Personality: The Psychological Behaviorism Theory 147occur, in the cumulative-hierarchical learning process. In
providing foundations for further learning, the three major
BBRs—the emotional-motivational, language-cognitive, and
sensorimotor—also grow and elaborate through cumulative-
hierarchical learning.
The learning of the basic behavioral repertoires changes the
individual. The BBRs thus act as independent variables that
determine what the individual experiences, how the individual
behaves, and what the individual learns. The cumulative-
hierarchical learning of such repertoires is fundamental in
child development; in fact, the PB theory is that the study of
that learning should be the primary objective of this field, as it
should be in the field of personality.
The Concept of Personality
It is significant in comparing the PB theory to other personal-
ity theories to note differences in such things as the type of
data involved and the specificity, precision, systematicity,
and empirical definition of principles and concepts. It is such
characteristics that determine the functions that a theory can
have. Another characteristic of the PB approach concerns the
schism between traditional psychology and traditional be-
haviorism. Traditional psychology infers personality as a
unique internal process or structure that determines the indi-
vidual’s unique behavior. That makes study of personality
(and related concepts) very central. Traditional behaviorism,
in opposition, and according to its fundamental methodology,
cannot accept an inferred concept as the cause of behavior.
So, while almost every personologist considers learning to be
important in personality, traditional behaviorism, which
should be concerned with how learning affects personality,
cannot even consider the topic. The schism leaves personal-
ity theories incomplete and divides psychology.
The PB Definition of Personality
The PB program has led to the development of a theory of
personality that can resolve that schism in a way that is valu-
able to both sides. The PB definition of personality is that it is
composed of the three basic behavioral repertoires that the
individual has learned. That definition harmonizes with be-
haviorism, for the PB program is to study the behaviors in
those repertoires and how they are learned, as well as how
they have their effects on the individual’s characteristic be-
havior. At the same time, that definition is very compatible
with the traditional view of personality as an internal process
or structure that determines behavior. As such, the PB con-
cept of personality can link with traditional work on person-
ality, including personality tests, and can also contribute to
advancement of that work. How the three BBRs compose
personality is described next.The Emotional-Motivational Aspects of PersonalityThere are many concepts that refer to human emotions, emo-
tional states, and emotional personality traits. As examples, it
may be said that humans may feel the responses of joy or fear,
may be in a depressed or euphoric state, and may be optimistic
or pessimistic as traits. The three different emotional
processes are not usually well defined. PB makes explicit
definitions. First, the individual can experience specific,
ephemeral emotional responses depending on the appearance-
cessation of a stimulus. Second, multiple emotion-eliciting
events can yield a series of related emotional responses that
add together and continue over time; this constitutes an emo-
tional state. Third, the individual can learn emotional re-
sponses to sets of stimuli that are organized—like learning a
positive emotional response to a wide number of religious
stimuli. That constitutes an emotional-motivational trait (reli-
gious values); that is, the individual will have positive emo-
tional responses to the stimuli in the many religious situations
encountered. And that emotional-motivational trait will affect
the individual’s behavior in those many situations (from the
reinforcer and incentive effects of the religious stimuli). For
these reasons the trait has generality and continuity. There are
psychological tests fortraitssuch as interests, values, atti-
tudes, and paranoid personality. There are also tests forstates
such as anxiety and depression and moods. And there are
also tests for single emotional responses, such as phobias or
attitudes.
Personality theories usually consider emotion. This is
done in idiosyncratic terminology and principles. So how one
theory considers emotion is not related to another. Theories
of emotion at the personality level are not connected to stud-
ies of emotion at more basic levels. Many psychological tests
measure emotions, but they are not related to one another.
Psychological behaviorism provides a systematic framework
theory of emotion that can deal with the various emotional
phenomena, analyze many findings within the same set of
concepts and principles, and thus serve as a unifying overar-
ching theory. Psychological behaviorism experimentation
has shown that interest tests deal with emotional responses to
occupation-related stimuli, that attitude tests deal with emo-
tional responses to groups of people, and that values tests
deal with emotional responses to yet other stimuli, unifying
them in the same theory.
In the PB theory, beginning with the basic, the individual
has emotional responses to stimuli because of biological struc-
ture, such as a positive emotional response to food stimuli,