Even More About Albert Ellis

Albert Ellis (1913-2007) was trained by one of Karen Horney’s followers. So it is no surprise that he believes we should battle the Tyranny of Should. According to Ellis, we make ourselves miserable by doing what others think we should do. If we worried less about that others thought, we’d be happier.

For Ellis, thinking and happiness go together. How we think impacts how we feel. According to this view, thinking causes emotional consequences. Emotions don’t stand by themselves. They are the result of your thinking; the product of your belief system.

In Ellis’ terms, it’s as easy as ABC. A is for Activating Event. Something happens: a sound in an adjacent room, perhaps. You think about that stimulus. And what you think (Believe) determines your emotional Consequence. If you believe there is a burglar in the other room, you feel fear. If you believe there is a party you’re not invited to, you feel envy. If you believe the sound was caused by visiting Aunt Betty, you’re happy that you can now have the chat you’ve been wanting.

Ellis originally called his approach Rational Psychotherapy. The emphasis is on rational thought. Think of this as having Socrates in your head. Thoughts should progress reasonably, rationally. They should be consistent and well managed. Or think of it as applying the scientific method to everyday life. You shouldn’t experience life (al a existentialism) but avoid irrational thinking.

If emotional distress is caused by irrational thinking, the cure is to confront people with their irrational beliefs. Ellis is much more in-your-face than Rogers or traditional counseling. He doesn’t avoid confrontation but seems to thrive on it. Although some clients may feel pushed by confrontation, they also seem to appreciate that therapy is moving along. You might be offended by what the therapist says but at least you know they are doing something.

Ellis was criticized for neglecting emotions in his theory, so he changed the name from Rational Psychotherapy to Rational Emotive Psychotherapy. It doesn’t appear that he changed the theory; just the name. So, when criticized for not emphasizing behaviors enough, Ellis again modified the name to Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy (REBT). See, you were right, finding the right name for your term paper was important than what you put inside.

Notice that cognitive and cognition are not part of the title. Ellis rightly calls his theory rational. He does say that emotion, behavior and thinking are integrated. You must change two of them to change the third. If you want to shift emotion, you must change how you think and what you do. If you want to change your behavior, you must change who you think and what you feel. But I think he clearly puts the focus is on rational thinking.

Although described by others as a cognitive behavioral theory, REBT does not emphasize most of cognitive science:  schemas, scripts, memory, learning, sensation, or  information processing. His is a more informal cognition. He just means thinking.

REBT is essentially a self-talk theory. What you say to yourself-your internal speech-is critical to your personal well being. Ellis would agree that people are constructivists, in a philosophical sense. We actively create our view of the world; constructing it out of our thoughts and ideas. We are create problem solvers.

But Ellis also holds that we are destructivists. We are the primary cause of our misery. We use irrational thinking, rules, shoulds and oughts against us. We think ourselves out of happiness. We overgeneralize situations, restrict our options, and worry about things that don’t matter. In general, we care too much about what others will think.

From Ellis’ point of view, we cause ourselves more difficulty than get from others. If we are anxious, fearful and worried about life, it’s because of how we think, what we tell ourselves. We would prefer not the experience being rejected by our parents, our friends or our love interests. But the feeling of loneliness and worthlessness come inside our heads. As children, we might have been constantly criticized, sexually abused, neglected, or forced to grow in an alcoholic family. But Ellis maintains that the reason we suffer in adulthood, long after the initial trauma has gone, is because we tell ourselves that we are failures, worthless, unlovable and helpless.

We should not rely on our musturbatory belief system-and, yes, he knows it sounds like something else. He chose the word to get attention. And to make the point that relying on absolutes (“I must succeed”) does not lead to healthy, mature relationships.

REBT accepts Roger’s unconditional positive regard, particularly of self. Unconditional other acceptance (UOA) is good but USA (unconditional self-acceptance) is better. Don’t be so mean to yourself. Accept yourself, even when you fail. Say that you’ve failed, not that you’re a failure.  Say that you do stupid things, not that you’re stupid. You should be nice to yourself.

In therapy, Ellis is very directive. There is homework to do; testing the reality of our fears, recognizing a Should or Must when it appears, and separating irrational from rational thoughts. You might be asked to take the thoughts that are disturbing you to absurdity. By examining the underlying logic, you could then discover that not getting the promotion you wanted isn’t actually the end of the world. Or you’d find out that bombing one exam, or class, or year, doesn’t ruin your life forever.

Clients are sometimes told to deliberately fail, at a small task. It helps drive home the point that failure is helpful information, not a dangerous curse. Clients are taught to accept reality. And to change their self-image by changing their thinking and behavior.

Another technique Ellis uses is “in vitro desensitization”. The client is taught to relax, and then is gradually exposed to anxiety-producing ideas. Similarly, with “in vivo desensitization” the client tries it out in the real world, gradually taking on more difficult tasks while controlling their anxiety. Both techniques are adaptations of Wulpe’s systematic desensitization procedure.

But Ellis goes beyond behavioral interventions. The goal is get people to match their behavior to their value system. People must judge behavior in terms of what is right…for them. Self-worth comes from being free of the restraints others impose. It’s the freedom to follow our own logic. 

Ellis is quite vocal about his atheism. He sees religion as a way for people to rely on oughts instead of thinking for ourselves. Ellis rejects God but he’s not parochial about it; he rejects all forms of religion. According to this approach, you should not live your life based on rules or theological maxims. Of course, having a rule that you should not have should does have it’s problems. But Ellis is not suggesting an unethical standard. Rather, he uses science as his god, and the scientific method as his tenets of faith.

Even More About Aaron Beck

Aaron Beck (1921-) combined Rogers, Kelly and Freud to create Cognitive Therapy.  From Rogers, he takes the importance of developing a relationship with the client, and also Roger’s emphasis on phenomenology (how you see the world). Like Kelly, Beck emphasizes the personalized nature of thinking. We construct our view of the world from our past experiences and internal processes. And from Freud, Beck takes the importance of treating severe conditions, the value of a good medical education (Beck got his MD from Yale), and the great impact that internal processing has on external behavior.

But the heart of Beck’s approach is the impact of beliefs on behavior. What we believe impacts what we do. Just as our perceptual processes can be distorted, our internal schemas can be biased. If we see an illusion or mirage, we might misinterpret our external reality. Similarly, our internal representations usually work quite well but can become biased and misleading.

If we have an internal representation (schema) of ourselves as hopeless or unlovable, that cognitive bias will impact our behavior. We can make ourselves miserable by overgeneralizing a bad day as being all life being bad. We might magnify a small issue into a big issue, make everything all about us, or jump to conclusions before we have any evidence. All of these are problems of thinking (cognition).  Beck’s approach, then, is to fix behavior by fixing the cognition.

Beck is the author of several widely used self-report inventories. He authored scales on helplessness, suicidal ideation, and anxiety.  But he is best known for his work in depression, and the Beck Depression Inventory (the most widely used scale of its kind). Beck suggests that depression is a combination of physical symptoms (fatigue, appetite, etc.) and psychological symptoms (hopeless, irritable, etc.). So although there might be an underlying contributing biological issue, there also is a psychological issue involved. Specifically, Beck believes that faulty thinking combines with the biology to produce depression.

Depression reaches its maximal impact when we have a negative view of ourselves, the world and the future. Each part of this cognitive triad tends to cycle the others. When we feel bad, the world seems bad, which in turn makes the future look bleak. When we face a bleak future, we feel hopeless, which makes the world a bad place to live, and the cycle continues.

To break this cycle of negative thinking, we can change our assumptions about life. We can examine our beliefs, and consciously change our reasoning. With the help of a therapist who is more colleague than dictator, we can test the truth of our assumptions. We can verify if our external and internal realities match.

Schemas are simply assumptions of how the world operates. We generate rules about ourselves, other people, and the world in general. We decide whether we are good, whether others can be trusted, and whether the world is neutral, on our side or against us. Some of these schemas are very general but many are specific to our experience and unique to us. We might have a general rule of life (be kind to others) and a very specific rule of how to act at home (never ask for advice from your mother unless you want to be criticized).

Schema and values are interchangeable. Values that are at the center of who we are (superordinate schema) influence a lot of behaviors. These core beliefs develop early in life but continue to influence us long after we’ve grown up. If our core values are healthful, they are very beneficial to us. But if our core beliefs are based on distortions of reality, we continue to systematically make errors of reasoning throughout our lives.

If our belief is that we are incapable of making good decisions, this cognitive bias will result in our being indecisive. Similarly, if we believe we are incompetent, we might expect failure and try to get other people to run our lives for us. If we believe we have to have others to make it through life, we might over-value our relationships, and get depressed when those relationships falter. Alternatively, if we believe we must make it on our own, we might over-emphasize the important of achieving goals.

The good news is that our personality is not fixed. For Beck, we are what we think. Since our thinking causes a lot of our misery, we can make our lives better by examining our assumptions, testing reality and straightening out our thinking.

Despite his emphasis of cognition, Beck is surprisingly behavior oriented. In therapy, clients are taught to specify their behaviors, track them, and modify them. For Beck, thinking and doing are closely tied. Systematic cognitive distortions don’t really matter if they don’t show up in behavior. And teaching people to identify their dichotomous thinking (it has to be this or that; nothing in between) is of little value unless it produces a change of behavior.

Beck says that we get “automatic thoughts.” We tend to jump to a conclusion quickly. We do it automatically. If a task is hard, we jump to “I can’t do it.” We don’t process or evaluate the current situation. We rely on our automatic thoughts instead of reality.

Automatic thoughts are the result of our assumptions and our core beliefs. The belief “I am a loser” generates the assumption that we will fail. When we encounter a problem, our assumption of failure produces the automatic thought “I can’t do it.”

Therapy is in part learning to trace automatic thoughts to their core beliefs. Calling ourselves or others names (labeling) might be traced to the assumption that people are only one dimensional, and the core belief that the world is a scary place. Mind reading (inferring what others think or feel) might be traced to the assumption that others should understand us completely and the core belief that we are unlovable.

Even More About Rollo May

In a day when travel was uncommon and communication less than instantaneous, a few people became the translator of ideas from one area of the world to another. Wundt may have founded psychology but it was Titchener who brought Wundt’s approach to America. In this translation process, some things get lost. Wundt conceptualized psychology as two prongs: (a) a reductionist experimental psychology, and (b) a cultural anthropology approach to human behavior. Titchener apparently didn’t like the latter because it never made it across the ocean with him.

Similarly, most of America’s initial understanding of existentialism is from Rollo May (1909-1994). Although May seems to have been a more faithful reporter than Titchener, there are some differences. May is an American to traveled to Europe, studied with Tillich (an existential theologian), and read widely while recovering from tuberculosis (including a three year stint in a sanatorium). He combines Kierkegaard, Binswanger and Heidegger’s existentialism but flavors it with a bit of American humanism. If you’ve read a lot of existentialist thinking, you might see some differences emerge. If you find these diversions troubling, blame it on ocean travel. Apparently some things get lost at sea.

He emphasized the need for love and man’s capacity to “will.” Combining the two, May sees love as an act of will. It is not the fluffy emotional experience of infatuation. It is the choice, over and over again, to act in the best interest of another. To love is to actively care. It is more than emotion; it comes from the core of our being.

May identifies three types of love: eros, phila and agape. Using these three Greek words for love, you can see the importance of love in our lives. Eros is root of erotic or romantic love. It is also the need to unite with others. Phila (as in Philadelphia) is brotherly love. And agape is the overrides all other loves. It is the unconditional positive regard of Rogers, or the divine love God has for humanity, or self-sacrificing love you have for your family. In any case, it is thoughtful love.

Love is tremendously important because it fills the loneliness and emptiness of life. At some point, we realize that we are going to die. And that realization produces anxiety; an existential angst. May suggests that anxiety can be normal (when it helps you grow) or neurotic (when it traps you in indecision or ineffective coping).

So counter our existential angst, we must choose to love. We must use our will to actively choose the best of the possibilities before us. By our active choice, we can emerge from the background. We can stand out as beings that not only have life but have good life.

Existentialism isn’t about existence. It is more than physical life. An existential life is about essence or being. Existence kicks things off but it is your responsibility to turn it into more than just getting by.

Emerging does not come without effort. We must actively participate in the game of life. Life is not a spectator sport; we must be active players. Participation includes being genuine and authentic; no imitation essence allowed. Existentialism is not about looking honest; you must also be honest.

The honest, authentic pursuit of being is a result of our internal emptiness. This emptiness causes stress and anxiety. Although anxiety is an inevitable human condition, it is cued by a threat to some value you hold dear. If it’s not important to you, you wouldn’t be anxious about it. So anxiety shows us what we value and are afraid to lose.

What we must lose is our reliance on traditional values. We can’t lean on or reaffirm traditional values, we must affirm a new set of values: our values. We must create the values that shape our lives, not borrow them from others.

Discovering self is actually more a re-discovery process. May would not want to say that you don’t currently have a self. But re-discovery emphasizes that the process in not automatic. Discovery comes at the risk of more anxiety and the threat of an internal crisis. After all, we are born into a social context and highly impacted by our interpersonal relationships. But we must more beyond those influences to discover who we are.

Rollo May makes several ontological assumptions. As you know, ontology is the philosophical study of existence and reality. Your ontological assumptions define what you mean by being. For May, one assumption is that living organisms seek to preserve themselves. We are centered on our lives, our fears and our success. Yet May also proposes that we have a need to extend beyond ourselves. We are social creatures and need other people. These two assumptions form the basis of May’s approach.

We begin in innocence. As infants we are wholly integrated organisms. There is nothing false about an infant. We are complete authentic at this stage. But we learn to rebel. As toddlers and later as adolescents, we unthoughtfully reject input. Fortunately, we emerge into a stage of conscious self, where we are aware of who we are and what we do. But May says there is a fourth stage: creative consciousness of self. This is the ability to see outside of our limited viewpoint and to develop-rediscover-our true, integrated, authentic self.

For Rollo May, psychology must be encapsulated in an ontological framework. We must see ourselves in the light of our ontological assumptions are reality, integrity, and what it means to be human. We must center ourselves, use our power of will to choose what we shall be, and to rediscover ourselves and our feelings. When we know our intentions, we can live to our highest values, care for others, and actively love. The process begins with self-awareness and the active deployment of will.

There are some things about ourselves and our lives that we cannot change. May calls this our destiny. We must accept our limitations. But we are more than limitations. We also have possibilities. We can show courage by facing our anxiety head on.

We are motivated by our individual wishes, our daimons. Daimons are specific motives that can be either good or bad. Like Hippocrates, May believes that balance is important. We might be motivated by the need to become one with another (eros). This daimon is good, unless it takes over our lives and blocks out everything else. When we are overcome by our motives (daimons), we suffer from daimonic possession, and need existential exorcism.

We have to balance love and will. All will and no love makes us empty perfectionists. All love and no will results in infantile inactivity, and the believe everything should come to you. True creativity is the combination of love and will. Existentialism emphasizes the possibilities of life: what we can become, what we wish we were. Will is the ability to make our wishes come true.

Even More About Frankl

My parents spent three and a half years as prisoners of war. They were taken by force, housed in horrible conditions, and put on a starvation diet of dirty, insect-ridden food. The prisoners were lined up in front on machine guns and told they were would never see each other again. Then the men were marched off, the children (if they could walk) were marched off, and the women were marched off. My mom was six months pregnant. They were slated to be killed but a were saved by a miraculous rescue. So the story of Viktor Frankl’s ordeal in WWII has some resonance with me. But you don’t have to know someone whose been in a concentration camp to appreciate existentialism.

Before the war, Viktor Frankl  (1905-1997) was a successful psychiatrist in Vienna. At age 20, he met Freud but wasn’t impressed with his theory. He preferred Adler. Frankl saw patients, worked on writing a book, and developed centers where teens could receive free counseling.

In September, 1942, Frankl became prisoner number 119104. As a prisoner, you’re stripped of your clothes, your freedom and your dignity. Frankl lost everything, including the manuscript for his unpublished book. One of the mental projects Frankl undertook as a prisoner was remember as much as possilbe what he had written. Years later, he published his book as remembered (The Doctor And The Soul). During the war, Frankl’s wife died at Bergen-Belsen, he father starved to death at Theresienstadt, and his mother and brother were killed at Auschwitz.

What’s the secret to surviving a concentration camp? Although you can’t control what other people do to you, Frankl emphasized the impact you can have on your own will to live. He noticed that people who was something to go back to, or on to, seemed better able to handle the stress of camp. Those who did the best had an important task to do, a family to return to, or a vision of the future. In circumstances where there is nothing else you can control, you’re still in charge of your mind and attitude.

In a more general sense, Frankl believed the same rule applies to those of us who have never experienced such exterme conditions. You don’t have to be a prisoner of war to have things in your life you can’t control. But, says Frankl, you don’t have to give in to self pity, either. The secret of life is that you must find meaning in your life.

Ultimately, Frankl asserts, it is up to you. You can’t ask life for meaning. You must tell life what your meaning is. It is as if life were asking you the question: what is your reason for living?

As you can see, existentialism places the responsibility at your door. You are responseible for your life. Others can’t tell you what to do. Notice that you are only responsible for your own life. Just as others can’t decide it for you, your answer must be for your own life. You only get one life. No fair trying to control others or live life through them. Pushing your child to be a dance because you’ve always wanted to be one isn’t fair. The rule is simple: one life per person.

To find meaning in your life, Frankl provides four guidelines. First, look at your experiential values. You know the experience of encountering something you dislike. And you know what it feels like when you meet something you value. So use those experiences to inform yourself. Aim your life toward those events that inspire you. They might be esthetic experiences, such as appreciating the beauty of art, or the patterns in nature. Or they might be those moments when your are awed by the ocean or feel at peace with the univers, what some call peak experiences.

Second, consider your creative values. Meaning can be come from becoming involved in a project, a mission or a passion. Meaning in this sense is goal-oriented and future focused. Of course, the ultimate creative value is to take on your life as a project.

Third, review your attitudinal values. You can choose to give humor, act bravely, or treat others with compassion. Frankl maintains that your attitude has a lot to do with how you choose to live. Others can take your money, your dignity and even your freedom, but they cannot rob you of how you view life.

Fourth, discover your transcendent values. Some people have overriding, supra-meaning values. These values are based on spirituality or ultimate meanings in life. Whether you call it your religion, philosophy, or ruling passion, transcending values don’t depend of others or on the completion of projects. Ultimate meanings are independent of circumstances.

Of course, existentialism itself is an ultimate value. It assumes that individuals are personally responsible for their own beliefs, actions, and existence. You have one life to live so it your responsibility to choose its direction. You are a moral chooser. You have at your core a conscience, the wisdom of your heart. It is the source of your personal integrity, and the cause of your actions.

Some existentialists add the assumption that there is nothing after this life. You have one life and nothing else. If you want to fit it in, you’d better do now because there’s no do-over’s. Frankl is not that pessimistic. He makes no conclusion about what will happen to you after death. But he does emphasis the importance of being responsible for the life you have now. So insistent on personal responsibility, Frankl proposed that the Statue of Liberty on east coast be balanced by erecting a Statue of Responsibility on west coast.

Frankl calls his approach to counseling Logotherapy. Roughly translated, logos is the causal agent of a reason and meaning. Before Socrates, the Greek to describe the governing principle of the cosmos. In Judaism, God creates the world with his word (logos). In Christianity, the birth of Jesus is describes by St. John as the Word (logos) becoming flesh.

Applied to your life, Frankl maintains that you have a built-in need for meaning in your life: a will to meaning. For you to operate well, you need a life meaning to direct your behavior. Obviously, this view is in direct opposition to behaviorism or other reductionistic explanations. For Frank, everything does not come down to physiology. Physiology provides the hardware but spirit directs.

Therapy is needed when you suffer from a Noögenic Neurosis. That is, neurotic behavior is the result of an existential problem. Your problem might be one of existential neurosis. In this case, you have a meaning to life but it’s screwed up. If you base your life on making money and ignoring people, you could argue that your life has meaning. But Frankl would counter that your existentialism itself is neurotic. In other words, not every meaning to life is equivalent.

Another major problem with people is the lack of meaning. In this case, you suffer from an existential vacuum. You simply have not answered life’s question of what meaning you are going to give your life.

In terms of techniques, logotherapy relies on correcting the way you think about life. Frankl probably saw this as more philosophical rather than cognitive. Current cognitive theories would might use similar techniques but would be more reductionistic in their explanations.

A good example of thinking yourself into trouble is anxiety. As Frankl points out, anxiety breeds anticipatory anxiety. You get so afraid of what might happen that you’re anxious before you even need to be. With anticipatory anxiety, your fear of the symptoms causes the symptoms you fear. If you worry about sweating, you begin to sweat worrying that you’re going to sweat. In common parlance, you psych yourself out.

Similarly, hyperintention is trying so hard that it prevents you from sleeping. You focus so much on your golf swing that you can’t hit the ball. You try so hard to get to sleep that it prevents you from sleeping. Frankl’s answer for anticipatory anxiety and hyperintention was to use paradoxical intention. He suggested his patients try to do what they were afraid of. If you’re afraid you’ll sweat, take it to the ridiculous: try to sweat. In fact, try to sweat as much as you can. Go for the world’s record. His point was many of the things we fear are not under conscious control. So worrying about them is a waste of time; just let your body do its thing.

A related condition is hyper-reflection. This is the tendency to think about yourself too much. When all you think about is you, it’s hard to keep life in perspective. To counter this condition, Frankl recommended de-reflection: shifting the emphasis to someone else. Getting out more, seeing other people, and getting involved helping others are all ways to de-reflect your thinking.

Even More About Rogers

More than anyone else, Carl Rogers (1902-1987) invented counseling. The vast numbers of counseling psychologists, marriage-family therapist and other mental health professionals are the product of his humanistic approach to therapy.

Like Freud, Rogers believed that actual experiences become symbolized. These symbolized experiences reflect all the characteristics of the actual experiences without all of the detail. It’s not so much what you experienced in the past as it is how you interpreted or feel about it.

In contrast to Freud’s distant, impersonal psychoanalysis, Rogers created an atmosphere of connection, warmth and acceptance. The emphasis was turned treating abnormal conditions to helping normal people with everyday problems. It went from impersonal medical terminology to less intimidating language.  Patients became clients. Analysis became therapy or counseling. Rogers made counseling accessible.

And he changed the emphasis from analyzing defense systems to focusing on the client. Originally, Rogers called his approach “nondirective” therapy. The assumption was that clients were given no direction at all; they had complete control over the sessions. But, of course, Rogers did give subtle direction, so he later changed to a more accurate description of “client centered” therapy. Therapy should focus on the needs and goals of the client, not a pre-determined goal of the therapist. Consequently, a client-centered therapist is relatively weak (doesn’t give advice or homework) but guides the client toward self discovery.

Rogers stressed the importance of client-therapist relationship. The therapist should actively develop a strong relationship with the client through active listening, clarification and paraphrasing. This friendly attitude was in direct contrast to psychoanalysis, behaviorism and most other approaches. For Rogers, setting a warm, friendly environment was key to counseling success. Relationship allows clients to open up, put down their defenses, and feel safe. In the safety of a confidential relationship, clients could, many for the first time, experience unconditional positive regard.

Rogers differentiates between conditional positive regard and unconditional positive regard (total acceptance). In conditional positive regard, love is contingent on meeting a standard. “I will love you if…” Or often, “If you loved me, you’d….” When people make love contingent on your doing something for them (meeting their needs, acting according to their standards, etc.) their love is not fully free. In unconditional positive regard, you are accepted for you are; just the way you are.

Rogers assumed that people are basically good and mentally healthy. Although there are anomalies (mental illness, criminality, etc.), the natural tendency is toward growth and normalcy. The primary tendency is to maintain, enhance and grow. Growth is not automatic or effortless but it is the most likely outcome.

The key to understanding people is to understand the individual’s phenomenological field. Each person has their own perception of reality. So reality must be interpreted on an individual basis. An event is not as important as the individual’s interpretation of it.

It’s a relatively simple theory but can be widely applied. The short version is that reality isn’t as important as experience. Or, in reverse, what you see is more important that what exists. Your view-your unique take on the world-is important to understanding who you are.

Think of phenomenology as a house surrounded by miles of land. The house has several windows, each with its own unique view. How you experience reality depends on which window you use. Your view is restricted to size and shape of the window frame. Your “frame of reference” determines what you actually see. Reality may be objective (the collection of all the possible views) but each view is a limited and subjective interpretation of that reality.

In phenomenology, the events that occur in reality are not as important as how they are perceived by an individual viewer. The emphasis is not on what the various views share but on the individuality of each person’s perception. According to this view, it doesn’t matter if people are trying to harm you. What matters is what you think people are trying to do.

For Rogers, behavior is the result of people trying to reach goals. People try to meet their needs (as they perceive them), so how you feel about your needs, your life and yourself matters. Fortunately, there is an unconscious process (the organismic valuing process) that leads us toward productive growth. Although not well defined, this growth process provides intrinsically growth-producing experiences.

It’s not clear how this valuing process works or where it comes from. Presumably is a natural, innate process that doesn’t need to be activated or controlled. It does, however, need to be protected. According to Rogers, the organismic valuing process works very well, as long as it is not incapacitated by too many external rules and social values.

Emotions play a large role in Roger’s theory. The summary is: “Emotions facilitate behavior. ” That is, we act because we feel. So if we want to change how we act, we have to experience how we feel. In therapy, clients are encouraged to get in touch with their feelings and to express them. For many Rogerians, therapy is not a success unless the client feels deeply enough to cry.

In contrast to Freud’s id, ego and superego, Rogers is a self theorist. He believes that self gradually emerges, particularly from interactions with our significant others. We learn to become ourselves by interacting with others. We learn to love by experiencing love. We learn accept ourselves by being accepted by others.

Although others may only see our perceived self, we develop our own view of who we are: our “actual self”. The actual self is what we actually do; how we act from day to day. The perceived self (as perceived by others) may be that at night we read French literature by a roaring fire. But we know that our actual self eats chips and watches TV. The more our perceived self and actual self match, the more “congruent” our sense of self. In this context, congruence is the synthesis of self. Growth is combining the ideal self (who you want to be), the actual self (how you see yourself) and the real self (what you actually do) into a congruent whole.

 Congruence also is the absence of inner tension. A congruent person is consistent and psychological well adjusted. When the perceived and real self differ, our experiences and emotions are ignored, distorted, and symbolized. This distortion process is subconscious, not unconscious. Subconscious suggests out of consciousness. In contrast, Freud’s unconscious suggests unresolved guilt and biological urges.

Parents should accept a child’s feelings, and shouldn’t threaten their self-concept. Self concept is a small but differentiated part of a person’s phenomological field. Although it comes, in part, through interacting with others, self concept is an object of perception: how we view ourselves. It is what we think our values are, which can be quite different from what our values actually are.

The disconnect between our real values and our self concept results in our experiencing anxiety. To avoid that anxiety, we often distort our view of reality (tell ourselves that society is not trying to influence us) or use denial (we are a rock that is uninfluenced by society).

Roger’s treatment for anxiety was to give unconditional positive regard. Unlike the conditioning love often given by parents (“You’re great if you do what you should do”), the therapist should give unconditional positive regard (“You’re great, no matter who you are”).

People have two basic needs: (a) positive regard by others, and (b) positive regard by self. Positive regard means being loved and accepted. Self-regard is loving yourself. For Rogers, positive self-regard is a natural consequence of receiving unconditional positive regard. To love you, someone else has to love you first.

When you have love (from others and of yourself), you have the foundation for becoming a fully functioning person. Rogers sees five aspects that characterize being “fully functioning.” First, you should be open to experience. Willing to try new things but also maximally enjoying the things you encounter. You don’t have to try every new cookie that comes your way but you should open yourself to experiencing the goodness of those you do sample.

Second, a fully functional person has experiential freedom. Instead of restricting your reactions or filtering your thoughts, you should experience live as it is. Don’t over think. Don’t restrict your emotions. Refuse to be uptight, overburdened and encumbered. Be free.

Third, live now. Live existentially. Existential living puts the focus on “here and now.” If you’re happy, be happy; don’t destroy your happiness by worrying about the way things could have been. Enjoy life as it is and as it comes.

Fourth, learn to trust yourself. This “organismic trust” unfolds over time. As you discover your competence, you learn to rely more on your judgment. No one knows your life as well as you do, so trust your instincts. Trust your real self, the inner you.

Fifth, a fully functioning person is creative. For Rogers, everyone is creative. You don’t have to draw, sculpt or paint. Creativity can be seen in your attitudes toward work, sports, politics, and virtually any activity. Being willing to look at life from different viewpoints. Try different options. Think outside the triangle (I wanted to be creative).

To help people become “fully functional,” Rogers developed a therapy that gives the client the freedom and responsibility of directing therapy. Originally entitled “nondirective therapy,” the idea is that the therapist should not impose on the growth tendencies and directionalness of the client.

Notice that it is “client,” not “patient.” Rogers believed that therapy should be as approachable as possible. Anyone and everyone should feel free to come to “counseling” because they aren’t sick (patients) but simply seeking help (clients).

For Rogers, behavior is learned, consequently symptoms (pathological behaviors) are learned. But Rogers doesn’t offer a learning theory to explain how to divert behaviors are originally learned, nor does he specify how learning new behaviors occurs. His theory operates on a higher level.

Rogers focuses on the macro aspects of education than the mirco processes of learning. The therapist-client relationship is like that of teacher-student. And therapy is a learning situation.  But the key to personal growth is emotional, not rational. Growth will automatically occur when a client feels unconditional positive regard, expresses their emotions, and clarifies their feelings. It is the clients’ responsibility to direct the progress of therapy, to reach their own conclusions, and solve their own problems. It is the responsibility of therapists to provide a warm, accepting environment, and intervene only as much as is necessary to keep the client focused on their emotions.

Even More About Maslow

Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) helped shift psychology from behaviorism to humanism. He is the “father” of the Third Force of Psychology. The first force was Freud’s psychoanalytic approach. The second force or wave was Pavlov’s behaviorism. And the third major force in American psychology was humanism.

Maslow is best known for his hierarchy of needs. Building on the ideas of Henry Murray, Maslow theorized that needs are not all the same. Some needs must be met before others. Like Harlow’s monkeys, people their biological and safety needs met first. After the essentials are met, people can then pursue their psychological and spiritual needs.

D motives (deficit needs) push people to get food, water, shelter and safety. Once these deficits are met, progress can be made on other fronts. Motivation is the push toward satisfying deficits (d needs).

Meta-motivation, on the other hand, is the push toward being (b needs). Our psychological needs push us to seek love, belonging, self-esteem, and self-actualization. According to Maslow, people are inherently good and moving toward growth. We are not the slaves of Freudian drives. We are headed toward the goal of reaching our full potential. This push toward growth is innate. Just as plants grow toward light, people grow to be more integrated, more mature and wiser. We are in the process of “being,” not just existing.

Deficit needs are seeking to establish a more orderly, stable environment. We need food and water to sustain life, and maintain equilibrium. Similarly, we need to satisfy safety needs for our long-term success. If these needs are not met, we will continually try to become safe. We might hoard or over-structure your life. If we don’t fill the deficit, we can’t move on.

When originally presented in 1954, Maslow’s pyramid of needs had five levels: physiological, safety, love-belonging, esteem, and self-actualization. Only self-actualization represented B-needs; the first four levels of the pyramid were D-needs. In his revised pyramid (1970), three more B-need levels are included. He wanted to include the need to acquire and understand knowledge (cognitive needs), and the need to create and experience beauty, balance and structure (aesthetic needs). So cognitive needs and aesthetic needs were inserted above esteem needs but below self-actualization. Finally, a new level (transcendence) was added to the pyramid’s top. If self-actualization is reaching your own potential, transcendence is helping other reach their full potential. It transcends beyond the person and beyond ego. It’s helping others become more enlightened and empowered. It is striving for the fullest potential of the human race.

Maslow assumed that the higher needs could only be met after the basic ones had been satisfied. An extension of his philosophy into social policy might be to solve world hunger before world peace. Hunger would take precedence over safety, and safety would take precedence over love and belonging. According to this view, people cannot find love and belonging until their physical and safety needs are met.

Although Maslow didn’t invent the idea of self-actualization, he certainly popularized the term. For him, self-actualization was people at their best. It was the ultimate in human development, the best one could possibly be. It was both a process and the ultimate goal. Self-actualization wasn’t simply what one did once in their life. It was how people should best live their lives.

To help define it, Maslow selected people he thought represented this ideal. The list included: Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, Thomas Jefferson, Mahatma Gandhi, and William James. Eleanor Roosevelt made the list but FDR didn’t. It wasn’t an exhaustive list, more of a sampling of personal favorites.

To understand self-actualization, Maslow read the biographies and writings of those he thought modeled it. From his investigation, he developed a list of qualities that would define one as self-actualized. Self-actualized people are reality-centered (genuine, not fake), problem-centered (solution seekers, not blamers or quitters), and process-centered (means oriented, not using ends to justify the means). Self-actualized people relate to others authentically. They resist social pressure, rely on their own judgment, and set their own direction. Although the self-actualized have intimate personal relationships with family and a few close friends, they enjoy their own company and don’t mind being alone. They are open to diversity, compassionate for others, and hold democratic values. They accept you as you are, and don’t try to change you into what they think you should be. They are able to laugh at themselves, and are not pretentious or moody.

Maslow would not want you to think that self-actualizers are perfect. They’re not. Often they have considerable guilt and anxiety…but it’s realistic guilt and anxiety, not neurotic guilt and anxiety. And they can have moments of ruthlessness and bad humor…but it doesn’t last long. And they can be absentminded or overly kind.

All right, so maybe that does sounds like perfection.

But for Maslow, striving for perfection is okay. People are self-perfecting systems. The self is intrinsically good and gradually getting better. It grows toward perfection as its needs are met. These needs are organized in a hierarchy where lower needs must be met before higher needs. As people growth, they must satisfy the strong needs caused by biological and psychological deficits before they work on the weaker but more growth oriented needs of self-esteem and self-actualization.

Everyone has those mystical moments in life when you feel both infinitely small and eternally connected. You go to the ocean or mountains, and feel both more alone and more connected. Self-actualized people have more of “peak experiences” than the rest of us.

Like Freud, Maslow based his conclusions on logical arguments, not empirical data. His “armchair philosopher” approach was theoretical and deductive. He offered no proof for his assertions; no experiments, no naturalistic observations, and no clinical data. So it’s not surprising that there are inconsistencies in his model. Many examples can be given of situations that don’t fit Maslow’s model. People who are poor or hungry do show love and affection. Happiness does not seem to be confined to rich countries. Maslow’s theory doesn’t explain why police, fire fighters, military, missionaries, and Peace Corp workers regularly give up safety and physiological needs in order to help others.

Also like Freud, an inconsistent theory doesn’t make Maslow’s approach unhelpful or unpopular. Maslow highlights what behaviorist ignored. He emphasizes the importance of love, self-esteem and personal fulfillment. Instead of stimuli eliciting reflexes, Maslow suggests that people can think, have goals, and strive to reach their full potential. Instead of external rewards and punishments, people have an internal need to be creative, social and productive. None of these ideas were included in behaviorism.

Maslow is also in sharp contrast to Freud. Instead of an unconscious id making self-pleasuring wishes, people are active processors. They respect themselves and others. They seek intimate relationships and enjoy being part of a group. And instead of reacting to neurotic needs, people seek growth, health and self-actualization. Maslow is much more optimistic than Freud.

Maslow’s approach is not without problems. The theory does not specify how or when to declare someone as self-actualized, nor does it indicate which famous, powerful, successful people should be categorized as non-actualized. Also, why does it take time to acquire self-actualization? Wouldn’t Maslow’s description of a self-actualized person describe any infant? Is there anyone more authentic than a baby?

The basic problem with Maslow’s hierarchy is that there are many people who regularly give up safety needs to meet higher needs. Poets and artists starve for beauty. Police officers, fire fighters and the military regularly put their lives at risk. And don’t doctors, parents and teachers put the welfare of others before their own needs? As a predictor of behavior, Maslow’s hierarchy doesn’t seem hold up.

According to Maslow, people overcome loneliness because they have a need for love, affection and belongingness. But that’s a circular argument: people can only satisfy higher needs if they meet lower needs first; you know they’ve met lower needs because they are working on higher needs. Giving love and affection are normal human activities because they satisfy the need to connect with others; we know there is a need to connect to others because people give love and affection.

Finally, the theory isn’t clear on how people move from level to level. He believes the reason we don’t all reach self-actualization is that society hinders our growth. He recommends children should be taught how to be authentic. He also maintains that we fear self-knowledge (the Jonah complex). So is moving up the hierarchy the result of training, removing societal influences, overcoming personal hindrances, or somehow stimulating natural growth? Maslow doesn’t specify the mechanisms of change.

Maslow’s theory does infer principles of social policy. If people need air before water, and water before food, there is an implied proper order to helping others. If Maslow’s theory is applied to the solving world problems, it would suggest that people must be fed before they are helped with growth needs. This might suggest that democracy could not occur in poor countries, or at least not until people’s basic needs were met. Some might argue that the maxim would be food before art. But others might hold that it would not necessarily mean food before dignity. The great advantage of an ambiguous theory is that it can be interpreted in many ways.

Even More About Rotter

Like other social learning theorists, Julian Rotter (1916-present) combines behaviorism plus cognition. What we know about the environment impacts what we do. And the best way to predict what people will do is to understand how they think.

Rotter maintains that the likelihood of a particular behavior is influenced by our cognition of rewards. Skinner was essentially right: we do respond to rewards but his system was to simple. We don’t turn off our brains when we’re rewarded. We use our brain power to make calculations about ourselves, the environment and rewards themselves.

There are three component parts to Rotter’s system. First, as Skinner would predict, we look at the size of the reward. We prefer big rewards over small rewards. Given a choice, we prefer to make more versus less money, bigger versus smaller houses, and faster versus slower cars. If we’re going to receive compliments, we want lots of people to give them. If we’re going to lose weight, we want everyone to notice. In general, we want the biggest reward we can get.

Second, there is the expectancy of the reward. We like rewards but we really like rewards we know we can get. We’ll turn down a bigger reward if a smaller reward is closer, faster or more of a sure thing. We do risk assessment and determine the likelihood of a receiving a reward. The reason we choose immediacy of rewards is they have a higher expectancy of coming true.

Rotter’s main point is that we combine our calculations of expectancy (likelihood) and reinforcement value (reward size). I don’t usually play the lottery but I know the likelihood of winning is very low. I don’t expect to win. But when the jackpot is over $20 million, I’ll buy a ticket…just one. I still don’t expect to win but I figure it’s worth the shot for a large prize. We will take a risk on a situation with low expectation if the reward it high. Similarly, we tend to settle for less reward if expectation is high. This explains why people stay is safe low-paying jobs, and why people stay in predictable unhappy marriages.

According to this model, if you believe your chances of getting a job paying $200,000 a year is 20%, the job is worth $40,000 to you. Consequently, you might well choose to apply for $50,000 jobs that you are 90% sure you can get. In your mental calculations, you’d be $5,000 ahead by going for the lower paying job.

Our experience isn’t that we’re making mathematical calculations. But we are aware of wrestling with security versus reward. We realize that there are many more jobs available at mid-management than upper-management. More available jobs means more likely. We know that actors who set out to be multi-billionaires probably won’t reach that goal. A few megastars make huge salaries but most actors make very little money. Rotter is suggesting that we are more rational than we realize. We use value and expectancy to make major life decisions.

We don’t behave randomly. We not only responders to Pavlovian stimuli or solely influenced by rewards. As our environment changes, we use rules to determine what to do. Even in novel situations, we apply our knowledge of the past to the current conditions. Rotter suggest that we have two basic, relatively stable rules: (a) the bigger the reward the better, and (b) safer is better.

Rotter’s approach is optimistic, goal-driven, and adaptive (interactive with the environment). You will notice that the likelihood of a particular behavior in a specific situation is based on subjective probabilities. We calculate what we think the odds of an event occurring. We don’t know what will happen; we make subjective guesses. Our inconsistencies in action show that from time to time we interpret the same situation differently.

Rotter expanded his concept of expectancy to a broader, more generalized expectation: locus on control. Although we calculate the likelihood of specific events, our general tendencies of calculation can be described. Life’s situations aren’t independent. We actually use a relatively stable set of potentials for responding to situations. Overall, we can be described as primarily relying on internal or external expectations (locus of control).

Our locus of control is our view of the contingency between what we do and what we get. If we have an internal locus of control, we tend to believe that what we do helps us get rewards. An “internal” tends to be more political, proactive, and optimistic. They assume they will be successful because expect their behavior to produce rewards. Consequently, internals try to gather more information, change their environment, and influence others. They are also more likely to be anxious. Since they believe what they do matters, they take responsibility for everything…whether it’s their fault or not.

In contrast, “externals” tend to conform, and don’t expect much of life. They believe life is a matter of chance, fate or luck. Externals tend not to take responsibility for anything. Since they believe that what they do doesn’t impact what they get, there is little reason to work too hard at changing the inevitable. They are more susceptible to what Selligman called “learned helplessness.”

Rotter put his theory into a formula:

BP = f(E & RV)

The formula summarizes Rotter’s belief that behavior is a function of likelihood and reward size. Behavioral potential (BP) is the probability of a behavior occurring. And it is a function of expectations (E) and reinforcement value (RV). This formula predicts behavior, and consequently is a guide of how to conduct therapy. For Rotter, symptoms are learned, so therapy should be a learning situation. The focus of therapy can be on any component in Rotter’s model.

The first source of trouble might be a client’s behavior (BP). Neurotic behavior might simply be maladaptive itself and need to be changed.  Neurotic behavior also can be caused by unrealistic expectations (E). The cure for this condition is to explore why the client sets expectations so high or so low. People tend to have a minimal goal: a hallmark of success and failure. Achieving less than the minimal goal would be considered failing, even if the minimal goal had been set unrealistically high. RV is reinforcement value. Here is the recognition that systematically over- or under-valuing rewards can lead to trouble. Corrective therapy might focus on the nature and size of desired rewards. Clients might examine why it is not enough for them when people say that they look good.

Therapy could also revolve around one’s locus of control. Our cross-situational expectations about how life works impacts much of what we do. If we believe “life isn’t fair,” how does that affect what we do? Do we use our external locus of control as an excuse for not taking responsibility for our actions? Does our internal locus of control cause us to be overanxious about things we can’t control?

Even More About Bandura

Although trained in behaviorism, Albert Bandura (1925-present) maintained that it would take too long for people to learn everything by associating stimuli or being rewarded. We are much more capable than that. According to Bandura, people primarily learn by watching others.

Vicarious learning resonates with personal experience. Most can remember learning how to do something by watching their parents, siblings or friends do it. We watch people we know to learn how to fit in, what to do in a crisis, how to behave in public, and how to treat those we love. We watch famous people and learn how to wear our clothes, have elaborate weddings or adopt children from other countries. Demonstration learning is also a popular pastime on television: how to cook, how to buy a house, how to play golf, and how to behave when you’ve made a winning goal.

The process of observation learning is pretty straightforward. We watch what someone does. We make a mental note (representation) of how they did it. And we use our mental model as a guide of how we should behave. Bandura suggests four stages in the modeling process: attention (tracking the environment), retention (converting observations into a cognitive rule), reproduction (being able to apply the rule correctly) and motivation (having a reason to do the behavior).

When I was growing up, I watched my older brothers, and used them as models of how (and how not) to behave. I learned how to tie a Winsor knot, lift weights, snap a wet towel at a friend, and, most of all, how to look cool. On more than one occasion, I watched what they with the intention of learning from them. I found that modeling can help but it’s not without its difficulties.

Before digital  photography, making even a small contact print seemed like magic. With the lights on, you opened the lid of a little box, and put a negative on the glass. In the dark, you put a piece of photosensitive paper on top of the negative, closed the door, pushed a button to turn on a light which would shine through the negative onto the paper, counted for a few seconds, let go of the button (to turn off the light), placed the photosensitive paper into a tray with some chemicals, counted for several seconds, moved the paper to another tray with different chemicals, counted for a while, moved the paper to another tray and swooshed it around for a bit. If you did all of this correctly, an image formed on the paper, and you were the greatest (or at least proudest) photographer in the world. Simple, right?

I watched my brother do it thousands of times (according to ten-year-old world view). I was sure I could do it too. He didn’t want to be bothered with me, so he went off to do something else. But I could use his equipment, as long as I swore (repeatedly) not to break the equipment or screw up. So I started. I put the negative in place, added the paper, counted carefully, moved the paper, counted…I did everything just as I’d seen him do. But it didn’t work.

I tried it again; still didn’t work. Finally, sheepishly, I asked him for help. After yelling a bit at me for wasting his valuable paper and time, he (at my parents’ urging) asked me exactly what I had done. I told all of the steps I’d taken: placing the negative and the paper, closing the lid, counting..everything. “What about pushing the button?” he asked. “Button?” I said. “What button?”

While watching him, I was able to observe everything he did, except pushing the button; it was on his side of the table. And since he wasn’t explaining the process to me (his tolerance only extended to allowing me to be present), I didn’t know there was a button to be pushed.

I had correctly encoded what I saw. I also retained the rule and was able to apply it correctly. My retention, reproduction and motivation stages were above reproach. I even correctly encoding what I saw. But clearly, if our knowledge of the environment is incomplete, we won’t encode the model properly. Of the four stages, attention is the most important.

Most people don’t have a problem with the retention stage of modeling. We are very efficient at converting our observations into cognitive rules. Parents are often surprised when their children put a rule into action: swearing when you bash your finger with a hammer, kicking the cat when you’re angry, yelling at cars who have cut you off, licking your fingers while eating, and shopping when you’re depressed.

Reproduction, however, is not quite as simple. I’ve watched many Olympic and professional athletes. I’ve seen basketball players who can jump up, backwards and throw the ball at the same time. I’ve seen marathon runners, speed skaters, and pole-vaulters perform. But I can’t reproduce those behaviors. I get the idea of how to play golf (use a stick to hit a ball into the hole) but I can’t do it well. Reproduction of ideas into practice is the most difficult stage of modeling.

The last stage, motivation, is where Bandura is most at odds with Skinner. According to operant conditioning, reinforcement is necessary for learning to occur. But Bandura believes learning and performance are separate items. Acquiring the rule and applying it occur is separate stages. According to Bandura, learning occurs prior to performance. You watch and learn, even if you don’t do the behavior. Reinforcement only impacts the likelihood of applying what you know.

To understand people, we must look at the environment and behavior, but we also must include the person: how the model was encoded, which goals were in operation. Bandura calls this interaction between person, behavior and environment “reciprocal determinism.” His theory is behaviorism+. Environment-behavior plus what happens inside the person.

Bandura points out that people are motivated by their goals and dreams. People more likely to perform a modeled behavior if the consequence is something they value (helps reach their goal). Consequently, we tend to model ourselves after people who are similar to us or those we admire (want to be similar to). We provide our own rewards (self-reinforcement), and are capable of delaying gratification. Learning occurs by observing others to getting an idea of how to behave, and using this information as a guide of what to do in future situations. Learning is more than imitation. It is a process of active discovery.

Discovery learning is more than just observing. The key difference is active encoding. Observing is the first step but then the observations have to be converted into symbols. The encoding of a model produces bettern retention than simply observing. Whether the information is converted into words or images (Bandura doesn’t specify how the model is encoded), the conversion of an observation into a mental representation improves retention.

Modeling can, of course, be extended beyond behaviors. It can also be applied to modeling attitudes and emotions. TV commercials are essentially modeling sessions. You watch people you admire use products the sponsors want to sell. The reasoning is if you admire the model or the outcome goal, you’ll want to buy the product. For Bandura, modeling explains the acquisition of behaviors and attitudes.

One application of Bandura’s theory is self-regulation. A three-step process, self-regulation is essentially using standard as a model. The first step is self-observation. Look at yourself and track the behavior you want to change. If you wish, you can use a behavioral chart or diary for documentation. The second step is judgment. Compare your behavior with a standard: you internal standard or an external one (what your friends do, what your doctor says, etc.). Judging also implies the establishment of a goal (walk a mile per day, read a book a month, etc.). The third step is to convert your personal rule into action. This “self-response” step includes rewarding yourself when you meet your standard and punishing yourself when you don’t.

Self-regulation also includes things that didn’t make it into the steps. Some form of environment planning and intervention is also included. You should alter your environment to make reaching your goal easier. Throw out the cookies, cakes and ice cream, so you won’t eat sweets. Or pour the booze down the sink. Remove things that might interfere with your goal, or at least avoid some of the cues. Bandura also recommends personal contracts. The contracts should be specific, written, and witnessed. They should clearly state the behavior to be performed and the respective consequences for compliance and non-compliance.

Like Skinner, Bandura is not in favor of using punishment excessively. He proposed three possible consequences for excessive punishment: (a) compensation (acting as if you were superior to cover your failures), (b) inactivity (being bored, depressed and inactive), and (c) escape (into fantasy, drugs, etc.). Bandura didn’t specify why one outcome would be more or less likely for an individual…which pretty much makes the prediction useless. But his general rule still stands: don’t be mean to yourself.

Even More About Dollard & Miller

It was the 1960s, and everyone was interested in self discovery, cross-disciplinary education, and making-love-not-war. In this environment, old theories were explained in new terms, often by adding a social dimension. One such effort at Yale, found John Dollard (anthropologist) and Neal Miller (psychologist) joining forces to explain psychoanalytic principles in more modern terms. The result was Dollard-Miller’s psychoanalytic learning theory.

They combined Sigmund Freud and Clark Hull. Hull maintained that behavior is reinforced by drive reduction. Drives are strong stimuli that produce discomfort (hunger, thirst, etc.). A drive impels us to action when we encounter a cue. You’re already hungry (drive) when you hear your tummy growl (cue). The cue triggers a behavior designed to reduce the drive (get up and go to the kitchen). If you are successful in reducing the drive (you find a bag of cookies), the reduction in hunger reinforces that sequence, making it more likely to happen next time you’re hungry and hear your tummy growl.

Primary reinforcers are events that reduce primary drives (physiological processes). Secondary reinforcers are events that reduce learned drives (acquired drives). That’s why eating a cookie doesn’t make you feel better about being lonely. Cookies can reduce the primary drive of hunger but not the secondary drive of feeling loved.

For Dollard & Miller, learning combines four processes: drive, cue, response and reinforcement. Drive is the engine. The cue tells you when, where and how to respond. Your response is any behavior or sequence of behaviors you perform. And reinforcement is the consequence of drive being reduced. If your behavior isn’t reinforced, that behavior will be extinguished (disappear). But the process doesn’t stop there. You keep trying different responses until one of them satisfies the drive. Like most drive theories, Dollard and Miller don’t explain where the drives come from; they settle for its being a given.

The best way to understand Dollard and Miller is to pretend you are a mouse in a maze. Having run this maze before, you quickly head toward to food but discover that the path you usually take has been blocked. This is Dollard and Miller’s definition of frustration: a blocked attempt to reduce drive. As a mouse, you scratch at the floor, try to climb the maze, bite at the blockage, and rush around in an agitated state. As a human, you do pretty much the same when your goals are blocked. If you lock your keys in the car, you stomp on the ground, yell at the car and pound on its window. All because your goal is blocked.

Frustration can also come from being unable to do two things at once. When the frustration is severe, Dollard and Miller call it conflict. Conflict is having incompatible responses that occur at the same time. It is the inability to respond simply to the drives that have been trigger. Conflict is trying to do two incompatible things at the same time.

There are four types of conflicts. Approach-approach is the choice between two things you like. It is the choice between cake and ice cream. In this situation, you tend to chose whichever is closer. Mice do the same thing. If you’re the mouse and put in the center of a straight maze with food at one end and food at the other end, you go to which ever goal is closer. People choose grocery stores, banks and gas stations this way. Assuming they are about equal value, you choose on the basis of convenience (immediacy of drive reduction).

In approach-avoidance, you’re at one end of a straight maze (no turns). At the other end is both food and electric shock. An experienced mouse runs toward the food but slows down as it gets closer to the food-shock combination. Conflict is wanting your food and avoiding the shock: two incompatible responses.

Let me put it in cognitive terms. This is completely un-Dollard & Miller) but it will help you remember it. You are in a straight maze. From where you are, the food looks pretty good, so you head toward it. But as you get closer to the target, you remember (having been here before) about the shock. The more you think about the shock, the slower you run toward the food. Thinking about the food is an “approach gradient.” The closer you get to a goal, the more exciting it is. Thinking about the shock is an “avoidance gradient.” The closer you get to something you dread, the less exciting it is.

We love approach gradients. Anticipating going to a big event, looking forward to your birthday, or thinking ahead to getting a new car. Remember how excited you were to get your driver’s license? The closer you got to that day, the more excited you were. People underestimate the value of an approach gradient. Children in particular love anticipation. If you want to get your kids excited, don’t surprise them by taking them to Disneyland. About two weeks before the day, tell them you’re going to take them. And then every day, when they ask “Is this the day?,” say “No, but it will be soon.” When the day actually comes, they’ll be super-excited.

The same is true of adults. Adults don’t really like surprise parties either. Surprise parties are the most fun for those putting on the surprise. Most recipients look confused and startled, more than happy and pleased. We look forward to vacation. We look forward to holidays. We love to anticipate events. It’s the approach gradient in us. We also dread visiting relatives, attending meetings and going to the dentist. And the closer we get to negative events, the worse they look. It’s our built-in avoidance gradient.

One of Dollard and Miller’s key principles is that avoidance gradients are steeped than approach gradients. When we’re happy to have a date but sorry we got stuck with a loser, we’re in an approach-avoidance conflict. Blind dates don’t sound too bad from a distance. But the closer we get to the day of the event, the worse it seems. “Why did I ever agree to do this.”

When you back out of something you previously agreed to, your avoidance gradient became steeper than the approach gradient. As long as the avoidance is small (something irritating but not overwhelming) when compared to the approach, we perform the behavior. But when avoidance exceeds approach, we opt out of the situation. We take back the clothes we can’t afford. We try to get out of the car lease we signed the day before. When avoidance is greater than approach, we call off the wedding.

Avoidance-avoidance conflicts occur when we’re stuck between two things we don’t want. Given a choice between a toothache and the dentist stabbing you with a needle, we try to do neither. When given the chose between two political candidates, neither of whom you like, many people choose not to vote. They hover in indecision and opt for “none of the above.” In such conflicts, we tend to choose whichever is the least objectionable. Or we avoid whichever is closer.

Conflicts don’t have to be simple, either. In “double approach-avoidance” conflicts, it is the choice between two ends of the maze, each with its own approach-avoidance conflict. For the mouse, this would be food & shock at one end of the maze, and food & shock at the other end too. The mouse begins running toward one end but slows at it gets closer. It then turns and runs toward the other end, where it slows down, turns and runs back. The mouse spends most of its time running back and forth in the maze, never getting shocked but never reducing its hunger. The human version is similar. It is the choice between going home for Thanksgiving to be with your dysfunctional family and staying where you but being lonely.

Dollard & Miller include unconscious behavior in their model. Although behaviorists typically believe that behavior is automatic, they tend to view the head as being empty. The mind either doesn’t do anything but produce behaviors or it is a black box of unknown processes. In contrast, Dollard & Miller make unconscious behavior a central theme of their model. According to their view, behaviors are unconscious because when we’re unaware of the cues that trigger the drive, or unaware of the drive itself. Unconscious simply means unlabeled. When a cognitive label is present, the behavior, drive or emotion is no longer unconscious.

Labeling plays an important part in making us less neurotic. According to Dollard & Miller, neurosis is better understood as the stupidity-misery syndrome. When we are neurotic, we are experiencing a strong, unconscious (unlabeled) emotional conflict. The result of our experience is that we can’t discriminate effectively and make bad decisions. That is, when we are unaware of our conflict (stupid), we make bad decisions that make us miserable. Our misery is a result of not labeling our conflicts. The solution is to discover the proper label. Like the fairy tale of Rumpelstiltskin (who put a curse on a family which could only be lifted if they guessed his name), we have to guess what we’re feeling and label it. Once labeled, the curse is broken: we are no longer stupid (unaware) and won’t make ourselves miserable.

Even More About Behaviorism

BF Skinner (1904-1990)

Born in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania, Skinner was an English major in college (Hamilton College) and then pursued psychology (at Harvard). In contrast to Hull, Skinner approached psychology inductively. He proposed an atheoretical methodology which preferred operational definitions to intervening variables.

Best known for his model of learning, Skinner emphasized the importance of what happens after a response. Not S-R, but S-R-C (stimulus-response-consequence), Skinner expanded Thorndike’s law of effect to an entire system of reinforcement.

In place of classical respondent conditioning, Skinner proposed operant conditioning. According to his model, behavior which is followed by a positive reinforcer (reward) is more likely to occur.

Conceding that there are too many stimuli to categorize, Skinner focused on the response and its consequence. Positive reinforcers increase behavior strength; positive punishment decreases behavior temporarily (as long as the punisher is present). Only extinction (the continued absence of a reward) decreases behavior permanently (e.g., if they stop paying you, you don’t go to work). Negative reinforcement (the removal of something bad) increases the likelihood of behavior and negative punishment (the removal of something good) temporarily decreases it.

Note that Skinner did not hypothesize drive, insight or any internal process. He didn’t necessarily deny their existence as much as thought them to be unknowable. For Skinner, if it didn’t impact behavior, whatever went on in the black box of the mind was unimportant.

Basing his findings on animal research (mostly rats and pigeons), Skinner identified five schedules of reinforcement: continuous reinforcement, fixed interval (FI), fixed ratio (FR), variable interval (VI) and variable ratio (VR). Continuous reinforcement is used to shape (refine) a behavior. Every time the subject performs the desired behavior, it is rewarded. Continuous reinforcement leads to quick learning and (after the reinforcement is stopped) quick descent.

Fixed Interval (FI) describes the condition where a certain amount of time must past before a correct response is rewarded (e.g., getting paid every two weeks). FI produces a “scalloped” pattern (the closer it gets to pay day the more often the proper response is given).

fixed Ratio Ratio requires a certain number of responses to be made before a behavior is rewarded (e.g., 10 widgets must be made before you are paid). In Variable Interval and Variable Ratio schedules of reinforcement, the required amount of time or the number of responses varied. These partially reinforcement schedules (never quite sure when you’ll be rewarded) are quite resistant to extinction.

According to Skinner, rewards should be given appropriately. Parents should reward behaviors they want and ignore (extinguish) behaviors they don’t want. Giving attention to a child (such as when giving a punishment) actually rewards the child with your presence and sends a mixed message. Behavior can be shaped by rewarding successive approximations but practice without reinforcement doesn’t improve performance.

Skinner relied heavily on replication. His experimental evidence did not rely on statistical analyses or large subject pools. He performed carefully designed experiments with strict controls and simply counted the responses.

In an attempt to apply his research to practical problems, Skinner adapted his operant conditioning chamber (he hated the popular title of “Skinner box”) to child rearing. His “Baby Tender” crib was an air conditioned glass box which he used for his own daughter for two and a half years. Although commercially available, it was not a popular success.

During WWII, Skinner designed a missile guidance system using pigeons as “navigators.” Although his system was feasible, the Army rejected it out of hand. The PR problems of pigeon bombers must have been extensive.

Skinner’s also originated programmed instruction. Using a teaching machine (or books with small quizzes which lead to different material), small bits of information are presented in an ordered sequence. Each frame or bit of information must be learned before one is allowed to proceed to the next section. Proceeding to the next section is thought to be rewarding.

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