slave Train­ing and Social Learn­ing The­o­ries:   Social learn­ing is the third set of the­o­ries for slave train­ing dis­cussed on this site. The other two are B.E.S.T. slave train­ing and Actu­al­iza­tion the­ory. In some ways they are inter­re­lated and you will see that there are spillovers into each other, but each is an inde­pen­dent approach to slave train­ing. Rotter’s Social learn­ing the­ory is an expan­sion of the behav­ioral the­ory of B. F. Skin­ner. It dif­fers in that it does not assume that only one set of tech­niques is use­ful. It assumes that each indi­vid­ual is dif­fer­ent and thoughts and emo­tions must also be con­sid­ered when deter­min­ing what train­ing meth­ods should be used.

Two dif­fer­ent but sim­i­lar the­o­ries are dis­cussed below:

Social learn­ing the­ory — ONE

Social­iza­tion is the way indi­vid­u­als learn skills, knowl­edge, val­ues, motives and roles appro­pri­ate to their posi­tion in a group or society.

Social­iza­tion always involves 1) a teacher, 2) a learn­ing process, 3) a per­son to be social­ized and 4) some­thing that is learned. They are called the agent, process, tar­get and outcome.

In slave train­ing the Mas­ter is the agent, the meth­ods used to instill change is the process, the tar­get is the slave and the behav­ior, emo­tional, self-image and thought changes are the out­come. This is noth­ing new to the BDSM lifestyle, but pro­vides a dif­fer­ent way of look­ing at the process. The process can include, pun­ish­ment, dis­ci­pline train­ing, encour­age­ment, and many other techniques.

In adults, the pri­mary means of reso­cial­iza­tion are role acqui­si­tions, antic­i­pa­tory social­iza­tion and role discontinuity.

Role acqui­si­tion is the learn­ing of new skills and knowl­edge that changes sta­tus. It is the chang­ing of roles in life and the learn­ing of the skills for the new role. Role acqui­si­tion is directed by an agent (Mas­ter for a slave). Learn­ing to be a slave is a form of role acquisition.

Antic­i­pa­tory social­iza­tion is the inten­tional train­ing before and after a role is acquired and not directed by an agent. Sub­mis­sives often read books and search the web for infor­ma­tion and knowl­edge about BDSM before the first steps are taken into the lifestyle. They use their imag­i­na­tion and envi­sion being owned in the future. This rein­forces their desire to change.

Role dis­con­ti­nu­ity is when the val­ues and iden­ti­ties of a new role con­tra­dict with an ear­lier role. For­mer expec­ta­tions and aspi­ra­tions must be altered to meet the new role. The old role is replaced with a new role. The woman with a sub­mis­sive nature, through directed train­ing becomes a slave.

Social­iza­tion is based on three processes:

Instru­men­tal con­di­tion­ing – The asso­ci­a­tion of rewards and pun­ish­ment with an act is a basis for learn­ing both behav­ior and per­for­mance standards.

Obser­va­tion — Behav­ior and skills are learned by observ­ing a model.

Inter­nal­iza­tion – The acqui­si­tion of behav­ioral stan­dards and mak­ing them part of self.

In the the­ory sec­tion I stated that:

B.E.S.T. slave train­ing focuses on reed­u­ca­tion and reshap­ing the slave to serve, obey and please her Mas­ter. The cen­tral goal is to train the slave to accept her slavery.

The basic assump­tion of the train­ing is that a slave will strive for what is cru­cial to her (her Master’s goals). Her accep­tance and adap­ta­tion of his goals is crit­i­cal in her training.

Goals are of no pur­pose with­out proper moti­va­tion to reach them. Moti­va­tions are a prod­uct of cor­rect think­ing and emo­tions. The com­ple­tion of goals pro­duces a pos­i­tive self-image. Moti­va­tions pro­duce long-term behav­ior changes. The slave’s moti­va­tions will be exam­ined, mod­i­fied if nec­es­sary and encouraged.

Since slave train­ing is an inter­ac­tion between a Mas­ter and slave, it seems that many con­cepts from social learn­ing and related the­o­ries can be applied to slave train­ing. Many are an off-spring of Adler­ian the­ory and there­fore fit well into the over­all con­cept of B.E.S.T. slave training

B.E.S.T. slave train­ing is a pro­gram that focuses on behav­ior, cog­na­tion, envi­ron­ment and is goal directed. It is a basic assump­tion in slave train­ing that the slave wants to be owned by her Mas­ter and is will­ing to change her behav­ior and thoughts to mas­ter the “art of slav­ery”. She accepts the goals in train­ing estab­lished by her Mas­ter and these goals become a guide in her train­ing. She rec­og­nizes that her free­dom of choice now belongs to her Mas­ter. The world around her becomes gov­erned by her Mas­ter. The Mas­ter has the respon­si­bil­ity for estab­lish­ing an envi­ron­ment suit­able for train­ing, estab­lish­ing his dom­i­nance and pro­vid­ing a means for her growth.

Learn­ing slav­ery is more than learn­ing the estab­lished rules. It is learn­ing the “art of slav­ery” and going beyond the actual knowl­edge. It is tak­ing the knowl­edge gained and trans­form­ing it into a won­der­ful expe­ri­ence enjoyed by her Mas­ter and her. This involves not just a change in behav­ior, but a change in emo­tions, self-image and thoughts. All molded together in a way that becomes a thing of beauty.

A slave’s behav­ioral inten­tion is viewed as a func­tion of two factors:

1) The slave’s atti­tude toward per­form­ing can be explained as her pos­i­tive or neg­a­tive feel­ing toward per­form­ing the behav­ior. This is why it is impor­tant that a slave adopt the goals of her Mas­ter as her own. The slave’s thoughts should be exam­ined in an effort to change and/or strengthen attitude.

2) The slave’s “sub­jec­tive norm” with respect to the behav­ior is defined as her own beliefs of how her Mas­ter thinks she should act and what she thinks her Mas­ter wants of her. How he wants her to act is a huge fac­tor in her behav­ior. This is why a Mas­ter should be very clear in his expla­na­tion of the goals set for his slave and the rules of con­duct expected of her. When the slave’s “sub­jec­tive norm” is aliened with the true thoughts and feel­ings of her Mas­ter, true learn­ing can take place. This is an on going process and requires exam­i­na­tion often in the begin­ning of train­ing. In my expe­ri­ence, it is also required from time to time with an expe­ri­enced slave in long-term train­ing as well.

Learn­ing to become a slave (social learn­ing theory):

All learn­ing arises from goal-directed activ­i­ties and spe­cific knowl­edge nec­es­sary in order to sat­isfy goals. A slave learns to pur­sue signs of the over­all goal (slav­ery). Each change in atti­tude and behav­ior is a step that she takes in her attempt to achieve the larger goal of becom­ing a bet­ter slave. slave train­ing by its very nature requires direc­tion by author­ity. This direc­tion by author­ity is more effec­tive if goals are estab­lished that can be met by the slave. These goals are signs the slave fol­lows lead­ing to the over­all goal of slav­ery or improv­ing slav­ery. slav­ery, by its nature also sug­gests serv­ing and pleas­ing her Mas­ter. Estab­lish­ing goals for the slave to increase her ser­vice abil­i­ties are impor­tant as well.

Learn­ing is gained through mean­ing­ful behav­ior. A slave expects to learn the rules of her Mas­ter and gain insight into how bet­ter to obey, please and serve him. Estab­lish­ing behav­ior that allows a slave to feel use­ful to her Mas­ter is an impor­tant aspect of self-image. She also knows that her Mas­ter will expect the behav­ior of her that he has out­lined in her train­ing. If the slave sees that the behav­ior expected of her deep­ens her slav­ery she will accept it. That does not mean that resis­tance will not occur, but if her over­all goal is to be owned by her Mas­ter then the behav­ior in the long run will be seen as meaningful.

 

Bandura’s con­cept of social learn­ing as applied to polyamory slave training:

Ban­dura empha­sizes the impor­tance of observ­ing and mod­el­ing the behav­iors, atti­tudes, and emo­tional reac­tions of oth­ers. Learn­ing to become a slave is a con­tin­u­ous rec­i­p­ro­cal inter­ac­tion between cog­ni­tive, behav­ioral and envi­ron­men­tal influ­ences directed by her Master.

Social inter­ac­tion between the Mas­ter and slave pro­vides the fun­da­men­tal role in the devel­op­ment of the slave’s cog­ni­tion and behav­ior. See­ing her Master’s plea­sure and dis­plea­sure with her actions is crit­i­cal in train­ing. The Master/slave rela­tion­ship is a social unit of two.

Obser­va­tional learn­ing is the major way we learn. Obser­va­tional learn­ing (mod­el­ing) has the fol­low­ing components: (

1) Atten­tion, includ­ing mod­eled events (dis­tinc­tive­ness, affec­tive valence, com­plex­ity, preva­lence, func­tional value) and observer char­ac­ter­is­tics (sen­sory capac­i­ties, arousal level, per­cep­tual set, past reinforcement),

(2) Reten­tion, includ­ing sym­bolic cod­ing, cog­ni­tive orga­ni­za­tion, sym­bolic rehearsal, motor rehearsal),

(3) Motor Repro­duc­tion, includ­ing phys­i­cal capa­bil­i­ties, self-observation of repro­duc­tion, accu­racy of feed­back, and

(4) Moti­va­tion, includ­ing exter­nal, vic­ar­i­ous and self reinforcement.

 

Prin­ci­ples:

1. The high­est level of obser­va­tional learn­ing is achieved by first orga­niz­ing and rehears­ing the mod­eled behav­ior sym­bol­i­cally and then enact­ing it overtly. Cod­ing mod­eled behav­ior into words, labels or images results in bet­ter reten­tion than sim­ply observing.

2. Indi­vid­u­als are more likely to adopt a mod­eled behav­ior if it results in out­comes they value (pleas­ing her Master).

3. Indi­vid­u­als are more likely to adopt a mod­eled behav­ior if the model is sim­i­lar to the observer and has admired sta­tus and the behav­ior has func­tional value.

Observ­ing and mod­el­ing the behav­ior, atti­tude and emo­tional reac­tions of another slave is a very use­ful tool in the over­all edu­ca­tional and train­ing process. Short of the actual obser­va­tion of other slaves, a slave’s imag­i­nary image of the “per­fect slave” becomes the focal point and the direc­tion of her behav­ior, atti­tude and emo­tional move­ment. Atten­tion should be paid to this “per­fect slave” image to insure it is real­is­tic, obtain­able and con­forms to the desires of her Mas­ter. There is noth­ing wrong with hav­ing high goals and stan­dards, but goals should not be set so high that frus­tra­tion replaces enjoy­ment. It is impor­tant for the slave to be able to meet goals dur­ing train­ing. If her self expec­ta­tions are not achiev­able, she and you will never enjoy her learn­ing the “art of slav­ery.” It should be under­stood by the slave that the idea of a “per­fect slave” is her Master’s per­cep­tion not hers. The Master’s stan­dards and not hers guide her. REBT may be use­ful in adjust­ing her thoughts in this area. Mod­el­ing is con­sid­ered to be both a behav­ioral and cog­ni­tive train­ing tool.

Learn­ing to become a slave and improv­ing the “art of slav­ery” is the learn­ing of rules which con­sist of estab­lish­ing the Master’s sphere of influ­ence, choice in mak­ing deci­sions and courses of action. These rules are estab­lished by her Mas­ter for her devel­op­ment and a guide after train­ing. Learn­ing and yield­ing to rules leads to order. Once learned they allow for a free­dom of expres­sion within the rules that spon­sor a growth in the “art of slavery.”

 

 

Social Learn­ing The­ory — TWO

Julian Rot­ter stated that behav­ior mod­i­fi­ca­tion requires more than a stan­dard set of clas­si­cal or oper­ant con­di­tion­ing tech­niques. He said that indi­vid­ual dif­fer­ences are impor­tant in behav­ioral train­ing. The individual’s thoughts and emo­tions play a part in behav­ioral train­ing. He stated that behav­ioral poten­tial, expectancy, rein­force­ment value and psy­cho­log­i­cal sit­u­a­tions are fac­tors that should be con­sid­ered and are a mea­sure­ment for success.

Behav­ioral poten­tial – the like­li­hood that a par­tic­u­lar behav­ior will occur in a given situation.

Expectancy – the slave’s expec­ta­tions about the outcome.

Rein­force­ment Value – the impor­tance of the rein­force­ment to the slave.

The psy­cho­log­i­cal Sit­u­a­tion – the def­i­n­i­tion or per­spec­tive of the slave about a behav­ioral train­ing step.

He also stated that a human’s behav­ior is always direc­tional (goal ori­ented) and deter­mined by needs that behav­ior can be inferred by the way the indi­vid­ual inter­acts with the environment.

Through research, Rot­ter iden­ti­fied six psy­cho­log­i­cal needs:

Recognition-status: the need to be seen as com­pe­tent in socially val­ued activities.

Dom­i­nance: the need to con­trol the actions of others.

Inde­pen­dence: the need to make one’s own deci­sions and rely on one’s self.

Protection-dependency: the need to have oth­ers to pre­vent frus­tra­tions or help obtain goals.

Love and affec­tion: the need for accep­tance and lik­ing by others.

Phys­i­cal com­fort: learned needs for phys­i­cal sat­is­fac­tions asso­ci­ated with security.

Under­stand­ing the slave’s psy­cho­log­i­cal needs is use­ful in behav­ioral training.

Each of the above needs has three basic components.

1) The first com­po­nent, need poten­tial, or the like­li­hood that a set of behav­iors directed at a goal will be used in a given situation.

2) The sec­ond com­po­nent, free­dom of move­ment, is the expectancy that a set of behav­iors will lead to suc­cess in meet­ing a goal. High expectance leads to the antic­i­pa­tion of success.

3) The third com­po­nent, need value, is the impor­tance an indi­vid­ual places on one goal over other goals.

The law of effect states that peo­ple are moti­vated to seek out pos­i­tive stim­u­la­tion, or rein­force­ment and to avoid unpleas­ant stim­u­la­tion. This one makes sense to me.

Change the way the slave thinks or change the envi­ron­ment the slave is respond­ing to and behav­ior will change.

Humans have a basic incli­na­tion toward being a part of a larger social unit. Humans strive to belong and a will­ing­ness to serve a greater good for the bet­ter­ment of the unit. The Master/slave rela­tion­ship is a social unit. Both Mas­ter and slave strive to bet­ter the unit.

Ref­er­ences:

Social Psy­chol­ogy, Fourth addi­tion, H. Mich­ener & J. Dela­mater, copy­right 1999, Har­court Brace Col­lege Pub­lish­ers, Orlando, FL.

 

The social learn­ing the­ory of Ban­dura empha­sizes the impor­tance of observ­ing and mod­el­ing the behav­iors, atti­tudes, and emo­tional reac­tions of others.

 

Ban­dura, A. (1973). Aggres­sion: A Social Learn­ing Analy­sis. Engle­wood CLiffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

 

The major theme of Vygotsky’s the­o­ret­i­cal frame­work is that social inter­ac­tion plays a fun­da­men­tal role in the devel­op­ment of cog­ni­tion. . Vygot­sky said that “All the higher func­tions orig­i­nate as actual rela­tion­ships between individuals.”

 

Vygot­sky, L.S. (1978). Mind in Soci­ety. Cam­bridge, MA: Har­vard Uni­ver­sity Press.

 

Accord­ing to struc­tural learn­ing the­ory, what is learned are rules which con­sist of a domain, range, and procedure.

 

Scan­dura, J.M. (1977). Prob­lem Solv­ing: A Structural/Process Approach with Instruc­tional Appli­ca­tions. NY: Aca­d­e­mic Press.

 

Accord­ing to Tolman’s the­ory of sign learn­ing, an organ­ism learns by pur­su­ing signs to a goal, i.e., learn­ing is acquired through mean­ing­ful behav­ior. Tol­man empha­sized the orga­nized aspect of learn­ing: “The stim­uli which are allowed in are not con­nected by just sim­ple one-to-one switches to the out­go­ing responses. Rather the incom­ing impulses are usu­ally worked over and elab­o­rated in the cen­tral con­trol room into a ten­ta­tive cognitive-like map of the environment.

Tol­man, E.C. (1932). Pur­po­sive Behav­ior in Ani­mals and Men. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.

 

Julian Rotter’s Social Learn­ing The­ory is that per­son­al­ity rep­re­sents an inter­ac­tion of the indi­vid­ual with his or her envi­ron­ment. One can­not speak of a per­son­al­ity, inter­nal to the indi­vid­ual that is inde­pen­dent of the envi­ron­ment. Nei­ther can one focus on behav­ior as being an auto­matic response to an objec­tive set of envi­ron­men­tal stim­uli. Rather, to under­stand behav­ior, one must take both the indi­vid­ual (i.e., his or her life his­tory of learn­ing and expe­ri­ences) and the envi­ron­ment (i.e., those stim­uli that the per­son is aware of and respond­ing to) into account. The law of effect states that peo­ple are moti­vated to seek out pos­i­tive stim­u­la­tion, or rein­force­ment, and to avoid unpleas­ant stim­u­la­tion. Rot­ter com­bined behav­ior­ism and the study of per­son­al­ity, with­out rely­ing on phys­i­o­log­i­cal instincts or dri­ves as a motive force.

 

Julian Rot­ter

 

Becom­ing an Inter­nal­izer http://mentalhelp.net/psyhelp/chap8/chap8h.htm

 

Locus of Con­trol mea­sure by Julian Rot­ter http://admissions.louisville.edu/orientation/locus.html

 

Dis­trust­ing Oth­ers http://mentalhelp.net/psyhelp/chap7/chap7k.htm

 

Social Learn­ing The­ory of Julian Rot­ter http://psych.fullerton.edu/jmearns/rotter.htm

 

Albert Ban­dura http://www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/bandura.html

 

Albert Ban­dura http://muskingum.edu/~psychology/psycweb/history/bandura.htm

 

Ban­dura, Albert, Ross, Dorothea, & Ross, Sheila A. (1961). Trans­miss­sion of aggres­sions through imi­ta­tion of aggres­sive mod­els. Jour­nal of Abnor­mal and Social Psy­chol­ogy, 63, 575–582. [One of the clas­sic “Bobo Doll” stud­ies of the imi­ta­tion by chil­dren of aggres­sive behavior.]

 

Social Learn­ing The­ory by Albert Ban­dura http://www.mhhe.com/socscience/comm/bandur-s.mhtml