0.17 Social learning theory and personality development  (Page 16/30)

Bandura made several points regarding the application of social learning theory to behaviorally-oriented psychotherapy. For example, Bandura notes that the labeling of psychological disorders, indeed the definition of what constitutes abnormal behavior, is made within a social context. While it has been demonstrated that common categories of mental illness are seen throughout a wide variety of cultures (Murphy, 1976), we still view those with psychological disorders based on sociocultural norms and, in the case of too many observers, with unreasonable prejudice. Bandura also opposed the medical model of categorizing and treating psychopathology, believing that the desire to identify and utilize medications has hindered the advancement of applying appropriate psychotherapies. The application of an appropriate therapy involves issues of ethical concern and goal-setting. Therapy cannot be successful, according to Bandura, if it does not have clear goals characterized in terms of observable behaviors. Choosing goals means that one must make value judgments. In making these decisions it is important that the client and the therapist share similar values (or at least that the therapist work with values appropriate for their client), and that the therapist does not try to impose their own values on the client (Bandura, 1969).

Overall, Bandura presents behavioral approaches to psychotherapy as non-judgmental applications of learning principles to problematic behavior, behavior that is not to be viewed as psychological “illness:”

…From a social-learning perspective, behaviors that may be detrimental to the individual or that depart widely from accepted social and ethical norms are considered not as manifestations of an underlying pathology but as ways, which the person has learned, of coping with environmental and self-imposed demands. (pg. 62; Bandura, 1969)

Cognitive Aspects of Social Learning Theory: The Contributions of Julian Rotter

and Walter Mischel

Julian Rotter deserves at least as much credit as Albert Bandura for the establishment of social learning theory. Indeed, his book Social Learning&Clinical Psychology (Rotter, 1954) was published five years before Bandura’s Adolescent Aggression (Bandura&Walters, 1959). In addition, Rotter always focused on cognitive aspects of social learning, something Bandura gave more consideration to only later in his career. But their careers were by no means separated from one another. Walter Mischel was Rotter’s graduate student, and later joined the faculty of Stanford University where he was a colleague of Bandura. Mischel and Bandura collaborated on some of Mischel’s best known research: delayed gratification.

Brief Biographies of Julian Rotter and Walter Mischel

Julian Rotter was born in 1916 in Brooklyn, NY. The son of successful Jewish immigrants, his childhood was quite comfortable. During the Great Depression, however, the family business failed, and for a few years the family struggled (as many people did). This time of struggle instilled in Rotter a profound sense of social justice, as well as an interest in the effects of situational environments.