Biography of Julian Rotter

According to Rotter, both of these approaches contained concepts that were insufficiently defined, and therefore he decided to introduce clear and accurate terminology. He tried to develop a conceptual structure, including clearly defined terms and hypotheses that can be checked. He also intended to build a theory that would emphasize the role of motivational and cognitive factors in human learning.

Finally, Rotter wanted to create a theory that would emphasize an understanding of behavior in the context of social situations. In the words of Rotter: “This is the theory of social learning, because it emphasizes the fact that the main or main types of behavior can be learned in social situations, and these types of behavior are difficult to combine with needs that require satisfaction in mediation with other people, Rotter, p.

Having focused on how they learned behavior in a social context, Rotter, in addition, believed that mainly behavior is determined by our unique ability to think and foresee. According to him, predicting what people will do in a certain situation, we must take into account such cognitive variables as perception, expectation and value. Also, in the theory of Rotter, there is a provision that a person’s behavior is purposefully, that is, people seek to move to the expected Rotter goals, according to Rotter, a person’s behavior is determined by the expectation that this action will ultimately lead to future encouragements.

Like Bandur, Rotter developed the theory of human functioning, which stands in positions that are completely different from the radical behaviorism of Skinner. He was the third son of parents, Jewish immigrants. Remembering the obligation to pay tribute to the teacher who affected my intellect, Rotter expressed gratitude to the library on Avenue Jay in Brooklyn, where he spent a lot of time, being a schoolboy and student of Rotter, he was a greedy reader.

Once, exploring the racks with books in search of something new, he came across the books of Adler and Freud. Thus, his interest in psychology originated, and Rotter subsequently studied it at Brooklyn College, but only optionally. The main subject for him was chemistry, because "there was no profession in psychology, about which I knew" Rotter,, p. In the first years of study at college, Rotter learned that Alfred Adler was teaching at Long Island Medical School.

Soon he began to attend Adler's lectures, and in the end he invited Rotter to attend the monthly meetings of the Society of Individual Psychology, which Adler conducted at home. Continuing training, Rotter in the year entered the University of Iowa in order to graduate from psychology. He received a master's degree in humanitarian sciences in Aiovo in the year and a doctoral degree on clinical psychology at the University of Indiana in the year.

During the Second World War, Rotter worked as a psychologist in the US Army. In the year, he began to work at the State University of Ohio, where he subsequently replaced George Kelly as director of the clinical psychological program. When Rotter held his position in Ohio, he published his most famous work "Social Learning and Clinical Psychology" in the year Rotter took the position of professor at the University of Connecttikut.

There he was also the director of the program for the training of clinical psychology and received a diploma of a clinical psychologist from the American College of Experts in Professional Psychology.

During his work, Rotter wrote many articles, chapters, books and tests for tests. The chapter "Theory of social learning" can be found in the book "expectations and actions: models of the expected value in the psychology" Feather, this is an excellent review of his theoretical position. The last presentation of his ideas appeared in the book “Development and Applications of the theory of Social Learning” despite the fact that Rotter retired in the year, he continues to write and perform the functions of the supervisor of student thesis.

He and his wife constantly live in Stors, Connecticut. Rotter believes that it is necessary to carefully analyze the interaction of four variables. These variables include the potential of behavior, expectation, value of reinforcement and psychological situation. The potential of behavior Rotter claims that the key to predicting what a person will do in this situation lies in understanding the potential of behavior.

This term is understood as the likelihood of this behavior, "found in some situation or situations in connection with any one reinforcement or reinforcements" Rotter et al. Imagine, for example, that someone insulted you at a party. How do you react? From the point of view of Rotter, there are several response. You can say that this crosses all the boundaries, and demand an apology.

You may not pay attention to the insult and transfer the conversation to another topic. You can hit the offender in the face or just leave. Each of these reactions has its own behavior.If you decide not to pay attention to the offender, this means that the potential of this reaction is stronger than that of any other possible reaction. Obviously, the potential of each reaction can be strong in one situation and weak in another.

The concept of Rotter's behavior includes actually all types of human activity in response to the stimulus situation, which can only somehow be detected and measured. This includes piercing screams, inflated appearance, crying, laughter and fight. Planning, analyzing, training, logical substantiation and delay are evaluated in the same way. In short, the behavior consists of "Motor actions, cognition, verbal behavior, non -verbally expressed behavior, emotional reactions, and so on" Rotter, Hochreich,, p.

Waiting for Rotter, expectation is subjective to the fact that a certain reinforcement will take place as a result of specific behavior. For example, before you decide whether to go to a party or not, you, apparently, try to calculate the likelihood that you will have a good time. Also, deciding whether to prepare for the exam on weekends, you are likely to ask yourself if you will help you better pass the exam.

Thus, if you have never enjoyed a party, the expectation that you will enjoy it is very few. Also, if classes on weekends have always helped you better pass the exam, you will probably have a high expectation of the fact that you will get a good mark again. The concept of Rotter’s expectation clearly says that if in the past people for behavior in this situation received reinforcements, they most often repeat this behavior.

For example, if you always had a great time at parties, then, in all likelihood, you will agree to accept an invitation to the weekend. But how can the expectation explain the behavior in the situation we encountered for the first time? According to Rotter, in this case, expectation is based on our experience in a similar situation. The recent graduate of the college, who received praise for working on a semester control on weekends, is likely to wait for what would be encouraged if the report for his boss finishes on weekends.

This example shows how expectation can lead to constant forms of behavior, regardless of time and situations. In fact, Rotter says that a stable expectation, generalized on the basis of past experience, really explains the stability and unity of the individual. However, it should be noted that expectation does not always correspond to reality. For some people, for example, can be unrealistically high expectations regarding their success, regardless of the situation.

And others can be so uncertain that they constantly underestimate their chances of success in this situation. In any case, Rotter claims that if we want to accurately predict the behavior of the individual, we should rely on his own subjective assessment of success and failure, and not on the assessment of someone else. Rotter makes the difference between those expectations that are specific to one situation, and those that are the most common or applicable to a number of Rotter situations, the first, called specific expectations, reflect the experience of one specific situation and are not applicable to the forecast of behavior.

The latter, called generalized expectations, reflect the experience of various situations and are very suitable for studying the personality in the Rotter sense. Later in this section, we will consider the generalized expectation called the internal-external monitoring of the control. The value of the reinforcement of Rotter defines the value of reinforcement as a degree with which we, with an equal probability of receiving, prefer one reinforcement to another.

Using this concept, he claims that people differ in their assessment of the importance of a particular activity and its results. If possible, for some, you are more important to watch basketball on television than to play Bridge with friends. Like expectations, the value of various reinforcements is based on our previous experience. Moreover, the value of reinforcement of a certain activity may change from the situation to the situation and over time.

For example, social contact will probably be of great value if we are alone, and less if we are not alone. Nevertheless, Rotter claims that there are relatively stable individual differences in our preference for one reinforcement to another. Some people always take free cinema tickets, and not for an opera performance. Accordingly, forms of behavior can also be traced in relatively stable emotional and cognitive reactions to what is the main encouraged activity in life.

It should be emphasized that in the theory of Rotter, the value of reinforcements does not depend on expectation. In other words: the fact that a person knows about the value of individual reinforcement, in no way shows the degree of expectation of this reinforcement.The student, for example, knows that good performance is of high value, and yet the expectation of high grades can be low due to the lack of initiative or abilities.

The psychological situation of the fourth and last variable used by the Rotter for the forecast of behavior is the psychological situation from the point of view of the individual. Rotter claims that social situations are the same as the observer represents them. In this sense, his point of view is very close to the phenomenological approach of Karl Rogers, who will be discussed in the head like Rogers, Rotter realizes that if these circumstances of the environment are perceived by a person in a certain way, then for him this situation will perceive it, regardless of how strange his interpretation of others will appear.

Rotter emphasizes the important role of the situational context and its influence on human behavior. So, a student may expect that she will not perform a seminar on social psychology, and as a result, the teacher will give her a low assessment, and colleagues will mock her. Therefore, we can predict that she will quit study or take some other actions aimed at preventing the expected unpleasant result.

The theme of human interaction with an important environment for him is deeply embedded in the Rotter vision of the personality. As an interactionist, he claims that the psychological situation should be considered along with the expectations and value of reinforcement, predicting the possibility of any alternative behavior. He joins the opinion of Bandura that personal factors and events of the environment in interaction best predict the behavior of a person.

Consider the following example. You have a choice: go to a computer center on Sunday morning or stay in a hostel to watch the Championship of the National Football League on TV. Perhaps we will be able to predict what choice you make if we know: 1 value of reinforcements associated with each opportunity; 2 The expectation that each of the possibilities will lead to appropriate reinforcements.

However, it should be noted that the main formula of Rotter is rather a hypothetical rather than a pragmatic means of forecasting behavior. In fact, he assumes that the four variables that we have just considered the potential of behavior, expectation, reinforcement, psychological situation are applicable only to forecasting behavior in conditions of careful control, for example, in a psychological experiment.

As we will see later, Rotter uses a more general formula for the forecast of targeted behavior in various situations that people encounter every day. Needs recall that Rotter considers people as purposeful individuals. He believes that people seek to maximize encouragement and minimize or avoid punishment. Moreover, he argues that goals determine the direction of human behavior in search of satisfaction of basic needs.

Consequently, according to Rotter, the awareness of the goals and needs of a person provides for a more generalized forecast than the forecast that all the variables described above are made.