ABSTRACT
The three preceding chapters showed how behaviors (even seemingly “deeply ingrained” and extremely deviant patterns) can be altered by appropriate rearrangements of conditions in accord with principles of social learning. These findings are consistent with the specific dependence of behavior on the environment, as documented throughout the previous chapters. However, although behavior may be highly contingent on specific conditions, it is not haphazard. Therapeutically induced behavior changes often endure over considerable periods of time; likewise, behaviors generated under more naturalistic conditions outside therapeutic contexts also are often stable. The same basic variables that determine the maintenance or modification over time of new, therapeutically produced changes also govern the future course of social behaviors arising from other, less planned sources. This final chapter examines further some of the conditions that determine the durability of behavior patterns. It also explores the maintenance and dynamics of personality from the perspective of social behavior theory and, in the light of the principles and data presented throughout this book, again considers issues of prediction.
