What contributions might cognitive learning theory make to our understanding of personality?

This article focuses on the author's views on the contributions of cognitive learning theory to an individual's personality. In some respects, the cognitive theory pictures brain processes in simpler terms than does the atomistically inclined S-R theory. But, in some other respects, the cognitive theory conceives of these organized brain processes as achieving much more complexity than is envisaged in anything described by S-R theory. These brain processes are not merely "discriminatory processes." They are not processes which merely pick out or use something which necessarily is present in the afferent neural material. Cognitive learning theory may be characterized in the following way. It believes in Lloyd Morgan's principle to keep one's interpretations as simple as possible. But it interprets that principle in this way as a recommendation that one should get as rich a knowledge of facts as possible, and that one should keep the principles as simple as can possibly be and yet account for those facts. It does not understand Lloyd Morgan's canon as the command, "Keep your principles simple." Especially when one tries to understand personality, one needs to make much more use of this type of learning theory which tries to deal with relatively intangible as well as with relatively tangible factors rather than being content to work with the latter alone.