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Julian Rotter, Social learning theory
Background
Historical Overview
Julian Rotter was born in 1916 in Brooklyn, New York as the third son of Jewish immigrant parents (Walker, 1991). Rotters father had a successful business that was negatively impacted by the great depression. It was due to the great depression that Rotter became aware of social injustice and the impact of the situation environment on individuals. Rotters interest in psychology started when he was in high school, where he began reading books by Adler and Freud. While in Brooklyn College, Rotter attended seminars given by Adler and attended meetings of Adlers Society of Individual Psychology held in Adlers home. Rotter attended the University of Iowa after graduating from Brooklyn College. He took classes together with Kurt Lewin and minored in speech pathology. Rotter studied with the semanticist Wendell Johnson whose ideas had a lasting impact on Rotters thinking regarding the necessity for careful definitions in psychology and the innumerable pitfalls involved in poorly operationalized and defined constructs. Rotter took a clinical psychology internship at Worcester State Hospital in Massachusetts after finishing his masters degree. Rotter started his PhD at Indian University in 1939 (Walker, 1991). It was one of the few programs offering a doctorate in clinical psychology. By earning a PhD in clinical psychology, Rotter became one of the first clinical psychologists trained in what is currently considered the traditional mode.
After serving in the Army and Air Force in World War II, Rotter accepted an academic position at Ohio State University. Rotter started his major accomplishment of social learning theory at Ohio State University. The theory incorporated learning theory with personality theory. Social Learning and Clinical Psychology was published in 1954. Holding strong beliefs on how clinical psychologists should be educated, Rotter became an active participant in the 1949 Boulder Conference, which defined a training model for clinical psychologists. Rotter pushed for the training of psychologists to be done in the psychology department and not by psychiatrists. Rotters ideas are still influential to this date. Rotter was awarded the American Psychological Associations Distinguished Scientific Contribution award in 1989. He died at the age of 97 on January 6, 2014.
The development of social learning theory was done as an attempt to combine the best elements of behaviorism and gestalt psychology. Rotter liked the theoretical and methodological rigor of behaviorists, but the mechanistic learning theories were too limited to apply to human social behavior. The gestalt theories appealed to him, especially the work of Kurt Lewin, his former professor. However, he became disturbed by their failure and imprecision to generate particular predictions. Social learning theory was seen as an alternative to behaviorism and psychoanalysis that had the potential to become useful for clinicians and researchers. Before Rotter developed his social learning theory, psychoanalysis was the dominant perspective in clinical psychology, focusing on an individuals deep-seated instinctual motives are behavior determinants. People were seen as nave to their unconscious impulses and needed long-term analysis of their childhood experiences during treatment. Drive theory was dominant in learning approaches of the time. Drive theory holds that individuals are motivated by physiologically based impulses that push the person to satisfy them.
The development of social learning theory departed from drive-based behaviorism and instinct-based psychoanalysis. Rotter believed there should be a psychological motivational principle in a psychological theory. The motivating factor chosen by Rotter for his social learning theory was the empirical law of effect. According to the law of effect, individuals are motivated to search for positive stimulation or reinforcement...…environment depending on their subjective interpretation and not stimuli. The subjective view of the situation will determine other factors in the persons behavior.
Theory Used Today
The theory of social learning theory that Rotter developed is used today in cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT). CBT focuses on modifying cognitive distortions and their associated behaviors. Social learning theory identified that people learn how to behave based on their environment (McCullough Chavis, 2011). The analogy developed by Rotter is applied in CBT, where the goal is to modify and challenge an individuals thoughts, attitudes, and beliefs so they can change how they react to certain behaviors in their environment. CBT combines behavioral and cognitive psychology to treat various mental health conditions (McCullough Chavis, 2011). Rotter believed that all behavior is learned. Therefore, treatment should focus on teaching new adaptive behaviors to replace the existing maladaptive behaviors. Social learning theory saw the therapist-client relationship as similar to the teacher-student relationship. When there is a warm relationship between therapist and client, the therapist has more reinforcement value. The therapist can influence the clients behavior through praise and encouragemet, similar to CBT.
Rotter noted that behavior is maladaptive because a person did not learn healthy behaviors (Proctor & Niemeyer, 2020). Therefore, the therapist tries to suggest new behaviors to assist the client in developing more effective coping skills. CBT uses the same strategy when treating patients, where the therapist teaches the client new behaviors to replace the negative or unhealthy behaviors they hold. Social learning theory posits that personality constitutes a persons interaction with their environment. Therefore, if there is a change in how a person thinks or environmental change, there will be a behavior change. The same is true for CBT, where the goal of treatment is to modify the thoughts…
References
McCullough Chavis, A. (2011). Social learning theory and behavioral therapy: Considering human behaviors within the social and cultural context of individuals and families. Social work in public health, 26(5), 471-481. https://doi.org/10.1080/19371918.2011.591629Proctor, K. R., & Niemeyer, R. E. (2020). Retrofitting social learning theory with contemporary understandings of learning and memory derived from cognitive psychology and neuroscience. Journal of Criminal Justice, 66, 101655. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2019.101655
Rotter, J. B. (1960). Some implications of a social learning theory for the prediction of goal directed behavior from testing procedures. Psychological review, 67(5), 301. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0039601
Rotter, J. B. (1990). Internal versus external control of reinforcement: A case history of a variable. American Psychologist, 45(4), 489. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.45.4.489
Rotter, J. B., Fitzgerald, B. J., & Joyce, J. N. (1954). A comparison of some objective measures of expectancy. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 49(1), 111. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0059837
Sue, D. W. (1978). Eliminating cultural oppression in counseling: Toward a general theory. Journal of counseling psychology, 25(5), 419. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0167.25.5.419
Walker, C. (1991). The history of clinical psychology in autobiography, Vol. 1. Thomson Brooks/Cole Publishing Co.
Williams, D. M. (2010). Outcome expectancy and self-efficacy: Theoretical implications of an unresolved contradiction. Personality and social psychology review, 14(4), 417-425. https://doi.org/10.1177/108886831036
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