fei75766_ch18_569-609.indd 597  02/24/20 10:50 AM
Chapter 18     Rotter and Mischel: Cognitive Social Learning Theory597
ourownbehaviors andthose ofothers, welearn whatwecandoinaparticular situation 
aswellaswhatwecannot do.Mischel agreed withBandura thatwedonotattend toall
stimuli inourenvironment; rather, weselectively construct orgenerate ourownversion 
oftherealworld. Thus, weacquire asetofbeliefs about ourperformance capabilities, 
often intheabsence ofactual performance. Forexample, anoutstanding student may
believe thatshehasthecompetence todowellontheGraduate Record Exam (GRE) 
eventhough shehasnever taken thattest.
Cognitive competencies, suchasdoing wellontheGRE, aregenerally more 
stable temporally andcross-situationally thanother cognitive-affective units are.That
is,people’s scores onmental ability testsdonotordinarily show largefluctuations 
from onetimetothenextorfrom onesituation toanother. Infact,Mischel (1990) 
hasargued thatoneofthereasons fortheapparent consistency oftraits istherela-
tivestability ofintelligence, abasic traitthatunderlies many personal dispositions. He
contended thatcognitive competencies, asmeasured bytraditional mental ability tests, 
haveproven tobesome ofthebestpredictors ofsocial andinterpersonal adjustment 
andthusgivesocial andinterpersonal traits some appearance ofstability. Moreover, 
Mischel suggested thatwhen intelligence isassessed bynontraditional measures that
include aperson’s potential forseeing alternate solutions toproblems, itaccounts for
evenlarger portions oftheconsistency found inother traits.
InChapter 17,wediscussed Bandura’s concept ofself-regulation, bywhich 
people control theirownbehavior. Similarly, Mischel believes thatpeople useself-
regulatory strategies tocontrol theirownbehavior through self-imposed goals and
self-produced consequences. People donotrequire external rewards andpunishments 
toshape theirbehavior; theycansetgoals forthemselves andthenreward orcriticize 
themselves contingent upon whether theirbehavior moves them inthedirection of
those goals. 
People’s self-regulatory system enables them toplan, initiate, andmaintain 
behaviors evenwhen environmental support isweak ornonexistent. People suchas
Abraham Lincoln andMohandas Gandhi wereabletoregulate theirownbehavior 
inthefaceofanonsupportive andhostile environment, buteachofuscanpersist 
without environmental encouragement ifwehavepowerful self-produced goals and
values. However, inappropriate goals andineffective strategies increase anxiety and
leadtofailure. Forexample, people withinflexible, exaggerated goals maypersist in
trying torealize those goals, buttheirlackofcompetence andenvironmental support 
prevent them from achieving those goals.
Expectancies and Beliefs
Anysituation presents anenormous number ofbehavioral potentials, buthowpeople 
behave depends ontheirspecific expectancies and beliefs about theconsequences of
eachofthedifferent behavioral possibilities. Knowledge ofpeople’s hypotheses or
beliefs concerning theoutcome ofanysituation isabetter predictor ofbehavior than
isknowledge oftheirability toperform (Mischel etal.,2002). 
From previous experience andbyobserving others, people learn toenact those 
behaviors thattheyexpect willresult inthemost subjectively valued outcome. When 
people havenoinformation about what theycanexpect from abehavior, theywillenact 
those behaviors thatreceived thegreatest reinforcement inpastsimilar situations. Final PDF to printer