The learning and behavioural theories of personality are specifically structured to be tested, unlike the psychoanalytic theories. In fact, the theories themselves emerged from experiments in classical conditioning, instrumental conditioning, and cognitive learning.
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Learning and behavioural theories of personality are based on certain important assumptions and practices, viz.:
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(1) One shared assumption is that many of the behaviours that make up personality are conditioned, or learned. This means that many such behaviours originate somewhere in the learning history of the individual, often as early as childhood.
(2) A second assumption is that current conditions in the individual’s environment help maintain these behaviour.
Thus, learning theories seek to understand people’s behaviour by studying their learning history, their current environment, or both.
Learning and behavioural theorists also believe in testing their theories. Their major propositions are generally stated in ways designed to be clear so that others can know how to test them.
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Learning and conditioning i.e. classical, instrumental and cognitive conditioning – are highly relevant to personality and its development.
Dollard and Miller used animal experiments to develop and test Freudian notions (as for example, conflict and repression), thus advancing early social theory.
Bandura and Walters extended social theory into the domain of observational learning. Skinner’s radical behaviourism uses instrumental conditioning principles to explain the ways in which environmental conditions influence people’s behaviour.
The Behavioural Theory of Personality Development is also called as the learning theory of personality development because it relies on the insights from learning theory.
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Although there are wide differences in emphasis among behaviourists, there is less contradiction and conflict among the different positions.
According to behavioural theory of personality development, all human behaviour is learned and is learned by the various principles of learning and conditioning. Even abnormal behaviour is learned in much the same way as normal behaviour is learned. The three most important varieties of learning include classical conditioning, operant conditioning and modelling.
Behavioural theory also emphasises that consequences of an individual’s action is most important. If a behaviour has rewarding consequences, it is strengthened. If a behaviour has negative or unrewarding consequences, behaviour is weakened.
Adjustment according to this view is a matter of learning and reinforcement. However, social learning theorists emphasise that reinforcement is essential for performance of a response or behaviour and not for learning.
In the past decade, cognitive perspective has been integrated into the behavioural view of personality development. There is no unified cognitive theory of personality, all the different cognitive theories emphasise in one way or the other the cognitive (i.e. thought processes) dimension of emotional growth and integrate it with theory of personality.