1. DYNAMIC AND SITUATIONIST APPROACHES IN PERSONALITY
A Critical Evaluation of Dynamic and Situationist Approaches to
Personality
Lauren Gui
University of Sydney

2. DYNAMIC AND SITUATIONIST APPROACHES IN PERSONALITY
Abstract
The study of personality has had an enduring and extensive history in psychology
with an abundance of theoretical paradigms. This essay discusses the aspects of
Skinner’s situationist view and Bandura’s dynamic view and reflects on the extent to
which they converge and diverge in their approach to personality. Subsequently, it
turns its attention to the evaluation of theoretical models posited in Skinner’s operant
learning theory and Bandura’s social cognitive theory, highlighting the importance of
recognising the therapeutic contributions of both theories in clinical and applied
psychology beyond their theoretical limitations.

3. DYNAMIC AND SITUATIONIST APPROACHES IN PERSONALITY
A Critical Evaluation of Dynamic and Situationist Approaches to Personality
The study of personality has had an enduring and extensive history in psychology
with an abundance of theoretical paradigms. Each has sought to uncover the
psychology of the individual, and subsequently develop an insight to the nature of
human nature. One such paradigm was the behaviourist approach from which Skinner
drew his situationist view of personality and additionally, brought about the social-
cognitive paradigm encapsulating Bandura’s dynamic view of personality. This essay
will discuss the aspects of Skinner’s situationist view and Bandura’s dynamic view
and reflect on the extent to which they converged and diverged in their approach to
personality, namely through the degrees of individual autonomy, human agency, and
determinism observed through behaviour. Subsequently, the essay will direct its
attention on the evaluation of theoretical models posited in Skinner’s operant learning
theory and Bandura’s social cognitive theory, in light of their theoretical and
empirical legitimacy and heuristic and applied values.
Both Skinner and Bandura asserted personality as being shaped through learning of
behaviours in different settings. They regarded behaviour as the result of what is
learned from experience. However, there are different versions of the principle of
determinism that apply to behavioural psychology. Skinner’s situationist approach
was rooted in behavioural determinism, which posited behaviour as shaped by the
repeated response an individual receives from environmental stimuli. To Skinner
(1975), the three forces that shaped behaviour included natural selection, evolution of
cultural practices and the individual’s history of reinforcement. Natural selection
takes precedence of behaviours beneficial for survival to the species over those that

4. DYNAMIC AND SITUATIONIST APPROACHES IN PERSONALITY
are deemed less beneficial. Similarly, selection was responsible for existing cultural
practices in societies. Lastly, the individual’s singular history of reinforcement
contingencies provided a unique behavioural blueprint.
Unlike Skinner (1975), who asserted that “it is the relation to environment that is of
primary concern in the analysis of behaviour”, Bandura emphasised the role of
cognitive factors in facilitating human action. Bandura’s dynamic approach is
entrenched in reciprocal determinism, which posits that personal factors in the form of
cognition, affect and biological events, behaviour and environmental influences create
interactions that result in a triadic reciprocity. Furthermore, it was not necessary for
each of the three reciprocal factors to be of equal strength or to make equal
contributions, as the relative potency of this triadic interaction of forces varies within
the individual, and with the situation. In other words, the relative influence of
behaviour, environment and person depended on which of the triadic factors was
strongest in a given situation (Bandura, 1977).
Despite outward theoretical differences Skinner, like Bandura, regarded humans as
highly adaptable beings, due to the shaping of behaviour by the principles of
reinforcement. Skinner subsequently reiterated this idea in his development of operant
conditioning theory of learning. According to Skinner (1990), operant conditioning is
the process whereby “behaviour is reinforced, in the sense of strengthened or made
more likely to occur, by certain kinds of consequences, which first acquired the power
to reinforce through natural selection”. Three conditions are required in order for
operant conditioning to occur, namely the antecedent, behaviour and the consequence
(Skinner). In addition, the probability of a behaviour recurring is made greater when

5. DYNAMIC AND SITUATIONIST APPROACHES IN PERSONALITY
the response is immediately reinforced, simply because reinforcement increases the
likelihood of its repetition. He introduced four principal intermittent schedules of
reinforcement, which accounted for these differences in rate of response.
The place of human agency and the extent to which it is involved in the facilitation
of behaviour is a question that has both been extensively studied and dismissed by
Bandura and Skinner respectively. While Bandura places great importance on the
notions of individual autonomy and human agency in his theories of learning, Skinner
downplayed the role of human agency in his analysis of behaviour (Skinner, 1975),
and stressed the importance of confining the study of behaviour to the study of
observable phenomena, which were environmental influences. Consequently, the
notions of individual autonomy and human agency were omitted from consideration
in his analysis of behaviour.
While Skinner acknowledged the existence of “collateral products” such as traits,
drives, free will, perception, self-control, and internal events such as emotion,
memories, and thoughts; they were intrinsically unobservable and thus have “no
explanatory force; they are simply additional facts to be taken into account” (Skinner,
1975). He classified them as covert behaviours which were subject to the same
contingencies of reinforcement as overt behaviours, maintaining that while
individuals seemed to gain motivation from these inner events, self-control was in fact
dependent on environmental variables which were suitably manipulated to shape and
produce the desired course of behaviour (Feist & Feist, 2008). Likewise, Skinner held
that autonomy was a reinforcing concept that induced pleasure, influencing people to
subject themselves to environmental conditions that subsequently promoted the

6. DYNAMIC AND SITUATIONIST APPROACHES IN PERSONALITY
probability of these constructs occurring. If reinforcement value was reduced or
removed, these concepts would be made redundant from behaviour (Feist & Feist,
2008).
In contrast, Bandura’s social cognitive theory of learning is a theory of motivation
and self-regulation. It attributes a salient role to cognitive, vicarious, self-regulatory
and self-reflective processes in human adaptation and change. He viewed people as
goal-oriented, self-organising, self-reflecting and self-regulating individuals rather
than the reactive organisms passively shaped by environmental forces as suggested by
Skinner (Funder, 2001). Thus, he highlighted the importance of observational
learning, which was the observation of other people’s behaviour that influences an
individual’s learning process through reinforcement. At the core of observational
learning was the process of modeling, a type of learning whereby individuals attempt
to replicate the observed behaviour through imitation.
Bandura’s four-step model of observational learning included attentional processes,
memory, reproduction of behaviour and motivation because of reinforcement. He
isolated four core features of human agency: intentionality, forethought, self-
reactiveness and self-reflectiveness (Bandura, 2001). Intentionality reflects an internal
proactive commitment to performing an action, forethought involves the anticipation
of likely outcomes and selection of behaviours that result in desirable outcomes, and
self-reactiveness allows for goal-setting (Feist & Feist, 2008). The last feature, self-
reflectiveness, involves a self-appraisal mechanism: self-efficacy.

7. DYNAMIC AND SITUATIONIST APPROACHES IN PERSONALITY
Self-efficacy is defined as an individual’s beliefs in their capabilities to organise and
execute the courses of action required to produce given attainments (Bandura, 2006).
Individuals with high self-efficacy are more venturesome and likely to set more
challenging goals in general and tend to experience less anxiety, persist longer in their
pursuit of goals and recover quickly from setbacks in comparison to individuals with
low self-efficacy. Bandura (1977) postulated four principle sources of self-efficacy,
namely, mastery of experiences, vicarious experiences in social modeling, social
persuasion, and physical and emotional states.
The two aforementioned theories have laid theoretical foundations for the learning of
behaviour in the field of behavioural psychology. However, in order to appraise their
theoretical and empirical legitimacy, an evaluation of parsimony, empirical value,
comprehensiveness, precision and testability is needed to appreciate the heuristic and
applied values of these theories.
Ockham’s Razor is a principle of parsimony, which states that among competing
hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected based on the
falsifiability criterion. In view of this principle, it would be feasible to begin with the
identification of assumptions from both operant learning and social cognitive theory.
Operant conditioning rests on the main assumption of determinism, that each
behaviour is caused, and the cause can be traced to environmental stimuli connecting
the action to its biochemical bases. A second assumption is that evolutionary
continuity, that animal behaviour is informative of human behaviour and only
different in the degree of its complexity. Thirdly, a reductionist view understands
behaviour ultimately as the workings of the organism’s nervous system. Lastly,

8. DYNAMIC AND SITUATIONIST APPROACHES IN PERSONALITY
empiricism dictated that only directly observable phenomena that could be measured
and manipulated were fit subjects for psychology.
On the other hand, social cognitive theory asserts the regulation of behaviour
through vicarious learning, which meant that any desired action could be achieved
through observation (Bandura, 1986). Secondly, the importance of cognition informs
the individual of likely consequences of prospective actions through anticipation, and
aids in forming beliefs and expectations of mastery of their own abilities. Thirdly,
behaviour is regulated through the interaction of triadic reciprocal forces. From this, it
appears that social cognitive theory appears to be more epistemologically
parsimonious but that operant conditioning, due to a fastidious effort to exclude non-
observable phenomena, appears to be more ontologically parsimonious.
Both Skinner and Bandura’s approaches rate high on their degree of empirical
validity. The Bobo doll experiments conducted by Bandura and his colleagues
demonstrated that aggression could be socially learnt based on modeling in
observational learning (Bandura, Ross, & Ross, 1963; Comstock & Paik 1994).
McAuley (1985) examined Bandura’s self-efficacy model on female undergraduate
students assigned to groups varying in modeling and found self-efficacy to be ‘a
significant predictor of skill performance’, supporting Bandura’s theory that increases
in an individual’s efficacy levels facilitates an increase in coping skills.
Other studies conducted by Bandura and his colleagues observing the effect of
treatment procedures employed in creating high levels of achievement of mastery
instigated a rise in self-efficacy in the participants, succeeding in attenuating snake

9. DYNAMIC AND SITUATIONIST APPROACHES IN PERSONALITY
phobias (Bandura & Adams, 1977; Bandura et al., 1980; McAuley, 1985). In another
example, it was discovered that higher order forms such as moral judgments are
socially learnt (Bandura and McDonald, 1963). Surprisingly, not much Skinnerian
empirical evidence has been documented. However, Skinner’s reinforcement
experiments in lever-pressing with rats and domestic pigeons placed in an operant
chamber box provided an insight into the principles of reinforcement, punishment and
optimal learning conditions for the acquisition of a task through shaping, the principle
of successive approximation which reinforced behaviours closer and closer to a target
behaviour (Skinner, 1948).
Skinner’s theories while largely influential in behavioural therapy, renders
personality irrelevant as it rejects mentalism and metaphysics. If a prerequisite of
personality theory requires a description of internal characteristics of the individual,
this excludes Skinner’s theory as a personality theory. However, his emphasis on the
environment challenges personality theory to consider personality from the situational
context, opening a potential avenue for further research. Bandura (1986) provides a
more comprehensive account of personality as he takes cognitive factors into account.
His work has integrated and clarified concepts from previous psychological forces,
such as advancing Skinner’s proposition that everything learnt can be done so through
observation.
Skinner’s work is of high falsifiability, due to the fact that he conscientiously only
included directly observable and measurable data in his experiments. Likewise, the
constructs posited by Bandura are consistent with his research findings. Funder
(2001) however, did note that little research has been conducted on the influence of

10. DYNAMIC AND SITUATIONIST APPROACHES IN PERSONALITY
situations on behaviour. Currently, the evidence obtained has been typically collected
through the principle of subtraction which renders the ‘evidence’ questionable, as it
does not provide further enlightenment on the underlying crucial aspects of the
situation’s origin or its influence.
On the ability to generate further research, Skinner’s research rates lower than that
of Bandura’s. While Skinner’s theory of personality is based largely on his
experimental analysis of pigeons and rats and has ‘limited relevance to complex
human behaviour’, especially with regards to the ‘intermediary steps between
behavioural acquisition and responding’ (Carpenter, 1974; O’Donohue & Ferguson,
2001). In comparison, Bandura’s work has generated substantial research in the
education and health sectors.
In terms of applied value, Skinner’s work has provided a theoretical framework for
behavioural interventions employed in cognitive behavioural therapy (Plaud &
Vogeltanz, 1997). In comparison to Skinner, Bandura’s research has had an extensive
influence in psychology, namely in the fields of clinical psychology, social
psychology, health psychology and vocational counselling.
In conclusion, both theories have furthered broad insight into the mechanism of
behaviour and its nature. In terms of theoretical and empirical legitimacy, Bandura’s
social-cognitive approach is more comprehensive of personality as Skinner’s primary
focus was that of behaviour. Nevertheless, complementary aspects of both approaches
have enhanced the quality of social, educational and therapeutic services and neither

11. DYNAMIC AND SITUATIONIST APPROACHES IN PERSONALITY
should be regarded as incomplete on account of the other’s limitations, but integrated
to provide a comprehensive framework of personality.

12. DYNAMIC AND SITUATIONIST APPROACHES IN PERSONALITY
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