Feist−Feist: Theories of
Personality, Seventh
EditionV. Learning Theories 17. Rotter and Mischel:
Cognitive Social Learning
Theory© The McGraw−Hill^525
Companies, 2009interest, and devotion from others. Doing favors for others in anticipation of receiving
verbal expressions of positive regard and gratitude might be an example of this need.
Physical Comfort Physical comfort is perhaps the most basic need because other
needs are learned in relation to it. This need includes those behaviors aimed at se-
curing food, good health, and physical security. Other needs are learned as an out-
growth of needs for pleasure, physical contact, and well-being. Turning on the air
conditioner or hugging another person are examples of the need for physical
comfort.
Need Components
A need complex has three essential components—need potential, freedom of move-
ment,and need value—and these components are analogous to the more specific
concepts of behavior potential, expectancy, and reinforcement value (Rotter, Chance,
& Phares, 1972).
Need Potential Need potential(NP) refers to the possible occurrence of a set of
functionally related behaviors directed toward satisfying the same or similar goals.
Need potential is analogous to the more specific concept of behavior potential. The
difference between the two is that need potential refers to a groupof functionally re-
lated behaviors, whereas behavior potential is the likelihood that a particularbehav-
ior will occur in a given situation in relation to a specific reinforcement.
Need potential cannot be measured solely through observation of behavior. If
different people are seen behaving in apparently the same manner—for example, eat-
ing in a fancy restaurant—one should not conclude that they are all satisfying the
same need potential. One person may be satisfying the need for physical comfort,
that is, food; another may be more interested in love and affection; and the third per-
son may be trying primarily to satisfy the need for recognition-status. Probably any
of the six broad needs could be satisfied by eating in this restaurant. Whether or not
one’s need potential is realized, however, depends not only on the value or preference
one has for that reinforcement but also on one’s freedom of movement in making re-
sponses leading to that reinforcement.
Freedom of Movement Behavior is partly determined by our expectancies: that is,
our best guess that a particular reinforcement will follow a specific response. In the
general prediction formula, freedom of movement(FM) is analogous to expectancy.
It is one’s overall expectation of being reinforced for performing those behaviors that
are directed toward satisfying some general need. To illustrate, a person with a strong
need for dominance could behave in a variety of ways to satisfy that need. She might
select her husband’s clothes, decide what college curriculum her son will pursue, di-
rect actors in a play, organize a professional conference involving dozens of col-
leagues, or perform any one of a hundred other behaviors aimed at securing rein-
forcement for her dominance need. The average or mean level of expectancies that
these behaviors will lead to the desired satisfaction is a measure of her freedom of
movement in the area of dominance.
Freedom of movement can be determined by holding need value constant and
observing one’s need potential. For example, if a person places exactly the same
Chapter 17 Rotter and Mischel: Cognitive Social Learning Theory 519