on rigorous investigation through experimental analysis lent considerable credibility to his theory.

Reinforcers

Consequences that increase the likelihood of the response.

Punishers

Consequences that result in a decrease of the response.

Classical Behaviorism (E.C. Tolman)

E.C. Tolman rejected Watson's extreme environmentalism and his concomitant dismissal of mentalism. Rather, he proposed that intervening variables such as expectations, purposes, and cognitions were critical factors in the S-R connection. Many of these later formulations formed the basis of the development of both social learning theories and the neobehaviorsist movement.

Behaviorism

Emerged in the early 1900s primarily through the work of John Watson, Edward Thorndike, and Ivan Pavlov, among others, and significantly influenced psychological thinking throughout much of the 20th century. Behavioral theories may be classified in two categories: classical behaviorism, as exemplified by the work of John Watson, and neobehaviorism, as seen in the work of B.F. Skinner. The terms behavior theory and learning theory have been used interchangeably, particularly in the formative years of the development of behaviorism, with certain theorists favoring one term over the other. Behavioral theories are primarily interested in learning. Human beings are seen as having multiple processes of acquiring or changing behavior. Two primary processes through which learning occurs are classical conditioning and operant conditioning. A newly learned behavior may be called a conditioned response, reflex, or habit. Behavior may be motivated by a drive or need and is strengthened or weakened by reinforcement in the form of reward or punishment. In social learning theories, behavior is learned through observation or modeling and is then shaped by internal cognitive processes prior to performance and learned behaviors.

Classical conditioning

Emphasizes learning that occurs on the basis of association, when naturally eliciting stimulus is paired with a neutral stimulus.

Fixed ratio schedules

Establish a specific frequency of reinforcement (e.g., every fifth correct answer).

Exchange Theory

Exchange theory evolved from behavioral psychology, functional anthropology, and utilitarian economics as an attempt to explain human interactions through the dynamics of rewards and benefits. The origin of exchange as an economic process is generally attributed to Adam Smith whose 18th century work, The Wealth of Nations, suggested that a nation's resources are enhanced when market forces function competitively without the interference of government. He believed self-interest to be a driving economic force and that competition could rein in what might otherwise be unbridled greed. Exchange theory applies not only to the process of social exchange but also all other social relationships namely cooperation, competition, conflict, and coercion. Its emphasis on purposive, goal-oriented human behavior covers many theoretical bases. At the hear of exchange is the notion of profits. profits can consist of benefits (or rewards) less costs (or punishments). Rewards may be material (economic) or symbolic (such as attention, advice, or status). They are generally defined as things that either have value or bring satisfaction and gratification to the individual.

Bandura and Walters drew on research evidence to suggest three distinct effects of exposure to a model, each of which increases the observer's matching behaviors.

First, a modeling effect may result in the transmission of a precisely imitative response pattern from model to observer. Here the matched response is novel to the observer, one not previously in the person's behavioral repertoire. They concluded that novel responses to a model are learned almost instantly and in their entirety rather than gradually. Evidence for this has been found in studies on the acquisition of aggressive responses by children. In a series of experiments to compare the effects of aggressive and nonaggressive adult models on the aggressive behavior of preschool children, children were exposed to films of either a model who behaved aggressively toward an infant doll or a model who sat quietly and ignored the doll and other objects in the room. Children who viewed aggressive models displayed more imitative aggressive responses when compared to either the nonaggressive model or the control group. Additionally, the experiments showed that filmed human aggression was as affective as a live model. Second, the processes of inhibitory or disinhibitory effects may strengthen or weaken a previously learned response. That is, the model's behavior may suggest whether a previously learned response needs to be tempered. Here the response may not be precisely matched to that of a model but is rather an approximation of the model's behavior. Bandura and Walters cited studies showing that exposure to a cartoon character behaving aggressively resulted in an increase in children's aggression when compared to exposure to a neutral character. Third, they found that observing a model might prompt a previously acquired response. Bandura and Walters noted that an obvious eliciting effect may be observed in cases in which an adult, who has lost the idioms and pronunciation of the local dialect of the district in which they were raised, returns for a visit to their home. The original speech and pronunciation patterns, which would take a stranger years to acquire, may be quickly reinstated. This is similar to Pavlov's earlier principles of spontaneous recovery, but the initial learning occurs through an observational process of modeling rather than through stimulus pairing.

Central to the social learning theory, and moving toward the S-O-R formulation, Dollard and Miller proposed that the higher mental processes of foresight, language, and reasoning are important factors that determine the individual's ability to engage in adaptive learning.

Foresight suggests an ability to formulate a response, not on the basis of the immediacy of the stimulus, but rather on the knowledge of what is likely to happen in the future. Thus, people are able to anticipate environmental events and adjust their responses accordingly. Responses are strengthened when there is a correspondence between actual and anticipated events and when the response results in drive reduction.

Social Behavioral

Human behavior is learned when clients interact with the environment through association, reinforcement, and imitation. All human problems can be formulated as undesirable behavior and can be changed through techniques such as classical and operant conditioning.

Spontaneous recovery

If the original conditioning was given sufficient effort trails, spontaneous recovery of a response occurs as the conditioned reflex returns. For example, if, after extinction, the food is again paired with the bell, the dog quickly recovers the conditioned response and salivation to the bell alone.

The dynamics of exchange, conformity, and deviance

In an attempt to understand how social life becomes organized into increasingly complex structures of associations, Peter Blau extended exchange theory beyond the individual and dyadic level and focused on the process of exchange in groups. He theorized a sequence that leads to personal exchange to social structure and eventually to social change. His formulation encompassed four stages in which (1) exchange transactions between people led to.... (2) differentiation of status and power, which leads to ... (3) legitimation and organization, which leads to... (4) opposition and change. This reformation and extension of exchange theory points to the fact that social interaction exists first in groups. Groups, then, must offer sufficient rewards to attract people and make them feel accepted. In turn, the relationship between the individual and group is solidified when the expected rewards are received. This process of exchange generates social and psychological bonds between the people who keep count of benefits that are given, due, and received. For those who cannot engage in equal exchange, a form of debut is incurred in which they are relegated to lower status. Conversely, those who possess resources that others need are accorded higher status. The greater and more consistent a person or group's ability to meet others' needs, the greater the power accrued.

Albert Bandura and Social Cognitive Learning

In an early work with Richard Walters, Stanford University psychologist Albert Bandura took issue with previous learning theories because they relied on a limited number of explanatory principles and were generally derived from animal studies or studies involving one person. The neglect of complex social factors left theorists unable to fully account for the way in which novel social responses are learned. In contrast to Miller and Dollard, Bandura and Walters took exception to any reliance on psychodynamic principles, none of which had been subjected to rigorous scientific analysis. In addition, they were concerned with the emphasis within psychology that attempted to distinguish between normal and deviant development. Such distinctions, they argued, were based on value judgements and were of little theoretical significance. In behavioral theory, undesirable, nonnormative behavior represents a learned behavioral coping mechanism rather than a symptom of psychopathology and, thus, is best addressed through a systematic program of behavioral modification. Based on principles of operant conditioning, consequences are manipulated so that desirable behavior is reinforced and, if necessary, undesirable behavior is punished. Social learning theory discourages the application of.. psychiatric labels due to the assertion that both prosocial and deviant behavior can be explained by the same set of learning principles.

In later work, Bandura further stressed the notion that social learning does not depend solely on trail-and-error testing under conditions of reward.

Instead, learning occurs as a cognitive process, the symbolic representation of complex human behaviors developed from verbal information and observation of a model. Bandura noted that from observing others, one forms an idea of how new behaviors are performed, and on later occasions this coded information serves as a guide for action. Because people can learn from example what to do, at least in approximate form, before performing any behavior, they are spared needless errors. Thus, a cognitive mediational process allows for vicarious learning and corrections in behavioral learning before a behavior is actually performed.

In their reformulation of psychodynamic theory, Dollard and Miller rejected the metaphysical, abstract Freudian concepts relating to the id-ego-superego structure of the mind.

Instead, they proposed that guilt is the result of unlabeled fear responses that become connected to childhood stimuli. When these stimuli recur in later years, the conditioned response (fear) is likewise elicited. Like all conditioned responses, fear can also b generalized to other stimuli that are similar but not identical. They also posited that unconscious repression in infancy and early childhood is due to the child's inability to use language. They proposed that the child's inability to label early conflicts automatically relegates it to the unconscious because, what was not verbalized at the time cannot well be reported later.

Cues

Is an environmental stimulus that serves as a signal when a response is rewarded or not rewarded.

Classical Behaviorism (John B. Watson)

John B. Watson is generally credited with the founding of behaviorism as a movement within psychology. Watson defined behaviorism as a natural science aimed at the prediction and control of human behavior and held that behavior could be shaped through the selection and application of appropriate stimuli. In a replication of Pavlov's earlier work on conditioned reflexes, Watson produced a conditioned reflex in an 11-month-old boy who was initially not afraid of a tame white rat. Watson showed that the child could be made to fear the rat by simultaneously pairing the sight of the rat with a stimulus that induced a fear response, in this case a loud noise made out of the child's sight. Thus, through classical conditioning, sight of the animal alone eventually elicited the same fear response as the noise. The child came to associate fear of the noise with the sight of the rat and, over time, the sight of the rat alone become sufficient to produce fear in the child. When responses to stimuli become connected and patterned over time through repetition, they form a habit, which is stimulus-response (S-R) set that has been conditioned. Watson saw this associational process as being reflexive in nature but did not give much credence to reinforcement as an element in habit formation. Rather, he believed that learning was a function of the immediacy of the relationship between stimulus and response. He further believed that psychotherapy was the result of conditioned learning rather than internal conflicts of the id or unresolved Oedipal conflicts. Watson carried his behavioral position to an extreme by claiming that given an opportunity to control the environment of children, he could raise children to become whatever he wished them to be. He advocated this primes in Psychological Care of the Infant and Child (1928), one of the first childcare books ever published. His position reflected an unadulterated behavioral perspective, which explicitly rejected the role of heredity and mentalism in determining human behavior. It also reflected a search for objective laws that govern learning in an attempt to rid psychology of subjectivism. In doing so, distinctions between human and other species were eliminated. The S-R basis of Watson's position was first developed by the Russian psychologists Ivan Pavlov, whose theory of of the conditioned reflex has a profound effect on psychology. Pavlov showed that an environmental stimulus that was initially sufficient to produce a response could be made sufficient by pairing it with a stimulus that already elicited the response. Through repetition, the neutral stimulus would come to produce the response on its own. IN the process of his scientific study, Pavlov developed several other principles that have been applied repeatedly to many theories in this realm. Three commonly used principles are generalization, extinction, and spontaneous recovery.

Aversive stimuli

Like those applied in punishment, are also important.

Cultural norms exists to guide people in their various roles, just as society's rules or laws function to regulate behavior.

Norms or laws are effective at regulating behavior as long as the people see them as being beneficial to the self-interests of most members of the group or society. In contrast, people may violate norms and laws if they come to believe that there is no benefit in following them.

Dollard and Miller were among the first to address the role of imitations and modeling in learning.

Noting that imitation was central to psychological theory, and in particular, to reinforcement theories of social learning, they proposed three mechanisms that they believed to account for most forms of imitation. The first is same behavior, which denotes that any two people may respond in the same manner to the same stimulus. This does not necessarily imply any true imitation because the response of the two people may be entirely independent of each other. Second is copying, in which a person learns to model their behavior on that of another. The central learning component of copying is the development of knowledge that the copied behavior is the same and that it is within the bound of social acceptability to engage in copying. However, Dollard and Miller did not believe that either of these imitative forms warranted detailed analysis. Rather, it was the third form of imitation, that of matched-dependent behavior, which they found to be central to social life. Matched-dependent imitation occurs when a person attempts to match the havior of someone else by depending on cues provided by the other person. For example, a physician may suggest lifestyle changes to a patient that will result in better health. The physician's superior knowledge of medicine and health-related issues strengthens the cue value of these suggestions (language stimuli) related to lifestyle changes. The patient, then, tries to follow the suggestions (response demands) by depending on the language cues to determine an appropriate response. Dollard and Miller held that matched-dependent behavior usually involves imitation of a person who holds a status superior position.

Extinction

Of learning refers to gradual decrease and eventual disappearance of a conditioned response when the conditioned and unconditioned stimuli are no longer paired. After some time, when meat powder is presented to the dog without any bell, the bell loses its ability to elicit salivation.

Bandura also proposed that perceived self-efficacy, an individual's subjective conceptions of personal efficacy is an important factor in regulating behavior.

Particularly important are issues of confidence and self-doubt and the way in which they affect our actions. In essence, his research found that people who judge themselves as capable are likely to undertake tasks and challenges that they believe they can perform; they also avoid challenges that they perceives to be beyond their abilities. Self-efficacious people are also more likely to persist in the face of adversity. Bandura, however, did not see self-efficacy as a unitary concept and he believed that self-efficacy varies in different areas. Thus, as person can have high self-efficacy in, say, sports, but low self-efficacy in social situations.

Costs can be considered in two ways - as punishment or as rewards foregone because a competing alternative was chosen.

Punishments may be physical or emotional and can be administered through the withholding of rewards. In both economic and social exchange, profits accrue when the rewards outweigh the costs.

They also stressed the role of language, not only as a product of social learning but also as a form of self-speech essential to the acquisition of reasoning.

Reasoning is a type of self-speech that refers to the ability to make necessary connections among discrete stimuli, creating complex of learning in which drives, cues, responses, and rewards are logically related in a patterned learning sequence. Responses are determined by both the anticipation of future stimuli and the ability to reason to select the most efficacious response.

Generalization

Refers to the spilling over of the conditioned response to a stimulus that is similar, but not identical, to the conditioned stimulus. Thus, a bell with a slightly different pitch can elicit the conditioned response of salivation from the dog.

Continuous reinforcement

Reinforcement is delivered after every correct response.

B.F. Skinner also demonstrated the effect of various reinforcement schedules on the strength of a learned response.

Responses can be reinforced either continuously or intermittently. In continuous reinforcement, reinforcement is delivered after every correct response. Intermittent schedules can be based on intervals or ratios and can be fixed or variable. In fixed interval schedules, a specific interval of time is identified (e.g., 1 minute), and the first correct response after the interval is reinforced. Variable interval schedules vary in the amount of time between rewards for correct responses (e.g., from a few seconds to a few minutes) and have been found to produce learning that takes longer to extinguish than that which has been acquired through either continuous or fixed schedules of reinforcement. Fixed ratio schedules establish a specific frequency of reinforcement (e.g., every fifth correct response), whereas variable ratio schedules vary the frequency of rewards.

Social learning theory

Social learning theory is the school of behavioral thought that has been combined internal and external processes. Drawing from the work of Pavlov, Watson, Thorndike, and others, Clark Hull proposed a theory of behavioral learning that influenced the development of the more formal social learning theories of N>E. Miller and Dollard and Bandura and Walters. Adopting and adapting Thorndike's Law of Effect, Hull was primarily concerned with overt behavioral responses and conditions that serve as reinforcers. In addition, he posited that we can infer the existence of intervening variables such as ideas and emotions (and other internal processes that are not directly observable), as long as they are directly tied to observable input and output. For example, we can directly observe desired changes in a person's performance, but we must infer that learning (an internal cognitive process) has taken place. The postulation of intervening variables based on internal processes led to anew behavioral formulation - one based on S-O-R rather than S-R. The stimulus (S) affects the organism (O), and what happens as a consequence, the response (R), depends upon O as well as upon S. In contrast to classical or radial S-R behaviorism, social learning theory is rooted in the S-O-R formulation and places its emphasis on social and cognitive factors that contribute to behavior. Social learning theory offers a synthesis of cognitive psychology and principles of behavior modification in addition to an analysis of social influence on development.

Operant conditioning

Stresses the importance of reinforcement rather than association of one stimulus with another.

Agency

The capacity to intentionally make things happen.

Exchange and the Economic Market

The economic market is important when examining exchange in macro-level structures. An extension of macro-level exchange theory can be seen in the growing popularity of both network theory and rational choice theory. Derived from behaviorism, exchange theory and rational choice theory, network theory attempts to describe the interactive pattern of ties that link individuals to larger collective structures in society. Similar to exchange theory, networks can be micro (dyads) or macro (collective groups of individuals) in their focus.

Bandura and his colleagues moved social learning theory beyond the paradigmatic S-R model, while at the same time they retained its most critical and salient features.

The incorporation of cognitive processes as important factors that mediate learning was an affirmation of self-reflective thoughts and reasoning as key aspects of human development. Additionally, the fundamental rejection of psychodynamic theory, with its emphasis on abnormal behavior, represented a significant break in the development of personality theory. As a result of these efforts, social learning theory became established as a productive theoretical area in its own right, making significant contributions to further development and refinement of social psychological thinking as well as to the development of helping strategies.

Although Bandura did not separate development into specific stages, he believed that as people progress toward maturity in cognitive and social growth, they gain increase self-control over their behavior through self-reinforcement.

They also become more able to shape their external environment in ways that they find self-rewarding. In his later work, he also offered more theoretical structure for other cognitive processes such as the automatization of thoughts. These later efforts added more elaborate cognitive aspects to an already socially based conceptualization of human behavior and function.

In an extension of behaviorism, Bandura and Walters proposed that the central process in social learning was that of imitation.

They held that new responses may be learned or the characteristics of existing response hierarchies may be changed as a function of observing the behavior of others and its response consequences without the observer's performing any overt response themselves or receiving any direct reinforcement during the acquisition period. This differ from Miller and Dollard's position in that the actual performance of behavior is not necessary for learning to occur, not is it necessary for the response to be immediately rewarded. Instead, a person may learn a particular response through observation of a model. They proposed that after a response has been acquired, social forces begin to influence the learning process by shaping performance.

In their later writings, Dollard and Miller attempt to recast Freudian concepts into behavioral terms, using the term unconscious conflict as a core concept.

They proposed that unconscious conflict acquired in childhood could become a source of problems in adult life and account for growth patterns in childhood. Grounded in Freudian theory, they proposed four stressful childhood phases that may contribute to unconscious conflict through pathogenic learning: being fed as an infant (on demand or on a schedule, or not being fed properly at all), learning toilet habits and hygienic orientation, learning to manage aggressive impulses and anger, and learning to control sexual expression. However, in contrast to Freud who posited intrapsychic structures and energies as causal, Dollard and Miller viewed neurotic conflict originating in childhood as a form of learned behavior that is taught by parents.

Consistent with their behavioral reinterpretation of Freud, Miller and Dollard also postulated that aggressive behavior is a function of experiencing frustration; that is known today as the frustration-aggression hypothesis.

They suggested that the expression of either aggressive or passive behavior is learned behavior stemming from unresolved anger, fear, or frustration experienced in infancy and early childhood. The need to reduce internal distress caused by these feelings leads the child to stop these feelings leads the child to stop thinking about the events and issues that elicit such feelings. This is not problematic when it is done consciously. However, when thoughts are unconsciously repressed, they may lead to neurotic symptoms because they are not accessible, and thus, cannot lead to satisfactory resolution of the conflict. Despite this lack of resolution, Dollard and Miller pointed out that repression in itself is reinforcing, in that it reduces the fear drive.

The morality of social exchange helps to define and regulate exchange processes.

This, combined with the norm of reciprocity, is seen as mediating people's natural tendency to act in their own self-interest.

Investments can be either achieved or ascribed.

Those that are achieved or earned on the basis of past activities or contributions, while ascribed investment as bestowed upon individuals or groups on the basis of some characteristics, such as race or gender. This concept has been used in exchange theory to explain why males, on the average, are paid more than females for the same type of work, or why Whites typically receive higher wages than Blacks or Hispanics. Although the investments of each may be the same, one group's investment is valued more highly because of its ascribed qualities.

Variable interval schedules

Vary the amount of time between rewards for correct responses (e.g., from a few seconds to a few minutes) and have been found to produce learning that takes longer to extinguish than that which has been acquired through either continuous or fixed schedules of reinforcement.

Variable ratio schedules

Vary the frequency of rewards.

Avoidance learning

When people learn to avoid an aversive stimulus.

Habit

When responses to stimuli become connected and patterned over time through repetition, this forms a habit, which is a stimulus-response (S-R) set that has been conditioned.

John Dollard and Neal Miller

Yale University psychologists John Dollard and Neal Miller were influenced by Hull but took issue with his apparent failure to account for the social context in which the laws of learning are exercised. Dollard and Miller noted that to understand thoroughly any item of human behavior ... one must know the psychological principles involved in its learning and the social conditions under which this learning tool place. It is not enough to know either principles or conditions of learning; in order to predict behavior both must be known. For Dollar and Miller, four fundamental factors that influenced learning were drives, cues, responses, and rewards. Drives are central to behavior and our basic motivation stems from our need to reduce either innate or learned drives. They proposed that primary drives such as huger and thirst are innate, while secondary drives such as guilt or anger are learned. Because secondary drives are learned, they can be extinguished, whereas primary drives can only be satiated. They believed that fear and anxiety were two the strongest acquired drives and represented the social reflection of pain; pain becomes satisfied through its expression as anxiety. Further, they proposed that acquired drives not only represent a conditioned response but also are capable of motivating new forms of behavior. Drive reduction, according to Dollard and Miller, is the most important form of behavioral reinforcement. Because drive itself does not suggest that direction of the response, stimulus cues assist in focusing the behavioral response. For example, a person who is hungry (the drive) may go in quest for food by searching for a restaurant (the cue). A cue is an environmental stimulus that serves as a signal when a response is rewarded or not rewarded. The connection between cues and responses are strengthened when the response is rewarded either by drive reduction or through socially acquired rewards. When a response is not rewarded, it tends toward extinction, and anther response is attempted. The process repeats until a response is rewarded and a connection is established between stimulus and response.

Secondary reinforcers

are learned and developed through pairing with primary reinforcers. Secondary reinforcers such as money, attention, approval, and affection are extremely important in shaping human behavior.

In delineating the cognitive and social factors that may affect the process of learning by observation, Bandura organized the elements of the process into four process domains:

attention, retention, production, and motivation. For modeling to take place, the child must first pay attention to the relevant stimuli and screen out those that are not important to learning the observed behavior. Second, the process of retention is necessary so that the child can remember - either semantically or through visual imagination - the observed behavior. Bandura noted that young children imitate gestures and sounds immediately, whereas older children are better able to store symbols for later recall and reproduction. Consistent with Piaget and Mead, Bandura recognized the importance of language development in the child's ability to store and recall symbolic referents. In this regards, he saw memory permanence as being a critical factor, because memories can fade, become vague, or disappear with time. Memory technique such as rehearsal, which involves review or practice may aid the child in retention and observed behaviors. Third, the child must be able to produce the observed behavior. This involves getting the feel of behavioral enactment through repetition and correction, organizing each subskill into a response pattern than can be replicated. Muscular development is especially important in the child's motor development must be advanced enough to imitate the observed behavior. Finally, motivation is necessary to sustain the efforts of these processes. In contrast to Skinner, Bandura believed that reward alone was not sufficient to produce motivation for continued imitation. Instead, he proposed that the child must value the anticipated consequence, rather than simply experience them. Thus, consequence help to regulate the child's behavior by making it possible to predict behavioral consequences and thus select the behaviors to be preformed. Importantly, Bandura stressed that the child can learn which behaviors yield the greatest rewards either by observing others or by actually engaging in the behavior. In early experimental studies, Bandura and Walters found that children are more likely to imitate models whom they regard as prestigious, who receive social recognition and monetary rewards, or who are perceived as similar to themselves and are those of their same gender. Conversely, they tend not to imitate models who are punished for their actions.

power is obtained

by possessing a skill that is scarce or highly coveted.

Rational choice theory

derived primarily from the field of economics, shares many of the same assumptions about human behavior that underlie behavioral and exchange theories. People are seen as rational, self-interested actors who seek to maximize their profit through rational thought and action. Although this theory has not been utilized as a major perspective for social work, it has received some recent attention in sociology, primarily as an attempt to build models describing what people do when they act rationally in a specific situation.

Principle of least interest

suggests that the person who is less eager to preserve the relationship is the one to dominate it. This concept can be used to analyze dominance in the dating relationships, but it also was widespread application to other dyads and larger groups.

At the core of Bandura's social learning theory is a view of human behavior that shares in common many of the core assumptions underlying George Herbert Mead's symbolic interactionism and Jean Piaget's work on cognitive development:

the belief that behavior is based on the interaction between internal and external influences and an appreciation of the role of symbolization in cognition. Bandura proposed that, people are neither entirely determined by internal causes nor environmental stimuli, but psychological functioning is accounted for by a reciprocal interaction of personal and environmental determinants. This reciprocal determination allows us to control our thoughts and our environments, which, in turn, affects what we do. In contrast to most behaviorally based theorists, he assigned a central role to internal factors such as expectations and thoughts.