Individual Differences: Self *lecture notes*

Individual Differences: The Self, Self-efficacy, self-actualisation: Human personality and
motivation by Dr Michael Mantzios

- Historical learning theory approaches to personality
o Pavlov and CC
▪ 1849
o John B. Watson and behaviourism
▪ Rejected methods of introspection and interpretation = unscientific
▪ Psychology should focus on observable aspects of behaviour
▪ Watson and Rayner (1920)
• Little Albert – conditioned emotional reaction
▪ The ‘un-conditioning’ of a fear (Jones, 1924)
▪ Other applications of classical conditioning – bedwetting (Mowrer and
Mowrer, 1928)
▪ Systematic desensitisation (Wolpe, 1961)
o The radical behaviourism of B. F. Skinner
▪ Skinner 1948
▪ Did not accept the concept of personality
• Unnecessary and unscientific to postulate unobservable
o Psychological, personality-generating structures
▪ Operant conditioning
• Positive reinforcement
• Negative reinforcement
• Random or partial reinforcement schedules
• Shaping
- Integrative personality theory of Dollard and Miller
o = The stimulus-response model of personality of Dollard and Miller
o (combining psychodynamic and behaviour approaches)
▪ Habit
• Related to health behaviours
▪ Primary drives
▪ Secondary drives
▪ Secondary reinforcers
▪ Extinction