Feist−Feist: Theories of
Personality, Seventh
EditionV. Learning Theories 17. Rotter and Mischel:
Cognitive Social Learning
Theory© The McGraw−Hill^533
Companies, 2009themselves and to their parents. In this situation, the therapist may try to help ado-
lescents see how specific behaviors are related to each of these needs and proceed to
work with them in changing the value of one or both needs. By altering need value,
patients gradually begin to behave more consistently and to experience greater free-
dom of movement in obtaining their goals.
A second source of problems is a destructive goal. Some patients persistently
pursue self-destructive goals that inevitably result in failure and punishment. The job
of the therapist is to point out the detrimental nature of this pursuit and the likeli-
hood that it will be followed by punishment. One possible technique used by a ther-
apist in these cases is to positively reinforce movements away from destructive goals.
Rotter, however, is both pragmatic and eclectic and is not bound to a specific set of
techniques for each conceivable problem. To him, the appropriate procedure is the
one that works with a given patient.
Third, many people find themselves in trouble because they set their goals too
high and are continually frustrated when they cannot reach or exceed them. High
goals lead to failure and pain, so instead of learning constructive means of obtaining
a goal, people learn nonproductive ways of avoiding pain. For example, a person
may learn to avoid painful experiences by physically running away or by psycholog-
ically repressing the experience. Because these techniques are successful, the person
learns to use flight and repression in a variety of situations. Therapy in this case
would consist of getting the patient to realistically reevaluate and lower exaggerated
goals by reducing the reinforcement value of these goals. Because high reinforce-
ment value is often learned through generalization, the therapist would work to-
ward teaching patients to discriminate between past legitimate values and present
spurious ones.
Eliminating Low Expectancies
In addition to changing goals, the therapist tries to eliminate patients’ low expectan-
cies of success and its analog, low freedom of movement. People may have low free-
dom of movement for at least three reasons.
First, they may lack the skills or information needed to successfully strive to-
ward their goals (Rotter, 1970). With such patients, a therapist becomes a teacher,
warmly and emphatically instructing them in more effective techniques for solving
problems and satisfying needs. If a patient, for example, has difficulties in interper-
sonal relationships, the therapist has an arsenal of techniques, including extinguish-
ing inappropriate behaviors by simply ignoring them; using the therapist-patient re-
lationship as a model for an effective interpersonal encounter that may then
generalize beyond the therapeutic situation; and advising the patient of specific
behaviors to try out in the presence of those other people who are most likely to
be receptive.
A second source of low freedom of movement is faulty evaluation of the
present situation. For example, an adult may lack assertiveness with her colleagues
because, during childhood, she was punished for competing with her siblings. This
patient must learn to differentiate between past and present as well as between sib-
lings and colleagues. The therapist’s task is to help her make these distinctions and
to teach her assertiveness techniques in a variety of appropriate situations.
Chapter 17 Rotter and Mischel: Cognitive Social Learning Theory 527