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Operant Theory of Personality

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Part of the book series: The Plenum Series in Social/Clinical Psychology ((SSSC))

Abstract

The term personality has considerable meaning as used in our everyday lives and in psychological theory. However, the operant approach leads us to reject the concept of personality as “a thing” while providing an understanding of personality in its deepest sense. We believe this analysis has many practical implications and avoids some of the pitfalls that often occur in nonoperant approaches. Because the operant perspective is counterintuitive to many people, we hope the reader will keep an open mind as we present its ideas. You may come to agree that there actually are a number of valid ways to explain what we experience and observe around us.

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© 1998 Springer Science+Business Media New York

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Parker, C.R., Bolling, M.Y., Kohlenberg, R.J. (1998). Operant Theory of Personality. In: Barone, D.F., Hersen, M., Van Hasselt, V.B. (eds) Advanced Personality. The Plenum Series in Social/Clinical Psychology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-8580-4_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-8580-4_7

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-0-306-48435-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4419-8580-4

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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