Main content
MCAT
Course: MCAT > Unit 11
Lesson 5: Theories of personality- Theories of Personality Questions
- Situational approach
- Psychoanalytic theory
- Maslow's hierarchy of needs
- Humanistic theory
- Biological theory
- Behavioral theory
- Trait theory
- Observational learning: Bobo doll experiment and social cognitive theory
- Defense mechanisms
- Freud - Death drive, reality principle, and pleasure principle
© 2023 Khan AcademyTerms of usePrivacy PolicyCookie Notice
Behavioral theory
Explore the contributions two major behavioral theorists have made to the Behavioral Theory of Personality. By Shreena Desai. . Created by Shreena Desai.
Want to join the conversation?
- Not going to lie, Shreena's videos have been pretty underwhelming. You'd think posting for KA these would be up to or over par, but there seems to be details missing or blatantly skimmed over not just here but in all her videos. No great explanations, unnecessary comments with attempted humor, etc. and this doesn't make the learning experience pleasant one bit. Just makes it more difficult b/c additional resources are need to reinforce knowledge b/c what she says is def not enough for the MCAT(34 votes)
- How so? What details are missing/blatantly skimmed? All of us MCAT studiers are worried by this comment, fill us in!(8 votes)
- I like how everyone watching these on 1.75 speed are studying for the MCAT haha.(24 votes)
- As I understand it the theory is based on adaptation, but atshe says behavioral theorists don't factor in emotions. But when the theory is based on interaction with your environment emotional response seems important to factor in. How come they don't? 1:26(5 votes)
- Excellent point, behaviorism notes that only observable phenomenon (behaviors) are all that can be measured or studied. To the behaviorists, emotions matter little because they cannot be observed or measured and, therefore, not subject to the scientific process. So, if a person has the emotional response of anger,one can measure that in the behavior they display. Behaviorism, for what it says, makes logical sense; however, as you've pointed out, there are clear limitations to its description of what is really happening.(4 votes)
- Would cultural personality (e.i. ethnic stereotype and country stereotype) stem from the environment or from genetics?(3 votes)
- stereotypes are learned (environment)...for example, on my usa 2014 greyhound bus tour, young minorities were kind and talkative while older minorities from the same families were stand off-ish and their non-verbal tone spoke bad juju...the young minorities didnt yet learn the stereotypes; ignorance IS bliss when were young!(1 vote)
- what role(s) does heredity and environment plays in human personality?(1 vote)
- Couldn't emotions be measured in a way similar to how pain is measured on a 1-10 scale?
In this case the happy spectrum would go from 1(very unhappy) to 10(very happy)
And the 1 on the happy spectrum could branch off into different spectra where more towards the left is more of that kind of unhappiness.
In particular the branches would be things like anger, sadness, fear, and pain
And 10 could have branches too like excitation and curiosity where more towards the right would be more of that kind of happiness.
5 would be like everyday level of happiness.(1 vote)- measuring anything is arbitrary meaning one could use gold stars, scales, rainbow colored marsh mellows, etc...choose whatever makes you the happiest!(1 vote)
- I think the dichotomy between the Social Cognitive Perspective (the one Albert Bandura is known for) and the Biologic Perspective should be elucidated further. This dichotomy is the one many are all too familiar with, namely, nature vs nurture.
The Social Cognitive Perspective of Personality focuses on how the environment and peoples interactions with it influence behavior. Personality is expected future behaviors based on past behaviors in similar situations (situational).
The Biologic Perspective of Personality say that personality is a product of how genes are expressed (dispositional).(1 vote)
Video transcript
All right, the
behavioral theory is what we're going to
be talking about next. And the behavioral theory
says that personality is a result of the interaction
between an individual and their environment. So here's our person. And then, this is
the environment. Whether it's society-- We'll
draw a few houses here. There you go. You get the picture. So basically, what
I've drawn here is one island, and
another island, and a bridge connecting both. And you'll see why
did that in a second. OK, so the behavioral
theory says that we interact
with our environment. And it's also focused on
observable and measurable behavior, rather than mental
or emotional behaviors. So there are different
types of behaviors. And different theories focus
more on one type of behavior over the other. So when looking at this, if
this is the behavioral theory-- is this island right here. I guess we can say the
psychoanalytic theory over here would be the most opposite
because this theory focuses on the mental behavior rather
than observable behavior. And behavioral
theorists don't care for theories that take thoughts
and feelings into account. So let's talk about
two important theorists of the behavioral theory,
and the first is Skinner. So Skinner was a
strict behaviorist. And he's associated
with the concept of operant conditioning, which
you may have heard of before. So operant conditioning
uses rewards and punishments to increase or
decrease a behavior. And another behaviorist, Pavlov,
who was a Russian physiologist, and he's also considered by many
as the father of behaviorism, he's associated with
classical conditioning. And he used his famous dog
example, the Pavlov Dog Experiment, to show what
classical conditioning was. It basically places
a neutral stimulus with an unconditional
stimulus to trigger an involuntary response. So in the case of
the dogs, ringing a bell in the
presence of food is what caused the dogs
to begin salivating. It triggered that
involuntary response. So these theorists,
Skinner and Pavlov, believed that the environment
determines the behavior. So that's why I put
ourselves in our environment. We're shaped by the environment. And people have consistent
behavior patterns because we have particular
kinds of response tendencies. But these responses
can change if we encountering new situations. And that's why our
personality develops over our entire lifespan. It's constantly
evolving and changing. Now, what is this bridge
in the middle connecting one extreme of
behaviorism to the other, the mental approach to
the behavioral approach? Now, it's not to say one
is right over the other. They're just two different
approaches of personality. OK, so back to this, the bridge. The bridge the
middle is what we're going to call the
cognitive theory. And the cognitive
theory is considered a bridge between classic
behaviorism and other theories that emphasize
thinking and behavior, such as the
psychoanalytic theory. And it's because
the cognitive theory treats thinking as
a behavior and has much in common with
the behavioral theory. So Albert Bandura
combines the concepts of observing,
thinking, and behaving in the social
cognitive theory, which we'll take a look at next.