Feist−Feist: Theories of
Personality, Seventh
EditionV. Learning Theories 17. Rotter and Mischel:
Cognitive Social Learning
Theory(^532) © The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2009
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 stu-
pid. Even though their need values are not unrealistically high, they have a low ex-
pectation of success because they wrongly believe that they are incapable, for ex-
ample, 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 inadequate to
other situations in which they could have sufficient ability to be successful. For ex-
ample, a physically weak adolescent who lacks the skills to be an accomplished ath-
lete 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, in-
appropriate 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 adopts
a problem-solving approach to psychotherapy, he does not limit his concern to quick
solutions to immediate problems. His interest is 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 ther-
apist 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 un-
realistically 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
realistic goals. Rotter and Hochreich (1975) listed three sources of problems that
follow from inappropriate goals.
First, two or more important goals may be in conflict. For example, adoles-
cents frequently value both independence and protection-dependency. On the one
hand, they wish to be free from their parents’ domination and control, but on the
other, they retain their need for a nurturing person to care for them and protect them
from painful experiences. Their ambivalent behaviors are often confusing both to
526 Part V Learning Theories