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Summary Study guide for Julian Rotter and Walter Mischel
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This is a study guide for the background and theories of personalities by Julian Rotter and Walter Mischel
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Psychology – Theories of PersonalityStudy Guide
Western Mindanao State University
I. Overview of Cognitive Social Learning Theory
Both Julian Rotter and William Mischel believe that cognitive factors, more than immediate
reinforcements, determine how people will react to environmental forces. Each suggests that
our expectations of future events are major determinants of performance.
II. Biography of Julian Rotter
Julian Rotter was born in Brooklyn in 1916. As a high-school student, he became familiar with
some of the writings of Freud and Adler, but he majored in chemistry rather than psychology
while at Brooklyn College. In 1914, he received a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Indiana
University. After World War II, he took a position at Ohio State, where one of his students was
Walter Mischel. In 1963, he moved to the University of Connecticut and has remained there
since retirement.
III. Introduction to Rotter’s Social Learning Theory
Rotter’s interactionist position holds that human behavior is based largely on the interaction of
people with their meaningful environments. Rotter believes that although personality can
change at any time, it has a basic unity that preserves it from changing as a result of minor
experiences. His empirical law of effect assumes that people choose a course of action that
advances them toward an anticipated goal.
IV. Predicting Specific Behaviors
Human behavior is most accurately predicted bu an understanding of four variables: behavior
potential, expectancy, reinforcement value and the psychological situation.
A. Behavior Potential
Behavior potential is the possibility that a particular response will occur at a given time and
place in relation to its likely reinforcement.
B. Expectancy
People’s expectancy in any given situation is their confidence that a particular reinforcement
will follow a specific behavior in a specific situation or situations. Expectancies can be either
general or specific, and the overall likelihood of success is a function of both generalized and
specific expectancies.
C. Reinforcement Value
Reinforcement value is a person’s preference for any particular reinforcement over other
reinforcements if all are equally likely to occur. Internal reinforcement is the society’s
perception of an event. Reinforcement-reinforcement sequences suggest that the value of an
event is a function of one’s expectation that a particular reinforcement will lead to future
reinforcements.
, D. Psychological Situation
The psychological situation is that part of the external and internal world to which a person is
responding. Behavior is a function of the interaction of people with their meaningful
environment.
E. Basic Prediction Formula
Hypothetically, in any specific situation, behavior can be predicted by the basic prediction
formula, which states that the potential for a behavior to occur in a particular situation in
relation to a given reinforcement is a function of people’s expectancy that the behavior will be
followed by that reinforcement in that situation.
V. Predicting General Behaviors
The basic prediction is too specific to give clues about how a person will generally behave.
A. Generalized Expectations
To make more general predictions of behavior, one must know people’s generalized
expectancies, or their expectations based on similar past experiences that have a given behavior
will be reinforced. Generalized expectancies include people’s needs-that is, behaviors that move
them toward a goal.
B. Needs
Needs refer to functionally related categories of behaviors. Rotter listed six broad categories of
needs, with each need being related to behaviors that lead to the same or similar reinforcements:
(1) recognition-status refers to the need to excel, to achieve, and to have others recognize one’s
worth; (2) dominance is the need to control the behavior of others, to be in charge, or to gain
power over others; (3) independence is the need to be free from domination of others; (4)
protection-dependency is the need to have others take care of us to protect us from harm; (5)
love and affection are needs to be warmly accepted by others and to be held in friendly regard;
and (6) physical comfort includes those behaviors aimed at securing food, good health, and
physical security. Three need components are: (1) need potential, or the possible occurrences of
a set of functionally related behaviors directed toward the satisfaction of similar goals; (2)
freedom of movement, or a person’s overall expectation of being reinforced for performing
those behaviors that are directed toward satisfying some general need; and (3) need value, or the
extent to which people prefer one set of reinforcements to another. Need components are
analogous to the more specific concepts of behavior potential, expectancy and reinforcement
value.
C. General Prediction Formula
The general prediction formula states that need potential is a function of freedom of movement
and need value. Rotter’s two most famous scales for measuring generalized expectancies are the
Internal-External Control Scale and the Interpersonal Trust Scale.
D. Internal and External Control of Reinforcement
The Internal-External Control Scale (popularly called “locus of control scale”) attempts to
measure the degree to which people perceive a causal relationship between their own efforts
and environmental consequences.
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