New York: Knopf. Watson, J. Psychology as the behaviorist views it. Psychological Review, 20 , Conditioned emotional reactions.
Journal of Experimental Psychology, 3 , 1, pp. Presenting the subject with something that it likes. The theory has often been called a bridge between behaviorist and cognitive learning theories because it encompasses attention, memory, and motivation. Reductionists say that the best way to understand why we behave as we do is to look closely at the very simplest parts that make up our systems, and use the simplest explanations to understand how they work.
Toggle navigation. Therefore, when born our mind is 'tabula rasa' a blank slate. Watson stated that: 'Psychology as a behaviorist views it is a purely objective experimental branch of natural science.
Watson described the purpose of psychology as: 'To predict, given the stimulus, what reaction will take place; or, given the reaction, state what the situation or stimulus is that has caused the reaction. Key Features. Basic Assumptions. Psychology should be seen as a science, to be studied in a scientific manner. Behaviorism is primarily concerned with observable behavior, as opposed to internal events like thinking.
Behavior is the result of stimulus—response i. Behavior is determined by the environment e. Areas of Application. The behaviorist approach provides clear predictions. This means that explanations can be scientifically tested and support with evidence. Free will vs Determinism. Nature vs Nurture. Holism vs Reductionism.
Idiographic vs Nomothetic. Are the research methods used scientific? Download this article as a PDF. How to reference this article: How to reference this article: McLeod, S. Classical conditioning refers to learning by association, and involves the conditioning of innate bodily reflexes with new stimui.
His famous experiments with dogs demonstrated that the presence of a bowl of dog food stimulus would trigger an unconditioned response salivation. If Pavlov could pair a stimulus to obtain a new conditioned response, those implications in learning could be applied to other facets of human behavior.
For instance, perhaps conditioning and environment could understand how and why people learn, act and think. The earliest believed conditioning explained all learning and behavioral responses. That view refers to strict or radical behaviorism, which is now largely rejected. Watson, Behaviorism. In addition to Watson, other psychologists helped shape behavioral psychology into what it is today. Edward Thorndike introduced the law of effect, which refers to how satisfying responses are more likely to occur again in the future.
He was the first to integrate that and other scientific principles into learning theory. Another thinker in behavioral psychology, Clark Hull, pioneered drive theory. As organisms suffer deprivation, it creates certain needs in drives in people that directly impact behavior. There are several opportunities for integrating behavioral psychology into practice.
For instance, many psychologists research topics like conditioning to examine the nature of human behavior. Often, they are able to apply findings to mental health disorders. Behavioral psychology has had a major impact in clinical applications. For instance, mental health counselors, substance abuse counselors, and other professionals use therapeutic techniques from behaviorism to help people overcome specific issues. Responses followed by adverse outcomes, on the other hand, become less likely to happen again in the future.
The classical conditioning process works by developing an association between an environmental stimulus and a naturally occurring stimulus. In physiologist Ivan Pavlov's classic experiments, dogs associated the presentation of food something that naturally and automatically triggers a salivation response with the sound of a bell, at first, and then the sight of a lab assistant's white coat.
Eventually, the lab coat alone elicited a salivation response from the dogs. During the first part of the classical conditioning process, known as acquisition , a response is established and strengthened. Factors such as the prominence of the stimuli and the timing of presentation can play an important role in how quickly an association is formed.
When an association disappears, this is known as extinction , causing the behavior to weaken gradually or vanish. Factors such as the strength of the original response can play a role in how quickly extinction occurs. The longer a response has been conditioned, for example, the longer it may take for it to become extinct. Behaviorist B. Skinner described operant conditioning as the process in which learning can occur through reinforcement and punishment.
For example, if a parent rewards their child with praise every time they pick up their toys, the desired behavior is consistently reinforced. As a result, the child will become more likely to clean up messes. Reinforcement schedules are important in operant conditioning. This process seems fairly straight forward—simply observe a behavior and then offer a reward or punishment.
However, Skinner discovered that the timing of these rewards and punishments has an important influence on how quickly a new behavior is acquired and the strength of the corresponding response.
One of the major benefits of behaviorism is that it allowed researchers to investigate observable behavior in a scientific and systematic manner. However, many thinkers believed it fell short by neglecting some important influences on behavior. One of the greatest strengths of behavioral psychology is the ability to clearly observe and measure behaviors. Behaviorism is based on observable behaviors, so it is sometimes easier to quantify and collect data when conducting research.
Effective therapeutic techniques such as intensive behavioral intervention, behavior analysis, token economies, and discrete trial training are all rooted in behaviorism. These approaches are often very useful in changing maladaptive or harmful behaviors in both children and adults. Many critics argue that behaviorism is a one-dimensional approach to understanding human behavior.
Critics of behaviorism suggest that behavioral theories do not account for free will and internal influences such as moods, thoughts, and feelings. Freud, for example, felt that behaviorism failed by not accounting for the unconscious mind's thoughts, feelings, and desires that influence people's actions. Other thinkers, such as Carl Rogers and the other humanistic psychologists , believed that behaviorism was too rigid and limited, failing to take into consideration personal agency. More recently, biological psychology has emphasized the power of the brain and genetics play in determining and influencing human actions.
The cognitive approach to psychology focuses on mental processes such as thinking, decision-making, language, and problem-solving. In both cases, behaviorism neglects these processes and influences in favor of studying just observable behaviors. Also, behavioral psychology does not account for other types of learning that occur without the use of reinforcement and punishment.
Moreover, people and animals can adapt their behavior when new information is introduced even if that behavior was established through reinforcement. Several thinkers influenced behavioral psychology. In addition to those already mentioned, there are a number of prominent theorists and psychologists who left an indelible mark on behavioral psychology. Among these are Edward Thorndike , a pioneering psychologist who described the law of effect, and Clark Hull , who proposed the drive theory of learning.
The teacher asks the disruptive student to go stand outside. He comes out and asks the student how she should be punished. They decide that she should go to study hall while the other students go outside for recess. The student explains that it made her feel very badly to be punished for her behavior and it made her not want to get in trouble again. In the last example, the teacher asks a student to complete a problem on the board and she completes the problem correctly.
The teacher tells her she did a very good job and he smiles giving her positive reinforcement for her behavior. The student explains that it made her feel good when the teacher told her she did a good job and it made her want to do well again. Extinction decreases the probability of a response by contingent withdrawal of a previously reinforced stimulus. Examples of extinction are:. Modeling is also known as observational learning. Albert Bandura has suggested that modeling is the basis for a variety of child behavior.
Children acquire many favorable and unfavorable responses by observing those around them. A child who kicks another child after seeing this on the playground, or a student who is always late for class because his friends are late is displaying the results of observational learning. Shaping is the process of gradually changing the quality of a response. The desired behavior is broken down into discrete, concrete units, or positive movements, each of which is reinforced as it progresses towards the overall behavioral goal.
In the following scenario, the classroom teacher employs shaping to change student behavior: the class enters the room and sits down, but continue to talk after the bell rings.
The teacher gives the class one point for improvement, in that all students are seated. Subsequently, the students must be seated and quiet to earn points, which may be accumulated and redeemed for rewards.
Cueing may be as simple as providing a child with a verbal or non-verbal cue as to the appropriateness of a behavior. For example, to teach a child to remember to perform an action at a specific time, the teacher might arrange for him to receive a cue immediately before the action is expected rather than after it has been performed incorrectly.
For example, if the teacher is working with a student that habitually answers aloud instead of raising his hand, the teacher should discuss a cue such as hand-raising at the end of a question posed to the class. Behavior modification is a method of eliciting better classroom performance from reluctant students. It has six basic components:. Further suggestions for modifying behavior can be found at the mentalhealth.
These include changing the environment, using models for learning new behavior, recording behavior, substituting new behavior to break bad habits, developing positive expectations, and increasing intrinsic satisfaction.
Using behaviorist theory in the classroom can be rewarding for both students and teachers. Behavioral change occurs for a reason; students work for things that bring them positive feelings, and for approval from people they admire.
They change behaviors to satisfy the desires they have learned to value. The entire rationale of behavior modification is that most behavior is learned. If behaviors can be learned, then they can also be unlearned or relearned. In my own teaching, I have found that a behavior that goes unrewarded will be extinguished. Consistently ignoring an undesirable behavior will go far toward eliminating it.
When the teacher does not respond angrily, the problem is forced back to its source--the student.
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