ALLPORT: PSYCHOLOGY OF THE INDIVIDUAL

Overview of Allport's Psychology of the Individual

Gordon Allport, whose major emphasis was on the uniqueness of each individual, built a
theory of personality as a reaction against what he regarded as the non- humanistic
positions of both psychoanalysis and animal-based learning theory. However, Allport was
eclectic in his approach and accepted many of the ideas of other theorists.

Allport's Approach to Personality

Allport believed that psychologically healthy humans are motivated by present, mostly
conscious drives and that they not only seek to reduce tensions but to establish new ones. He
also believed that people are capable of proactive behavior, which suggests that they can
consciously behave in new and creative ways that foster their own change and growth. He
called his study of the individual morphogenic science and contrasted it with traditional
nomothetic methods.

Personality Defined
Allport defined personality as "the dynamic organization within the individual of those
psychophysical systems that determine his characteristic behavior and thought."

Structure of Personality
According to Allport, the basic units of personality are personal dispositions and the proprium.

Personal Dispositions
Allport distinguished between common traits, which permit inter-individual
comparisons, and personal dispositions, which are peculiar to the individual. He
recognized three overlapping levels of personal dispositions, the most general of which
are cardinal dispositions that are so obvious and dominating that they cannot be
hidden from other people. Not everyone has a cardinal disposition, but all people have
5 to 10 central dispositions, or characteristics around which their lives revolve. In
addition, everyone has a great number of secondary dispositions, which are less
reliable and less conspicuous than central traits. Allport further divided personal
dispositions into (1) motivational dispositions, which are strong enough to initiate
action and (2) stylistic dispositions, which refer to the manner in which an
individual behaves and which guide rather than initiate action.

Proprium
The proprium refers to all those behaviors and characteristics that people regard as
warm and central in their lives. Allport preferred the term proprium over self or ego
because the latter terms could imply an object or thing within a person that controls
behavior, whereas proprium suggests the core of one's personhood.

Motivation
Allport insisted that an adequate theory of motivation must consider the notion that motives
change as people mature and also that people are motivated by present drives and wants.

Reactive and Proactive Theories of Motivation

To Allport, people not only react to their environment, but they also shape their
environment and cause it to react to them. His proactive approach emphasized the idea
that people often seek additional tension and that they purposefully act on their
environment in a way that fosters growth toward psychological health.
 Functional Autonomy
Allport's most distinctive and controversial concept is his theory of functional
autonomy, which holds that some (but not all) human motives are functionally
independent from the original motive responsible for a particular behavior. Allport
recognized two levels of functional autonomy: (1) perseverative functional autonomy,
which is the tendency of certain basic behaviors (such as addictive behaviors) to
continue in the absence of reinforcement, and (2) propriate
functional autonomy, which refers to selfsustaining motives (such as interests) that
are related to the proprium.

Conscious and Unconscious Motivation Although Allport emphasized conscious

motivation more than any other personality theorist, he did not completely overlook
the possible influence of unconscious motives on pathological behaviors. Most people,
however, are aware of what they are doing and why they are doing it.

The Psychologically Healthy Personality Allport believed that people are motivated by both
the need to adjust to their environment and to grow toward psychological health; that is,
people are both reactive and proactive. Nevertheless, psychologically healthy persons are
more likely to engage in proactive behaviors. Allport listed six criteria for psychological health:
(1) an extension of the sense of self, (2) warm relationships with others, (3) emotional
security or self-acceptance,
(4) a realistic view of the world, (5) insight and humor, and (6) a unifying philosophy of life.

The Study of the Individual

Allport strongly felt that psychology should develop and use research methods that study the
individual rather than groups.

Morphogenic Science
Traditional psychology relies on nomothetic science, which seeks general laws from
a study of groups of people, but Allport used idiographic or morphogenic procedures
that study the single case. Unlike many psychologists, Allport was willing to accept
self-reports at face value.

The Diaries of Marion Taylor In the late 1930's, Allport and his wife became
acquainted with diaries written by woman they called Marion Taylor. These diaries-
along with descriptions of Marion Taylor by her mother, younger sister, favorite
teacher, friends, and a neighbor-provided the Allports with a large quantity of material
that could be studied using morphogenic methods. However, the Allports never
published this material.

Letters from Jenny

Even though Allport never published data from Marion Taylor's dairies, he did publish a
second case study-that of Jenny Gove Masterson. Jenny had written a series of 301
letters to Gordon and Ada Allport, whose son had been a roommate of Jenny's son.
Two of Gordon Allport's students, Alfred Baldwin and Jeffrey Paige used a personal
structure analysis and factor analysis respectively, while Allport used a commonsense
approach to discern Jenny's personality structure as revealed by her letters. All three
approaches yielded similar results, which suggests that morphogenic studies can be
reliable.
 DISPOSITIONAL THEORIES

CATTEL AND EYSENCK: TRAIT AND FACTOR

THEORIES

Overview of Factor Analytic Theory

Raymond Cattell and Hans Eysenck have each used factor analysis to identify traits (that is,
relatively permanent dispositions of people). Cattell has identified a large number of
personality traits, whereas Eysenck has extracted only three general factors.

Biography of Raymond B. Cattell

Raymond B. Cattell was born in England in 1905, educated at the University of London, but
spent most of his professional career in the United States. He held positions at Columbia
University, Clark University, Harvard University, and the University of Illinois, where he spent
most of his active career. During the last 20 years of his life, he was associated with the Hawaii
School of Professional Psychology. He died in 1998, a few weeks short of his 93rd birthday.

Basics of Factor Analysis

Factor analysis is a mathematical procedure for reducing a large number of scores to a few
more general variables or factors. Correlations of the original, specific scores with the factors
are called factor loadings. Traits generated through factor analysis may be either unipolar
(scaled from zero to some large amount) or bipolar (having two opposing poles, such as
introversion and extraversion). For factors to have psychological meaning, the analyst must
rotate the axes on which the scores are plotted. Eysenck used an orthogonal rotation whereas
Cattell favored an oblique

rotation. The oblique rotation procedure ordinarily results in more traits than the orthogonal
method.

Introduction to Cattell's Trait Theory

Cattell used an inductive approach to identify traits; that is, he began with a large body of data
that he collected with no preconceived hypothesis or theory.

P Technique
Cattell's P technique is a correlational procedure that uses measures collected from
one person on many different occasions and is his attempt to measure individual or
unique, rather than common, traits. Cattell also used the dR (differential R) technique,
which correlates the scores of a large number of people on many variables obtained at
two different occasions. By combining these two techniques, Cattell has measured
both states (temporary conditions within an individual) and traits (relatively permanent
dispositions of an individual).

Media of Observation Cattell used three different sources of data that enter the
correlation matrix:
(1) L data, or a person's life record that comes from observations made by others; (2) Q
data, which are based on questionnaires; and (3) T data, or information obtained from
objective tests.

Source Traits
Source traits refer to the underlying factor or factors responsible for the intercorrelation
among surface traits. They can be distinguished from trait indicators, or surface traits.
Personality Traits
Personality traits include both common traits (shared by
many people) and unique traits
(peculiar to one individual). Personality traits can also be classified into
temperament, motivation (dynamic), and abiliy.

Temperament Traits
Temperament traits are concerned with how a person behaves. Of the 35 primary or
first-order traits Cattell has identified, all but one (intelligence) is basically a
temperament trait. Of the 23 normal traits, 16 were obtained through Q media and
compose Cattell's famous 16 PF scale. The additional seven factors that make up the 23
normal traits were originally identified only through L data. Cattell believed that
pathological people have the same 23 normal traits as other people, but, in addition,
they exhibit one or more of 12 abnormal traits. Also, a person's pathology may simply
be due to a normal trait that is carried to an extreme.
Second-Order Traits
The 35 primary source traits tend to cluster together, forming eight clearly identifiable
second-order traits. The two strongest of the second-order traits might be called
extraversion/introversion and anxiety.

Dynamic Traits
In addition to temperament traits, Cattell recognized motivational or dynamic traits, which
include attitudes, ergs, and sems.

Attitudes
An attitude refers to a specific course of action, or desire to act, in response to a given
situation. Motivation is usually quite complex, so that a network of motives, or dynamic
lattice, is ordinarily involved with an attitude. In addition, a subsidiation chain, or a
complex set of subgoals, underlies motivation.

Ergs
Ergs are innate drives or motives, such as sex, hunger, loneliness, pity, fear, curiosity,
pride, sensuousness, anger, and greed that humans share with other primates.

Sems
Sems are learned or acquired dynamic traits that can satisfy several ergs at the same
time. The self-sentiment is the most important sem in that it integrates the other sems.

The Dynamic Lattice

The dynamic lattice is a complex network of attitudes, ergs, and sems underlying a
person's motivational structure.

Genetic Basis of Traits

Cattell and his colleagues provided estimates of heritability of the various source traits.
Heritability is an estimate of the extent to which the variance of a given trait is due to heredity.
Cattell has found relatively high heritability values for both fluid intelligence (the ability to
adapt to new material) and crystallized intelligence (which depends on prior learning),
suggesting that intelligence is due more to heredity than to environment.

Introduction to Eysenck's Factor Theory

Compared to Cattell, Eysenck (1) was more likely to theorize before collecting and factor
analyzing data; (2) extracted fewer factors; and (3) used a wider variety of approaches to
gather data.

Biography of Hans J. Eysenck

Hans J. Eysenck was born in Berlin in 1916, but as a teenager, he moved to England to
escape Nazi tyranny and made London his home for more than 60 years. Eysenck was trained
in the psychometrically oriented psychology department of the University of London, from
which he received a bachelor's degree in 1938 and a Ph.D. in 1940. Eysenck was perhaps the
most prolific writer of any psychologist in the world, and his books and articles often caused
world-wide controversy. He died in September of 1997.

Measuring Personality
Eysenck believed that genetic factors were far more important than environmental ones in
shaping personality and that personal traits could be measured by standardized personality
inventories.
Criteria for Identifying Factors
Eysenck insisted that personality factors must (1) be based on strong psychometric
evidence, (2) must possess heritability and fit an acceptable genetic model, (3) make
sense theoretically, and (4) possess social relevance.

Hierarchy of Measures
Eysenck recognized a four-level hierarchy of behavior organization: (1) specific acts or
cognitions; (2) habitual acts or cognitions; (3) traits, or personal dispositions; and (4)
types or superfactors.

Dimensions of Personality
Eysenck's methods of measuring personality limited the number of personality types to a
relatively small number. Although many traits exist, Eysenck identified only three major types.

What Are the Major Personality Factors? Eysenck's theory revolves around
only three general bipolar types:
extraversion/introversion,
neuroticism/stability, and psychoticism/superego function. All three have a strong
genetic component. Extraverts are characterized by sociability, impulsiveness,
jocularity, liveliness, optimism, and quick-wittedness, whereas introverts are quiet,
passive, unsociable, careful, reserved, thoughtful, pessimistic, peaceful, sober, and
controlled. Eysenck, however, believes that the principal differences between
extraverts and introverts is one of cortical arousal level. Neurotic traits include anxiety,
hysteria, and obsessive compulsive disorders. Both normal and abnormal individuals
may score high on the neuroticism scale of the Eysenck's various personality
inventories. People who score high on the psychoticism scale are egocentric, cold,
nonconforming, aggressive, impulsive, hostile, suspicious, and antisocial. Men tend to
score higher than women on psychoticism.

Measuring Superfactors
Eysenck and his colleagues developed four personality inventories to measure
superfactors, or types. The two most frequently used by current researchers are the
Eysenck Personality Inventory (which measures only E and N) and the Eysenck
Personality Questionnaire (which also measures P).

Biological Bases of Personality

Eysenck believed that P, E, and N all have a powerful biological component, and he
cited as evidence the existence of these three types in a wide variety of nations and
 languages.

Personality and Behavior

Eysenck argued that different combinations of P, E and N relate to a large number of
behaviors and processes, such as academic performance, creativity, and antisocial
behavior. He cautioned that psychologists can be misled if they do not consider the
various combinations of personality dimensions.

Personality and Disease

For many years, Eysenck researched the relationship between personality factors and
disease. He teamed with Ronald Grossarth-Maticek to study the connection between
characteristics and both cancer and cardiovascular disease and found that people with
a helpless/hopeless attitude were more likely to die from cancer, whereas people who
reacted to frustration with anger and emotional arousal were much more likely to
die from cardiovascular disease.

Related Research
The theories of both Cattell and Eysenck have been highly productive in terms of research, due
in part to Cattell's 16 PF questionnaire and Eysenck's various personality inventories. Some of
this research has looked at personality factors and the creativity of scientists and artists. In
addition, some of Eysenck's research attempted to show a biological basis of personality.

Personalities of Creative Scientists and Artists

Early research using the 16 PF found that creative scientists, compared with either the
general population or less creative scientists, were more intelligent, outgoing,
adventurous, sensitive, selfsufficient, dominant, and driven. Other research found that
female scientists, compared to other women, were more dominant, confident,
intelligent, radical, and adventurous. Research on the personality of artists found
that writers and artists were more intelligent, dominant, adventurous, emotionally
sensitive, radical, and self-sufficient than other people. Later research found that
creative artists scored high on Eysenck's neuroticism and psychoticism scales, indicating
that they were more anxious, sensitive, obsessive, impulsive, hostile, and willing to
take risks than other people.

Biology and Personality

If personality has a strong biological foundation, then researchers should find very
similar personality types in various cultures around the world. Studies in 24 countries
found a high degree of similarity among these different cultures. Eysenck's later work
investigated personality factors across 35 European, Asian, African, and American
cultures and found that personality factors are quite universal, thus supporting the
biological nature of personality.

Critique of Trait and Factor Theories Cattell and Eysenck's theories rate high on parsimony, on
their ability to generate research, and on their usefulness in organizing data; they are about
average on falsifiability, usefulness to the practitioner, and internal consistency.

Concept of Humanity
Cattell and Eysenck believe that human personality is largely the product of genetics and
not the environment. Thus, both are rated very high on biological influences and very low on
social factors. In addition, both rate about average on conscious versus unconscious
influences and high on the uniqueness of individuals. The concepts of free choice, optimism
versus pessimism, and causality versus teleology do not apply to Cattell and Eysenck.

I. THE BIG FIVE: TAXONOMY OR THEORY

Eysenck’s three factor theory approach is a good example of how a scientific theory can cause a
taxonomy to generate hundreds of hypotheses.
In Big 5, attempt to identify basic personality traits → taxonomy → theory

Significant part of his life

• major in human develop and has interests in individual differences and the nature of personality
• worked with Salvatore R. Maddi and published a book on humanistic personality theory
• worked with Robert R. McCrae in National Institute of Aging’s Gerontology Research Center

K. IN SEARCH OF THE BIG FIVE

Allport and Odbert (1930s) → Cattell (1940s) → Tupes, Christal and Norman (1960s) → Costa and
McCrae (1970s and 1980s) (used factor
analytic techniques)
Neuroticism and Extraversion → Openness to Experience
Lewis Goldberg: first used the term “Big Five” in 1981
Five Factors Found
• 1983: 3 factor model
• 1985: they began to report work on the five factors of personality
• NEO-PI: new five-factor personality inventory includes Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness and
Agreeableness and Conscientiousness
• last two dimension: agreeableness and conscientiousness (fully developed on NEO-PI R in 1992)
• factor analysed different personality inventory including Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and Eysenck
Personality Inventory

Description of the Five Factors

L. EVOLUTION OF THE FIVE FACTOR THEORY

• Five factor taxonomy → five factor theory
• Old theories cannot simply be abandoned: they must be replaced by a new generation of theories that
grow out of the conceptual
insights of the past and the empirical findings of contemporary research
• New theory should be able to incorporate the change and growth of the individual that has occurred
the last 25 years as well as be
grounded in the current empirical principles that have emerged from research

Units of the Five-Factor Theory

• Core Components of Personality
o Basic Tendencies: universal raw material of personality capacities and dispositions that are generally
inferred rather than
observed (eg: cognitive abilities)
o Characteristic Adaptations: acquired personality structures that develop as people adapt to their
environment (eg: habits)
o Self-Concept: knowledge, views and evaluations of the self (eg:
• Peripheral Components
o Biological Bases: genes, hormones and brain structures
o Objective Biography: everything that person does, thinks, or feel across the whole lifespan; what has
happened in people’s lives
o External Influence: how we respond to the opportunity and demands of the context

Basic Postulates
• Postulates for Basic Tendencies
o Individuality: unique set of traits → unique combination of trait patterns
o Origin: personality traits are result of internal forces (biological)
o Development: traits develop and change through childhood, slows in adolescence and stop in mid-
adulthood
o Structure: organized hierarchically from narrow and specific to broad and general (deductive?)
• Postulates for Characteristic Adaptations
o Over time, people are adapting to the environment by pattern of thoughts, feelings and behavior that
are consistent in their
personality traits and earlier adaptation.
o Maladjustment suggests that our responses are not always consistent with personal goals or cultural
values
o Basic traits may chance over time in response to biological maturation, changes in the environment or
deliberate interventions

KELLY: PERSONAL CONSTRUCT THEORY

Overview of Kelly's Personal Construct Theory

Kelly's theory of personal constructs can be seen as a metatheory, or a theory about theories. It holds
that people anticipate events by the meanings or interpretations that they place on those events. Kelly
called these interpretations personal constructs. His philosophical position, constructive alternativism,
assumes that alternative interpretations are always available to people.

Religious Orientation and Psychological Health

Research has found that people who score high on the Intrinsic scale of the ROS tend to have overall
better personal functioning than those who score high on the Extrinsic scale. In general, these studies
have found that some highly religious people have strong psychological health, whereas others suffer
from a variety of psychological disorders. The principal difference between the two groups is one of
intrinsic or extrinsic religious orientation; that is, people with an intrinsic orientation tend to be
psychologically healthy, but those with an extrinsic orientation suffer from poor psychological health.
 Kelly's Philosophical Position

Kelly believed that people construe events according to their personal constructs rather than a model of
reality.

Person as Scientist

People generally attempt to solve everyday problems in much the same fashion as scientists; that is, they
observe, ask questions, formulate hypotheses, infer conclusions, and predict future events.

Concept of Humanity

Allport saw people as thinking, proactive, purposeful beings who are generally aware of what they are
doing and why. On the six dimensions for a concept of humanity, Allport rates higher than any other
theorist on conscious influences and on the uniqueness of the individual. He rates high on free choice,
optimism, and teleology, and about average on social influences.

Scientist as Person

Because scientists are people, their pronouncements should be regarded with the same skepticism as
any other data. Every scientific theory can be viewed from an alternate angle, and every competent
scientist should be open to changing his or her theory.

Constructive Alternativism
Kelly believed that all our interpretations of the world are subject to revision or
replacement, an assumption he called constructive alternativism. He further stressed
that, because people can construe their world from different angles, observations that
are valid at one time may be false at a later time.

Personal Constructs
Kelly believed that people look at their world through templates that they create and then
attempt to fit over the realities of the world. He called these templates or transparent patterns
personal constructs, which he believed shape behavior.

Basic Postulate
Kelly expressed his theory in one basic postulate and 11 supporting corollaries. The
basic postulate assumes that human behavior is shaped by the way people
anticipate the future.

Supporting Corollaries The 11 supporting corollaries can all be inferred from this
basic postulate:
(1) Although no two events are exactly alike, we construe similar events as if they were
the same, and this is Kelly's construction corollary. (2) The individuality corollary states
that because people have different experiences, they can construe the same event in
different ways. (3) The organization corollary assumes that people organize their
personal constructs in a hierarchical system, with some constructs in a superordinate
position and others subordinate to them. (4) The dichotomy corollary assumes that
people construe events in an either/or manner, e.g., good or bad. (5) Kelly's choice
 corollary assumes that people tend to choose the alternative in a dichotomized
construct that they see as extending the range of their future choices. (6) The range
corollary states that constructs are limited to a particular range of convenience; that is,
they are not relevant to all situations. (7) Kelly's experience corollary suggests that
people continually revise their personal constructs as the result of their
experiences. (8) The modulation corollary assumes that only permeable constructs
lead to change; concrete constructs resist modification through experience. (9) The
fragmentation corollary states that people's behavior can be inconsistent because their
construct systems can readily admit incompatible elements.
(10) The commonality corollary suggests that our personal constructs tend to be similar
to the construction systems of other people to the extent that we share experiences
with them. (11) The sociality corollary states that people are able to communicate with
other people because they can construe those people's constructions. With the
sociality corollary, Kelly introduced the concept of role, which refers to a pattern of
behavior that stems from people's understanding of the constructs of others. Each of
us has a core role and numerous peripheral roles. A core role gives us a sense of
identity whereas peripheral roles are less central to our self-concept.

Applications of Personal Construct Theory Kelly's many years of clinical experience

enabled him to evolve concepts of abnormal development and psychotherapy, and to develop
a Role Construct Repertory (Rep) Test.

Abnormal Development
Kelly saw normal people as analogous to competent scientists who test reasonable
hypotheses, objectively view the results, and willingly change their theories when
the data warrant it. Similarly, unhealthy people are like incompetent scientists who test
unreasonable hypotheses, reject or distort legitimate results, and refuse to amend
outdated theories. Kelly identified four common elements in most human
disturbances: (1) threat, or the perception that one's basic constructs may be drastically
changed; (2) fear, which requires an incidental rather than a comprehensive
restructuring of one's construct system; (3) anxiety, or the recognition that one cannot
adequately deal with a new situation; and (4) guilt, defined as "the sense of having lost
one's
core role structure."

Psychotherapy
Kelly insisted that clients should set their own goals for therapy and that they should be
active participants in the therapeutic process. He sometimes used a procedure called
fixed-role therapy in which clients act out a predetermined role for several weeks. By
playing the part of a psychologically healthy person, clients may discover previously
hidden aspects of themselves.

The Rep Test

The purpose of the Rep test is to discover ways in which clients construe significant
people in their lives. Clients place names of people they know on a repertory grid in
order to identify both similarities and differences among these people.
ROTTER AND MISCHEL: COGNITIVE SOCIAL
LEARNING THEORY

Overview of Cognitive Social Learning Theory Both Julian Rotter and Walter Mischel believe
that cognitive factors, more than immediate reinforcements, determine how people will react
to environmental forces. Each suggests that our expectations of future events are major
determinants of performance.

Biography of Julian Rotter

Julian Rotter was born in Brooklyn in 1916. As a high-school student, he became familiar with
some of the writings of Freud and Adler, but he majored in chemistry rather than psychology
while at Brooklyn College. In 1941, he received a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Indiana
University. After World War II, he took a position at Ohio State, where one of his students was
Walter Mischel. In 1963, he moved to the University of Connecticut and has remained there
since retirement.

Introduction to Rotter's Social Learning Theory Rotter's interactionist position holds that
human behavior is based largely on the interaction of people with their meaningful
environments. Rotter believes that, although personality can change at any time, it has a basic
unity that preserves it from changing as a result of minor experiences. His empirical law of
effect assumes that people choose a course of action that advances them toward an
anticipated goal

Predicting Specific Behaviors

Human behavior is most accurately predicted by an understanding of four variables: behavior
potential, expectancy, reinforcement value, and the psychological situation.

Behavior Potential
Behavior potential is the possibility that a particular response will occur at a given time
and place in relation to its likely reinforcement.

Expectancy
People's expectancy in any given situation is their confidence that a particular
reinforcement will follow a specific behavior in a specific situation or situations.
Expectancies can be either general or specific, and the overall likelihood of success is a
function of both generalized and specific expectancies.

Reinforcement Value
Reinforcement value is a person's preference for any particular reinforcement over
other reinforcements if all are equally likely to occur. Internal reinforcement is the
individual's perception of an event, whereas external reinforcement refers to society's
evaluation of an event. Reinforcementreinforcement sequences suggest that the value
of an event is a function of one's expectation that a particular reinforcement will lead
to future reinforcements.

Psychological Situation
The psychological situation is that part of the external and internal world to which a
person is responding. Behavior is a function of the interaction of people with their
meaningful environment.

Basic Prediction Formula Hypothetically, in any specific situation, behavior can be

predicted by the basic prediction formula, which states that the potential for a behavior
 to occur in a particular situation in relation to a given reinforcement is a function of
people's expectancy that the behavior will be followed by that reinforcement in that
situation.

Predicting General Behaviors The basic prediction is too specific to give clues about how a
person will generally behave.

Generalized Expectancies
To make more general predictions of behavior, one must know people's generalized
expectancies, or their expectations based on similar past experiences that a given
behavior will be reinforced. Generalized expectancies include people's needs-that is,
behaviors that move them toward a goal.

Needs
Needs refer to functionally related categories of behaviors. Rotter listed six broad
categories of needs, with each need being related to behaviors that

lead to the same or similar reinforcements: (1) recognition-status refers to the

need to excel, to achieve, and to have others recognize one's worth; (2) dominance is
the need to control the behavior of others, to be in charge, or to gain power over
others; (3) independence is the need to be free from the domination of others; (4)
protection-dependency is the need to have others take care of us and to protect us
from harm; (5) love and affection are needs to be warmly accepted by others and to be
held in friendly regard; and (6) physical comfort includes those behaviors aimed at
securing food, good health, and physical security. Three need components are: (1)
need potential, or the possible occurrences of a set of functionally related behaviors
directed toward the satisfaction of similar goals; (2) freedom of movement, or a
person's overall expectation of being reinforced for performing those behaviors that
are directed toward satisfying some general need; and (3) need value, or the extent
to which people prefer one set of reinforcements to another. Need components are
analogous to the more specific concepts of behavior potential, expectancy, and
reinforcement value.

General Prediction Formula

The general prediction formula states that need potential is a function of freedom of
movement and need value. Rotter's two most famous scales for measuring generalized
expectancies are the Internal-External Control Scale and the Interpersonal Trust Scale.

Internal and External Control of Reinforcement

The Internal-External Control Scale (popularly called "locus of control scale") attempts
to measure the degree to which people perceive a causal relationship between their
own efforts and environmental consequences.

Interpersonal Trust Scale

The Interpersonal Trust Scale measures the extent to which a person expects the word
or promise of another person to be true.

Maladaptive Behavior
Rotter defined maladaptive behavior as any persistent behavior that fails to move a person
closer to a desired goal. It is usually the result of unrealistically high goals in combination with
low ability to achieve them.
Psychotherapy
In general, the goal of Rotter's therapy is to achieve harmony between a client's freedom
of movement and need value. The therapist is actively involved in trying to
(1) change the importance of the client's goals and (2) eliminate their unrealistically low
expectancies for success.

Changing Goals
Maladaptive behaviors follow from three categories of inappropriate goals: (1) conflict
between goals, (2) destructive goals, and (3) unrealistically lofty goals.

Eliminating Low Expectancies

In helping clients change low expectancies of success, Rotter uses a variety of
approaches, including reinforcing positive behaviors, ignoring inappropriate
behaviors, giving advice, modeling appropriate behaviors, and pointing out the long-
range consequences of both positive and negative behaviors.

Introduction to Mischel's Cognitive-Affective Personality System

Like Bandura and Rotter, Mischel believes that cognitive factors, such as expectancies,
subjective perceptions, values, goals, and personal standards, are important in shaping
personality. In his early theory, Mischel seriously questioned the consistency of personality,
but more recently, he and Yuichi Shoda have advanced the notion that behavior is also a
function of relatively stable personal dispositions and cognitiveaffective processes interacting
with a particular situation.

Biography of Walter Mischel

Walter Mischel was born in 1930, in Vienna, the second son of upper-middle-class parents.
When the Nazis invaded Austria in 1938, his family moved to the United States and eventually
settled in Brooklyn. Mischel received an M.A. from City College of New York and a Ph.D.
from Ohio State, where he was influenced by Julian Rotter. He is currently a professor at
Columbia University.

Background of the Cognitive-Affective Personality System

Mischel originally believed that human behavior was mostly a function of the situation, but
presently he has recognized the importance of relatively permanent cognitive-affective units.
Nevertheless, Mischel's theory continues to recognize the apparent inconsistency of some
behaviors.

Consistency Paradox The consistency paradox refers to the observation that,

although both laypeople and professionals tend to believe that behavior is quite
consistent, research suggests that it is not. Mischel recognizes that, indeed, some traits
are consistent over time, but he contends that there is little evidence to suggest that
they are consistent from one situation to another.

Person-Situation Interaction
Mischel believes that behavior is best predicted from an understanding of the person,
the situation, and the interaction between person and situation. Thus, behavior is not
the result of some global personality trait, but by people's perceptions of themselves in
a particular situation.

Cognitive-Affective Personality System

However, Mischel does not believe that inconsistencies in behavior are due solely to the
situation; he recognizes that inconsistent behaviors reflect stable patterns of variation within
a person. He and Shoda see these stable variations in behavior in the following framework:
If A, then X; but if B, then Y. People's pattern of variability is their behavioral signature of
ersonality, or their unique and stable pattern of behaving differently in different situations.

Behavior Prediction
Mischel's basic theoretical position for predicting and explaining behavior is as follows: If
personality is a stable system that processes information about the situation, then individuals
encountering different situations should behave differently as situations vary. Therefore,
Mischel believes that, even though.people's behavior may reflect some stability over time, it
tends to vary as situations vary.

Situation Variables
Situation variables include all those stimuli that people attend to in a given situation.

Cognitive-Affective Units Cognitive-affective units include all those psychological,

social, and physiological aspects of people that permit them to interact with their
environment with some stability in their behavior. Mischel identified five such units.
First are encoding strategies, or people's individualized manner of categorizing
information they receive from external stimuli. Second are competencies and self-
regulatory strategies. One of the most important of these competencies is intelligence,
which Mischel argues is responsible for the apparent consistency of other traits. In
addition, people use self-regulatory strategies to control their own behavior through
self- formulated goals and self-produced consequences. The third cognitive- affective
units are expectancies and beliefs, or people's guesses about the consequences of each
of the different behavioral possibilities. The fourth cognitive-affective unit includes
people's goals and values, which tend to render behavior fairly consistent. Mischel's
fifth cognitive-affective unit includes affective responses, including emotions, feelings,
and the affects that accompany physiological reactions.