Theories_of_Personality 7th Ed Feist

Feist−Feist: Theories of

Personality, Seventh

Edition

V. Learning Theories 17. Rotter and Mischel:

Cognitive Social Learning

Theory

© The McGraw−Hill^545

Companies, 2009

colleagues (Mischel &
Ayduk, 2002; Mischel &
Shoda, 1998, 1999) have
added affective responses
to the list of important
cognitive-affective units.
Affective responses in-
clude emotions, feelings,
and physiological reac-
tions. Mischel sees affec-
tive responses as insepa-
rable from cognitions and
regards the interlocking
cognitive-affective units
as more basic than the
other cognitive-affective
units.
Affective responses,
then, do not exist in isola-
tion. Not only are they in-
separable from cognitive
processes, but also they
influence each of the
other cognitive-affective
units. For example, the
encoding of a person’s
view of self includes cer-
tain positive and negative
feelings.“I see myself as a competent psychology student and that pleases me.” “I’m
not very good at mathematics and I don’t like that.” Similarly, people’s competencies
and coping strategies, their beliefs and expectancies, and their goals and values are
all colored by their affective responses.
Mischel and Shoda (1995) stated:
Cognitive-affective representations are not unconnected discrete units that are
simply elicited as “responses” in isolation: These cognitive representations and
affective states interact dynamically and influence each other reciprocally, and it is
the organization of the relationships among them that forms the core of the
personality structure and that guides and constrains their impact. (p. 253)
In summary, interrelated cognitive-affective units contribute to behavior as
they interact with stable personality traits and a receptive environment. The most im-
portant of these variables include (1) encoding strategies,or how people construe or
categorize an event; (2) competencies and self-regulating strategies:that is, what
people can do and their strategies and plans to accomplish a desired behavior;
(3) behavior-outcome and stimulus-outcome expectancies and beliefsregarding a
particular situation; (4) subjective goals, values, and preferencesthat partially
determine selective attention to events; and (5) affective responses,including feel-
ings and emotions as well as the affects that accompany physiological reactions.

Chapter 17 Rotter and Mischel: Cognitive Social Learning Theory 539

One reason for the inconsistency in people’s behavior is their
inability to predict the behavior of others.