#cognitivesociallearning

The birth of Social Cognitive Theories pushed other theorists to draw interest in social learning. Among them is Jullian Rotter who proposed the social learning theory, and Walter Mischel with Cognitive-Affective Personality System (CAPS). These theories' underlying importance is the emphasis on personal motivation and cognition in developing human personality.

Rotter’s Social Learning Theory suggests that cognitive factors play a role in shaping people's reactions to environment forces. He believed that people’s behavior could be predicted based on subjective perceptions such as values and goals and their interaction with meaningful environments. To predict a specific behavior, he even came up with a formula: BPs = f(E + RV). To explain this, I have anchored my knowledge through a situation. Let say you were so hungry and there was leftover food. You were debating if you will eat it or not. “BP” stands for behavioral potential, the likelihood of you eating the leftover food. The “s” stands for the psychological situation. In the situation, it is your complex pattern of cues, such as you being so hungry or lazy to cook or buy other food. Both factors are a function (f) of or depend on the expectancy (E) that I will be full and reinforcement value (RV) or the need for me to be full because of so much hunger. So if there is a high expectancy and reinforcement value, the higher probability that I will do the behavior, in this case, eating the leftover food. This formula can be used in other situations, which can help us predict the probability of doing a behavior and observe general patterns of personality.