Chapter 18 Rotter and Mischel: Cognitive Social Learning Theory 545(a nonproductive, self-defeating strategy), or she may withdraw from people, which
prevents her from being hurt by them but which is also nonproductive.
Setting goals too high is only one of several possible contributors to maladap-
tive behavior. Another frequent cause is low freedom of movement. People may have
low expectancies of success because they lack information or the ability to perform
those behaviors that will be followed by positive reinforcement. A person who val-
ues love, for example, may lack the interpersonal skills necessary to obtain it.
People may also have low freedom of movement because they make a faulty
evaluation of the present situation. For example, people sometimes underestimate their
intellectual abilities because, in the past, they have been told that they were stupid.
Even though their need values are not unrealistically high, they have a low expectation
of success because they wrongly believe that they are incapable, for example, of
performing well in school or competing successfully for a higher level job.
Another possibility is that people have low freedom of movement because
they generalize from one situation in which, perhaps, they are realistically inade-
quate to other situations in which they could have sufficient ability to be success-
ful. For example, a physically weak adolescent who lacks the skills to be an
accomplished athlete may erroneously see himself as unable to compete for a role
in the school play or to be a leader in a social club. He inappropriately generalizes
his inadequacies in sports to lack of ability in unrelated areas.
In summary, maladjusted individuals are characterized by unrealistic goals,
inappropriate behaviors, inadequate skills, or unreasonably low expectancies of
being able to execute the behaviors necessary for positive reinforcement. Although
they have learned inadequate ways of solving problems within a social context,
they can unlearn these behaviors and also learn more appropriate ones within the
controlled social environment provided by psychotherapy.
Psychotherapy
To Rotter (1964), “the problems of psychotherapy are problems of how to effect
changes in behavior through the interaction of one person with another. That is,
they are problems in human learning in a social situation” (p. 82). Although Rotter
adopted a problem-solving approach to psychotherapy, he did not limit his concern
to quick solutions to immediate problems. His interest was more long range,
involving a change in the patient’s orientation toward life.
In general, the goal of Rotter’s therapy is to bring freedom of movement
and need value into harmony, thus reducing defensive and avoidance behaviors.
The therapist assumes an active role as a teacher and attempts to accomplish the
therapeutic goal in two basic ways: (1) changing the importance of goals and
(2) eliminating unrealistically low expectancies for success (Rotter, 1964, 1970,
1978; Rotter & Hochreich, 1975).
Changing Goals
Many patients are unable to solve life’s problems because they are pursuing skewed
or distorted goals. The role of the therapist is to help these patients understand the
faulty nature of their goals and to teach them constructive means of striving toward