Feist−Feist: Theories of
Personality, Seventh
EditionV. Learning Theories 17. Rotter and Mischel:
Cognitive Social Learning
Theory(^522) © The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2009
potential for any behavior is a function of both expectancy and reinforcement value
as well as the psychological situation.
Psychological Situation
The fourth variable in the prediction formula is the psychological situation(s), de-
fined as that part of the external and internal world to which a person is responding.
It is not synonymous with external stimuli, although physical events are usually im-
portant to the psychological situation.
Behavior is the result of neither environmental events nor personal traits;
rather, it stems from the interactionof a person with his or her meaningful environ-
ment. If physical stimuli alone determined behavior, then two individuals would re-
spond in exactly the same way to identical stimuli. If personal traits were solely re-
sponsible for behavior, then a person would always respond in a consistent and
characteristic fashion, even to different events. Because neither of these conditions
is valid, something other than the environment or personal traits must shape behav-
ior. Rotter’s social learning theory hypothesizes that the interaction between person
and environment is a crucial factor in shaping behavior.
The psychological situation is “a complex set of interacting cues acting upon
an individual for any specific time period” (Rotter, 1982, p. 318). People do not
behave in a vacuum; instead, they respond to cues within their perceived environ-
ment. These cues serve to determine for them certain expectancies for behavior-
reinforcement sequences as well as for reinforcement-reinforcement sequences. The
time period for the cues may vary from momentary to lengthy; thus, the psycholog-
ical situation is not limited by time. One’s marital situation, for example, may be rel-
atively constant over a long period of time, whereas the psychological situation faced
by a driver’s spinning out of control on an icy road may be extremely short. The psy-
chological situation must be considered, along with expectancies and reinforcement
value, in determining the probability of a given response.
Basic Prediction Formula
As a hypothetical means of predicting specific behaviors, Rotter proposed a basic
formula that includes all four variables of prediction. The formula represents an ide-
alistic rather than a practical means of prediction, and no precise values can be
plugged into it. Consider the case of La Juan, an academically gifted college student
who is listening to a dull and lengthy lecture by one of her professors. To the inter-
nal cues of boredom and the external cues of seeing slumbering classmates, what is
the likelihood that La Juan will respond by resting her head on the desk in an attempt
to sleep? The psychological situation alone is not responsible for her behavior, but it
interacts with her expectancy for reinforcement plus the reinforcement value of sleep
in that particular situation. La Juan’s behavior potential can be estimated by Rotter’s
(1982, p. 302) basic formula for the prediction of goal-directed behavior:
BPx 1 ,s 1 ,ra= f(Ex 1 ,ra,s 1 + RVa,s 1 )
This formula is read: The potential for behavior xto occur in situation 1 in relation
to reinforcement ais a function of the expectancy that behavior xwill be followed
by reinforcement ain situation 1 and the value of reinforcement ain situation 1.
516 Part V Learning Theories