Case Study 3

Question 1

How can Dollard and Miller’s learning theory be used to explain this change in Malcolm X’s attitudes and behaviour?

Answer 1

• Drive: need for belonging
• Cue: presence of white americans
• Before incarceration: worked as a hustler, had a white girlfriend, straightened his hair; fulfilling need for belonging WHILE appealing to White Americans
• His R1 (emulate white people) did not fulfill the need and he was punished
• Then, relied on second R2 to join the nation of Islam and assimilate with other black youth

Question 2

What learning processes (e.g., classical conditioning, operant conditioning, observational learning) do you think shaped Malcolm X’s personality? Identify specific examples to illustrate how these learning processes shaped his personality.

Answer 2

• Positive punishment: beatings received from father
• Negative punishment: him being incarcerated or removed from school
• Observational learning: finding a social group in Boston, following the trends (i.e. zoot suits, dancing, criminality); Mimicking the advocacy style of his father, but in joining the nation of Islam
• Extrinsic reinforcement: the “X” in his name; replacement of the slave name received by his relatives
• Intrinsic reinforcement: drug use
• Vicarious reinforcement: observation of other black youth in Boston
• Self-reinforcement: two forms (reward/self-approval), from his wife: “he died for what he believed in”

Question 3

As described by Smith and Shoda (2009), theorists have proposed five cognitive- affective variables (i.e., “person” variables) that interact with environmental variables (i.e., situations) to determine behaviour: Encodings, expectancies and beliefs, affects, goals and values, and competencies and self-regulation skills.

Answer 3

• Encoding: inferiority schema (racism)
• Expectancies and beliefs: wealth and material success meant power/survival; Pimping was a mode of social approval
• Affects: anger and resentment
• Goals: enabling himself to thrive/fight for justice/to be spiritual, capacity for social influence

Question 4

Maslow maintained that, in the hierarchy of conative needs, lower-order needs have greater strength, potency, and priority than higher-order needs. Were Malcolm X’s actions consistent with this assertion?

Answer 4

• Risked safety needs; at the risk of death
• EX: ongoing death threats, bombing of home
• DID NOT ALIGN with Maslow’s assumption

Question 5

How does Maslow’s notion of the self-actualized individual differ from Rogers’ notion of the fully functioning person? Can both concepts be applied to Malcolm X?

Answer 5

• Rogers: only achieved after lower order needs are satisfied; Emphasized the actualizing tendency: motive that subsumes other motives; Majority of us are in the process of self-actualization
• Maslow: an end state only achieved by a small amount, rare amount, of people; Seeking a final state

Question 6

At what point in his life do you believe that Malcolm X achieved self-determination?

Answer 6

Only when he went to Makkah (saw others)