BehaviorismBehaviorism

Activity

• Try watching these video with a poker face. Do not laugh. Do not smile. Do not evem twitch the muscles in your face.

• The person who can watch all 5 videos without reacting in any way wins the game.

Behaviorism

• A learning theory focuses on objectively observable behaviors and defines learning as the acquisition of new behavior through conditioning that occurs through interaction with the environment. (Encyclopedia of Curriculum Studies)

• Built upon the works of Ivan Pavlov, B.F. Skinner, John Watson and others

• It departed from the introspectionist tradition by redefining the proper task of psychology as the explanation and prediction of behavior – where to explain behavior is to provide a “functional analysis”

Behaviorism

• A learning theory focuses on objectively observable behaviors and defines learning as the acquisition of new behavior through conditioning that occurs through interaction with the environment.

• It posits that humans can be trained, or conditioned, to respond in specific ways to specific stimuli and that given the correct stimuli, personalities and behaviors onf individuals, and even entire civilizations, can be codified and controlled.

• It departed from the introspectionist tradition by redefining the proper task of psychology as the explanation and prediction of behavior – where to explain behavior is to provide a “functional analysis”

ProponentsProponents

Ivan Petrovich Pavlov

• Ivan Pavlov was born on September 26, 1849 at Ryazan, now in Central Federal District of Russia

• He was a famous Russian psychologist and physiologist. He did not identify himself as a behaviorist, however his studies paved the emergence of behaviorism

• Ivan discovered classical conditioning through his work and experiments on digestion and reflex actions. He became notable because of his experiments on conditioning with his dogs.

John Broadus Watson

• John Watson was born on January 9, 1878 at Travelers Rest, South Carolina.

• He was an American psychologist who established the psychological school on behaviorism and is recognized as the father of behaviorism.

• He put emphasis on external behavior of people and their reaction on given situations, rather than internal mental states of those people. In his opinion, the analysis of behavior and reactions was the only objective method to get insight in the human actions.

Edward Lee Thorndike

• Edward Thorndike was born on August 31, 1874 at Williamsburg, Massachusetts.

• He was an American psychologist who spent almost his entire career at the Teacher’s College, Columbia University. His work on animal behavior and the learning process lay the scientific foundation for modern educational psychology.

• He advanced two laws of learning to explain why behaviors occur the way they do. These were the law of effect and the law of exercise.

Edward Chace Tolman

• Edward Tolman was born on April 14, 1886 at West Newton, Massachusetts.

• He was an American psychologist who was most famous for his studies on behavioral psychology.

• Edward was an S-S (stimulus-stimulus), non-reinforcement theorist. He argued that animals can learn the connection between stimuli and did not need any explicit biologically significant event to make learning occur. This was later on known as latent learning. His theory rivals that of Clark Hull.

Clark Leonard Hull

• Clark Hull was born on May 24, 1884 at Akron, New York.

• He was an influential American psychologist who sought to explain learning and motivation by scientific laws of behavior.

• Hull conducted research demonstrating that his theories could predict and control behavior. His principle of behavior established his analysis of animal learning and conditioning as the dominant learning theory at that time. Hull is known for his debates with Edward C. Tolman

Burrhus Frederic Skinner

• BF Skinner was born on March 20, 1904 at Susquehanna, Pennsylvania.

• He was an American behaviorist, author, inventor, social philosopher, and poet. He founded his own school of experimental research psychlogy – the experimental analysis of behavior.

• Skinner called his particular brand of behaviorism “Radical Behaviorism” It seeks to understand behavior as a function of environmental histories of reinforcing consequences. Reinforcement is a central concept of his brand of behaviorism. It was seen as a central mechanism in shaping and control of behavior.

Nature of ManNature of Man

Nature of Man

• Man is molded, conditioned, and programmed by the environment in rigid, almost inescapable ways.

• By responding to his environment, man is able to produce any kind of behavior – making every possible future open to them.

• Anything is possible. Every opportunity is open to man given the right environmental factors that would condition him.

Key ConceptsKey Concepts

Key Concepts

• Classical Conditioning - (Pavlov) behavior becomes a reflexive or involuntary response to a stimulus.

• Operant Conditioning – (Skinner) there is a reinforcement of the behavior by a reward or a punishment.

• Law of Effect – (Thorndike) anytime that a behavior is followed by a pleasant outcome, the behavior is likely to recur.

• Law of Exercise – (Thorndike) the more the stimulus is connected with a response, the stronger the link between the two.

Key Concepts

• Behavior modification- (Thorndike) the use of empirically demonstrated behavior change techniques to increase or decrease the frequency of behaviors, such as altering an individual’s behavior and reactions to stimuli through positive and negative reinforcement of adaptive behavior and/or the reduction of behavior through its extinction, punishment, and satiation..

• Reinforcement – a process of strengthening a directly measurable dimension of behavior as a function of the delivery of a desirable stimulus immediately after the occurrence of the behavior.

Key Concepts

• Extinction – conditioning phenomenon in which a previously learned response to a cue is reduced when the cue presented in the absence of the previously paired aversive or appetitive stimulus..

• Punishment – reduction of a behavior via application of an adverse stimulus (positive punishment) or removal of a pleasant stimulus (negative punishment)– Positive Punishment – extra chores, spanking

– Negative Punishment – loss of recess, no play time

VersionsVersions

VersionsThere is no generally agreed-upon classifications, but some titles given to the various branches of behaviorism include:

•Methodological: Watson’s behaviorism; the objective study of behavior; no mental life, no internal states; thought is covert speech.

•Radical: Skinner’s behaviorism; considered radical since it expands behavioral principles to processes within the organism; in contrast to methodological behaviorism; not mechanistic or reductionistic; hypothetical (mentalistic) internal states are not considered causes of behavior, phenomena must be observable at least to the individual experiencing them.

•Post-Skinnerian: Application of behaviorism that came after radical behaviorism. These include Teleological, Theoretical, Biological, and Psychological Behaviorism.

EvaluationEvaluation

Evaluation

Strengths• It is based upon observable behaviors, so it is easy to quantify and

collect data and information when conducting research.

• Effective therapeutic techniques such as intensive behavioral intervention, behavior analysis, token economies, and discrete trial training are all rooted on behaviorism. These are very useful techniques in changing maladaptive of harmful behavior in children and adults.

• Behaviorism prompts individuals focuses on a clear goal, his behavior automatically responds to the cues of that goal.

Evaluation

Weaknesses• It abandoned many aspects of mental processes, such as language,

emotion, and cognition, that are obvious and important in understanding the state of an individual

• It does not account for all kinds of learning, such as the acquisition of language, since it disregards the activities of the mind.

• It does not explain some learning – such as the recognition of new language patterns by young children – for which there is no reinforcement mechanism.

• It is overly-mechanistic and a one-dimensional approach to learning. It fails to account the learning that could take place past the immediate environment and experiences of the learner.

Implication for Implication for Guidance and Guidance and

CounselingCounseling

Implication for Guidance and Counseling

• Presentation of straightforward learning objectives and clearly stated learning outcomes. The end goal is defined up-front, and each step necessary to achieve the goal is given to the learner.

• Scheduling, sectioning, and spiraling of lessons to ensure learning and mastery.

• Various behavior modification programs to encourage desired behavior and abate maladaptive or dysfunctional behavior and habits.

References

1. Skinner, BF. (16 April 1984). “The Operational Analysis of Psychological Terms” Behavioral Brain Sciences (Print) 7 (4): 547-81. Retrieved 2008-01-10

2. Ed. Audi, R. “Behaviorism” Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, 2nd ed. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 1999. pp. 76

3. Ed. Strickland, B. “Behaviorism” The Gale Encyclopedia of Psychology, 2nd ed. Detroit: Gale Group, 2001. pp. 72-32

4. Everest Colleges, Institutes, & Universities. (2009). “BF Skinner’s Shaping Experiment (Skinner;s Box)” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-RS80DVvrg. Retrieved 2012-02-16

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