The stimulus-Response theory of personality is the most elegant and most economical theory. Actually, there is no single stimulus-response (S-R) theory, but ratlier a cluster of theories all resembling each other more or less, but at the same time each possessing certain distinctive qualities. These system begans as attempts to account for the acquisition and retention of new forms of behaviour that appeared with experience. Thus, the learning process is given a predominant emphasis. Although innate factors are not ignored, the S-R theorist is primarily concerned with the process whereby the individual mediate between an array of responses and the tremendous variety of stimulation (internal and external) to which he or she is exposed.
The present theory represents the efforts of two individuals, sophisticated in both laboratory and clinical investigations, to modify and simplify Hull's reinforcement theory so that it can be used easily and effectively to deal with events of major interest to social and clinical psychologist. The details of the theory have been shaped not only by the formulations of Hull, but also by psychoanalytic theory and by the findings and generalizations of social anthropology. Most of the theory is concered with specifying the conditions under which habits form and are dissolved. The relatively small number of concepts that are employed for this purpose have been used with great ingenuity by the authors to account for phenomena of central interest to the clinician. In many instances the authors have attempted to derive from psychoanalytic writing and clinical observation, substantive wisdom concering behaviour that in turn they have incorporated within their S-R concepts.
Personal Histories
John Dollard was born in Menasha Wisconsin, on August 29, 1900. He received an A.B. from the University of Wisconsin in 1922 and subsequently secured his M.A. (1930) and Ph.D. (1931) in sociology from the University of Chicago. From 1926 until 1929 he served as assistant to the president of University of Chicago. In 1932 he accepted a position as Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Yale University and in the following year becam an assistant professor of sociology in the recently formed institute of Human Relations. In 1935 he became a research associate in the institute and in 1948 a research associate and professor of psychology. He became professor emeritus in 1969. He was trained in Psychoanalysis at the Berlin Institute and became a member of the Western New England Psychoanalytic society. John Dollard died on October 8, 1980.
Neal E. Miller was born in Milwankee, Wisconsin, on August 3, 1909, and received his B.S from the University of Washington in 1931. He received his M.A. from Stanford University in 1932, and his Ph.D in Psychology from Yale University in 1935. From 1932 until 1935 he served as an assistant in psychology at the Institute of Human Relations, and in 1953-36 he was a social science Research Council travelling fellow during which time he secured a training analysis at Vienna Institute of Psychoanalysis. He became a research associate and associate professor in 1941. From 1942 to 1946 he directed a psychological research project for the Army Air Force. In 1946 he returned to Yale University, becoming the James Rowland Angell professor of psychology in 1952. He remained at Yale till 1966 when he became a professor of psychology and head of the laboratory of physiological psychology at Rockefeller University. He was a member of the National Acamdemy of Science, President of the American Psychological Association (1959).
In some respects Dollard and Miller provide striking contrasts; in other regards their background show great similarity. They are different in that Miller has advanced important ideas and finding primarily within the domains of experimental psychology, and Dollard has made significant anthropological and sociological contributions. However both have been influenced heavily by their experiences at the Institute of Human Relations and consistent with their indebtness to Hull and Freud.
Structure of Personality
Dollard and Miller have consistently shown more interest in the process of learning and personality development. However, the concept they employ to represent the stable and enduring characteristic of the person is Habit.
A habit is a link or association between a stimulus and a response. Learned associations or habits may be formed not only between external stimuli and overt responses but also between internal ones as well. Although personality consists primarily of habits their particular structure will depend on the unique events to which the individual has been exposed. Further, this is only a temporary structure. The habits of today may alter as a result of tomorrow's experience. They emphasized that an important class of habits for humans are elicited y verbal stimuli, whether they are produced by the persons themselves or by someone else, and that responses are alos frequently verbal in nature. Some habits may involve internal response that inturn elicit internal stimuli with drive characteristics. These secondary drives are also considered enduring portions of personality. Primary drives and innate SR connection also contribute to the structure of personality. Typically, they are not less important in human behaviour than secondary drives and other types of habits but also define what individuals have in common, as members of the same species.
Dynamics of Personality
The effect of drives on the Human subject is complicated by the large number of derived or acquired drives that eventually make their appearance. In the process of growth the typical individual develops a large number of secondary drives that serve to instigate behaviour. "These leaarnde drives are acquired on the basis of the primary drives, represent elaboration of them and serve as a facade behind which the functions of the underlying innate drives are hidden. In the typical modern society, secondary drive stimulation largely replaces the original function of primary drive stimulation. Acquired drive such as anxiety, shame, and the desiro to please impel most of our actions. The importance of the primary drives in most instances is not clear from casual observation of socialized adult. It is only in the process of development or in periods of crisis that one can observe clearly the operation of primary drives. Most of the reinforcements in the ordinary life of human subjects are not primary rewards but originally neutral events that have acquired reward value by virtue of having consistently been experienced in conjunction with primary reinforcement. A mother's smile, for example, becomes a powerful secondary reward for the infant, with its repeated association with feeding, diapering, and other caretaking activities that bring pleasure or remove discomfort. Secondary rewards, by themselves, serve to reinforce behaviour. Their capacity to reinforcement is not sustained indefinitely, unless they continue to occur on occasion in conjunction with primary reinforcement. How these changes take place leads us to the question of the development of personality.
Development of Personality
Dollard and Miller have elaborated the process of transformation of the simple infant into the complex adult.
Innate equipment of the Infant
At birth and shortly thereafter the infant is endowed with only a limited array of behavioural equipment. First, it possesses a small number of specific reflexes, which are for the most part, segmental response made to a highly specific stimulus or class of stimuli. Second, it possess a number of innate heirarchies of response, which are tendencies for certain responses to appear in particular stimulus situations before certain other responses. Third, the individual possess a set of Primary Drives that are internal stimuli of great strength and persistence and usually linked to know physiological processes.
The Learning Process
There are four important conceptual elements in the learning process. These are drive, cue, response, and reinforcement. A cue is a stimulus that guides the response of the organism by directing or determining the exact nature of the responses: "Cues will determine when he will respond, where he will respond, and which response he will make". Cues may vary in kind or in intensity. Thus there are visual cues and auditory cues. Any quality that makes the stimulus distinctive may serve as basis for the cue. Stimuli may operate as cues not only singly but also in combination.
The response factor is an exceedingly important part in the learning process. Before a given response can be linked to a given cue, the response must occur first. Thus, a crucial stage in the organisms leaning is the production of the appropriate response. The first response to a stimulus, is referred to as the initial hierarchy of responses, and this occurs in the absence of any learning. Thus it is called the innate hierarchy of responses. After learning and experience have influenced the individual's behaviour in this situation, the derived response is labeled the resuitant hierarchy.
With development, the hierarchy of response becomes intimately associated with language because particular responses become linked to words, and consequently speech may mediate or determine the particular hierarchy that will operate. The particular hierarchy displayed is also heavily influenced by the culture in which the individual has been socialized.
Secondary drive and the Learning process
Strong stimuli such as shock may elicit internal responses, which inturn produce still further internal stimuli. These internal stimuli act as cues to guide or control subsequent responses and serve as a drive that activities the organism and keeps the person active until reinforcement occurs or some other process, such as fatigue, intervenes. The overt responses that result in reinforcement are the cues that are learned. A previously neutral cue that has regularly occured in conjunction with a drive-producing stimulus may gain the capacity to elicit some part of the internal responses initially elicited only by the drive. These learned internal responses then automatically set off drive stimuli. A secondary drive has been established an will motivate the organism to new learning that leads to reforcement, just as will primary drives. Thus, the intensity of the primary drive involved in the reinforcement leading to the drive producing internal response and the number and pattern of reinforced trails are important determinants of their intensity.
Higher Mental Process
The individual's interaction with the environment are of two varieties: those that are direct and those that are mediated by internal process. The second class of responses, are called the cue-producing responses. The main function of the cue-producing responses is to mediate or lead the way to another response. Language is involved in most cue producing responses, although it may not be the spoken language.
One of the most important cue-producing responses is the labeling or naming of events and experiences. The individual may immediately increase the generalization or transfer between two or more cue situations by identifying them as having the same label. Two different situations may be labeled as threatening and the individual may respond in the same manner in both situations.
Words not only serve to inhibit or facilitate generalization, but they also serve the important function of arousing drives. Words may be used to reward or reinforce. The verbal intervention in the drive-cue-response-reinforcement sequence that makes human behaviour so complex and difficult to understand. The ability to use language and other response-produced cues is greatly influenced by the social context in which the individual develops.
The social context
Dollard and Miller consistently emphasize the fact that human behaviour can be understood only with a full appreciation of the cultural context within which behaviour occurs. It is important to know the conditions of learning the conditions under which learning has taken place, for the full understanding of the human development. It is not possible to predict human behaviour, without knowing the conditions, or the structure of the social environment. The exact form of behaviour displayed by an individual will be tremendously influenced by the society of which he or she is a member.
Critical stage of development
Dollard and Miller assume that unconscious conflict, learned for the most part during infancy and childhood, serves as the basis for the most severe emotional problems in later life.
Neurotic conflict is learned by the child primarily as a result of the conditions created by the parent. The unfortunate capacity of the parent for imparing the child's development stems in part from the fact that cultural prescriptions concerning the child are contradictory or discontinuous and in part from the fact that the child during the infancy is not well equipped to cope with complex learning demands even if they are consistent. A crucial aspect of the childhood experience is the extreme helplessness of the child. It is unable to manipulate its environment and thus is vulnerable to the depredations of impelling drive stimuli and over whelming frustrations. In the ordinary process of development the person will devise mechanisms to avoid situations that are severely frustrating. In infancy, the child has no choice but to experience them. The infant has not learned yet to wait, to hope, to reason and plan. Rather, the child is urgently, hopelessly, planlessly impelled, living by moments in eternal pain and then suddenly itself bathed in endless bliss. Only when the child has learnt to speak and think, can the impact of the raw, drastic character of these circumstances be reduced.
Summary
The stimulus-response theory began as an attempt to account for the acquisition and retention of new forms of behaviour that appeared with experience. Habit is the key concept in the learning theory espoused by Dollard and Miller. A habit is a link between a stimulus and a response. The dynamics of personality revolves around primary drives, secondary drives, primary reinforcement and secondary rewards. Dollard and Miller explain the development of personality in terms of the innate equipment of the infant, the acquisition of motives the development of higher mental processes, social context of behaviour and developmental stages. The SR theory of personality model is applicable to the understanding of the unconscious processes, conflict, neurosis and psychotherapy. They maintained that if neurotic behaviour is learned it can also be unlearned by some combination of the principles of learning by which it was learnt.
