Social cognitive theories

Our behaviour can either be conditioned or cognitive. Conditioned behaviours are developed at the early stages of our life. As we mature, our behaviour tends to be more cognitive when interacting with others.

Conditioned Behaviour

According to the social cognitive psychologists, our behaviour is learned from our past experiences in our environment that are stored at the sub-conscious level of our mind. Our past experiences in the environment can be both sweet and bitter. Sweet experiences give us pleasure while the bitter ones give us pain. The major portion of our behaviour is learned. We learned from a significant other gives us the pains and the pleasures in the process of growing up in our journey through life. That significant other could be anyone, i.e. our parents, relatives, teachers, strangers, pastors, friends, bosses, colleagues, customers and subordinates.

According to the pain and pleasure theory, pains develop our lesser self while pleasures develop our goodself.

For example, when someone (A) opens his lesser self (blames B for A’s mistakes), B suffers a painful stimulus. B opens his lesser self (Visibly upset and punches A), i.e. he responses with a painful stimulus to A. Such behaviours are conditioned.

The following characteristics are manifested in conditioned behaviour:

• The behaviour is controlled by feeling
• It is energized from the pre-conscious mind
• It is reactive
• It is spontaneous
• It is impulsive
• It is emotional
• It is not a planned behaviour
• It does not give the person a choice

Skinner calls this behaviour 'operant conditioning'. It is used to train animals.

Cognitive Behaviour

Human beings differ from animals because we have an intellect. When we think before we conduct our behaviour we have a choice.

Such behaviour is known as cognitive behaviour. Cognitive behaviour involves thinking. Thinking is the process of bringing the intellectual faculties into plays, the use of the mind for arriving at a conclusion. Such behaviour creates a gap between stimulus and response as shown below:

The gap is created for us to use the intellect for analyzing and arriving at the conclusion of our response. When the intellectual faculties are brought into play, we have a choice to open our lesser self to give pain or to open our goodself and give pleasure to the other party.

Such behaviour is planned and operates at the conscious level of our mind.

Cognitive behaviour has the following characteristics:

• The behaviour operates at the conscious level of the mind
• It is controlled by the intellect
• It is deferred
• It is planned and carefully thought out
• It is pro-active
• It is based on a person’s subjective rationality
• It can predict and anticipate the outcomes and consequences
• The person has many choices to respond

For example, when someone (A) opens his lesser self, i.e. providing a painful stimulus to B. B then creates a gap. This gap helps B to

• Analyze A’s intent or motive
• Analyze his own doings
• Predict and anticipate the consequences of B’s response on himself, others and the situation

B now has a choice either to open his lesser self and responds with a painful stimulus or opens his good self and responds with a pleasurable stimulus to A.

B’s response is dependent on A’s position in relation to him and the situation. Should A be in a superior position B may respond by giving a pleasurable stimulus to A as it will be to his benefit to do so. Alternatively, should A be in an inferior or peer situation, B may respond by giving a painful stimulus if he feels that that situation is going to adversely affect him. However, if the situation is to be in his favor he may choose to provide a pleasurable stimulus.

Rational Vs Irrational Behaviour

According to the Psychodynamic psychologists, rational behaviour operates at the conscious level of the mind. It uses reason and logic to anticipate and predict the consequence of a situation before responding to a stimulus. It offers a choice to the person to give pain or pleasure to the other party.

Irrational behaviour operates at the unconscious level of our mind. It is developed from very painful experiences buried deep into the unconscious level of our mind. They are our psychological scars.

For example, an alcoholic may be attempting to blank his memory for having been involved in a massacre knowing full well that hard drinks will eventually destroy his health and take his life. The phobia that a woman has towards man may be traced to her having been sexually abused by a family member or close friend.

Psychodynamic Processes Of Behavioural Development

God gives us a tape-recorder cum computer brain. The tape records our experiences both painful and pleasurable and stores them in our memory. Our memory has two levels of storage system, the surface level, known as our pre-consciousness and the depth, our unconsciousness. The environmental forces around us provide infinite images to attract us inviting us to respond. These images energize our motivation to act towards our ambitions, values, beliefs, principles and objectives that represent our life goals.

Our brain has a mechanism linking to our five senses to respond to our life goals. The process of responding and converting these life goals into information is our conscious awareness also known as our consciousness.

The degree of attractiveness of a life goal depends on the need of an individual to accomplish it. The greater the need, the greater the want and desire to get it. It represents our motive behind our actions. It explains why an individual is highly motivated and is willing to spend more time and effort (energy) to accomplish it. The whole process of pursuing a goal is an experience. Success and failure in achieving it is converted into information and store at the two levels of our unconsciousness. Goal accomplishment gives an individual joys, satisfaction and fulfillment. It reinforces the motive and the motivation to pursue the same or other goals.

Failing to accomplish a goal causes stress, anger, depression and anxieties to an individual generating negative energy destructive to survival. The whole process of a painful experience is stored at the unconsciousness. The greater the pain the deeper it depresses into the unconsciousness. Psychopathic/abnormal behaviour is the product of a great pain that damages the rational component of our brain mechanisms. It is caused by the negative psychic energy of the inner states directed as a result of failure and short circuit its logical mechanism.

From the psychodynamic point of view, our behaviour is developed from our past experiences both pleasurable and painful stored in our unconsciousness.

We learned the traits from a significant other. The significant other is anyone who gives us pleasurable and painful experiences in the process of growing up. Pleasurable experiences from a significant other develop our goodself. For example, if our parents show us love and tender care, we learn to love and care for others. If our boss appreciates and values our good work, we become more hardworking and committed to doing a good job. Pleasurable experiences develop our goodself while painful experiences develop our lesser self.

Humanistic Psychologists View Of Behavioural Development

Humanistic psychologists believe in the worth of a person and dedicate to the development of human potentials. They posits that society plays an important role in developing human beings. Human being has needs that need to be satisfied before they can self-actualize. The satisfaction of these needs develop the goodself while deprivation of them leads to the development of the lesser self. Thus the psychological health of an individual depends on a conducive environment for survival and growth. A toxic environment damages the psychological health of the person developing irrational behaviour.