Personality Theories And Social Learning Theories Fit That Bill

Social psychology and personality psychology both came into fruition around the same time – the 1920’s and 1930’s. Needless

Burrhus Frederic (B. F.) Skinner, an American behavioral psychologist who believed the idea that human free will was an illusion and any human action was the result of the consequences of that same action, developed an experiment to verify if superstition was present in pigeons. Skinner’s beliefs led him to conduct this research experiment which ultimately declared him as one of the top psychologists of his era. Skinner believed that the best way to understand behavior was to look at the causes of an action and its consequences. He called this approach operant conditioning.

Funder discusses on how personality psychology formulates around numerous basic approaches. One approach Funder talks about is the biological approach, which addresses the mental process on our behavior including anatomy, physiology, genetics, and evolution. This approach analyses our feelings, thoughts, and behaviors through our mind. Another approach that Funder discusses is the trait approach, which is basically the study of human personality; the trait approach concentrates on the way an individual differs in emotion, thought, and behavior and how those differences are measured. These two approaches complement each other because the trait approach focuses on routine patterns of an individual that are behaviors, feelings, and thoughts which those

The trait theory is broken down into categories as well. More interesting in my opinion. The study of our biological and psychological contributing to crime. Who thought of this stuff? I’m not sure that with as minimal education as our forefathers had compared to us that this would have ever came to my mind. There are two branches to contemporary trait theories biological and psychological.

B.F. Skinner and his theories on learning and

Skinner’s theory observes individuals from the point of view of the behavior that they demonstrate. The key weakness of this theory is its attempt to explain the behaviors of an individual solely through visible phenomena. Critics sometimes accuse behaviorists of denying that ideas and thoughts exist (Jensen & Burgess, 1997). The major opposition that behaviorists face is that behavior of a person cannot be understood without including the mental activity of the individual. Critics have accused behaviorists of focusing only on behavior and ignoring the role of physiology, neuroscience, and genetics (Weiss & Rosales-Ruiz, 2014). Sometimes the reactions that people demonstrate have are not related their experience and therefore they have another

One of the most prominent and influential psychologists of the twentieth century, B.F. Skinner was known as a behavioral psychologist, philosopher of science, and an educational innovator. Throughout his life he did experimental work with animals to discover how patterns of behavior are learned. His initial work was primarily conducted with animals, and later in life he started to work with humans and apply his learning from his pigeon studies to human behavior. He focused on the individual and wrote about how to restructure social systems to improve the quality of life.

Although the four humors do not necessarily decide the personality, other theories give genetic and neurochemical reasons concerning the behavior of humans. The theory of traits is to understand personality by listing attitudes and certain types of behavior into "traits. " They are used to describe the way a person thinks, feels or acts in a certain way. Trait theory assumes that parts of a persons personality can be acknowledged by using existing terms such as words or short phrases. Gordon Allport and Henry Odbert conducted research into personality traits.

Social Learning theorists have failed and to give a clear idea of how the various learned

Raymond Cattell was one of the pioneer trait theorists. He was a strong advocate of the trait approach to human personality. As trait theorists, Raymond Cattell and Hans Eysenck, their primary interest is in the measurement of traits or the patterns/habits of behaviors, thoughts, and emotions. He followed the footsteps of psychologist Gordon Allport but differed from Allport’s belief that the human personality is composed of several hundred personality traits. Cattell believed in a defined range traits and that each person has a bit of each of these defined traits in their personality. When one understands those “ranges” of traits, we can understand someone fully and then predict how they will respond/behave in any situation. Hans

Trait theory is similar in nature to that of the great man approach in that traits of personality are considered to be inherent. Trait theory was explored in the early 20th century and was built on from the great man theory. Tead (1929) discussed trait theory as someone who held a specific group of traits that would evolve followers to complete a chosen task.

Both Trait theory and Social Cognitive Theories are currently and have been very influential in describing personalities in people over the years. They have both similar and opposite qualities as well and seem to work off of each other at times in my opinion. Although many theories are still helpful in some ways, I feel like these two are more beneficial due to them bringing a more positive approach to describing personalities and giving the person more control over their own behavioral change rather than giving them an excuse as to why they can’t change their behaviors.

The study of personality traits is beneficial in identifying the many variables that exist from human to human; the combinations of these variables provide us with a true level of individuality and uniqueness. In the field of psychology, trait theory is considered to be a key approach to the study of human personality (Crowne, 2007; Burton, Westen & Kowalski, 2009). This paper aims to identify a number of significant contributors who have played crucial roles in both the development and application of trait theory. This paper then moves focus to these theorists, outlining their theory and analysing both the strengths and weaknesses of those theories. An illustration of the methods used in trait measurement is given and includes the

Burrhus Frederic Skinner was born on March 20, 1904 in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania. Skinner was an American psychologist, behaviorist, author, inventor, and a social philosopher. Skinner is known for his discovery of the theory of operant conditioning (Wikipedia). Skinner was a graduate from Harvard University. Although he understood the importance of classical conditioning, he noted that, “principles of classical conditioning account for only a small portion of learned behaviors” (Woolfolk 250). Skinner expressed that through operant conditioning, behavior is strengthened or weakened by antecedents or consequences. Both theorists’ work have a major influence on learning/behavioral concepts.

Since the beginning of mankind, there have been attempts to figure out how and why people differ. People who study personality traits tend to focus on various aspects of human behaviors such as, social interactions, development, learning, and culture. In addition, they study physiology, genetics, and pathology. They look at all aspects of being human and try to classify, organize, and understand them. Historically