Feist−Feist: Theories of
Personality, Seventh
EditionV. Learning Theories 15. Skinner: Behavioral
Analysis(^472) © The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2009
fashion. For example, an obsessive woman may count repetitious patterns in wallpa-
per to avoid thinking about previous experiences that would create guilt. In these ex-
amples, the substitute behaviors are negatively reinforcing because they allow a per-
son to avoid unpleasant behaviors or thoughts.
The Unhealthy Personality
Unfortunately, the techniques of social control and self-control sometimes produce
detrimental effects, which result in inappropriate behavior and unhealthy personality
development.
Counteracting Strategies
When social control is excessive, people can use three basic strategies for counter-
acting it—they can escape, revolt, or use passive resistance (Skinner, 1953). With the
defensive strategy of escape,people withdraw from the controlling agent either
physically or psychologically. People who counteract by escape find it difficult to be-
come involved in intimate personal relationships, tend to be mistrustful of people,
and prefer to live lonely lives of noninvolvement.
People who revoltagainst society’s controls behave more actively, counterat-
tacking the controlling agent. People can rebel through vandalizing public property,
tormenting teachers, verbally abusing other people, pilfering equipment from em-
ployers, provoking the police, or overthrowing established organizations such as re-
ligions or governments.
People who counteract control through passive resistanceare more subtle than
those who rebel and more irritating to the controllers than those who rely on escape.
Skinner (1953) believed that passive resistance is most likely to be used where es-
cape and revolt have failed. The conspicuous feature of passive resistance is stub-
bornness. A child with homework to do finds a dozen excuses why it cannot be fin-
ished; an employee slows down progress by undermining the work of others.
Inappropriate Behaviors
Inappropriate behaviors follow from self-defeating techniques of counteracting so-
cial control or from unsuccessful attempts at self-control, especially when either of
these failures is accompanied by strong emotion. Like most behaviors, inappropriate
or unhealthy responses are learned. They are shaped by positive and negative rein-
forcement and especially by the effects of punishment.
Inappropriate behaviors include excessively vigorous behavior, which makes
no sense in terms of the contemporary situation, but might be reasonable in terms of
past history; and excessively restrained behavior, which people use as a means of
avoiding the aversive stimuli associated with punishment. Another type of inap-
propriate behavior is blocking out reality by simply paying no attention to aversive
stimuli.
A fourth form of undesirable behavior results from defective self-knowledge
and is manifested in such self-deluding responses as boasting, rationalizing, or
claiming to be the Messiah. This pattern of behavior is negatively reinforcing be-
466 Part V Learning Theories