Behaviorist Perspective

Module 7 Behaviorism: Pavlov, Thorndike, Watson, Skinner

The theory of behaviorism focuses on the study of observable and measurable behavior .

It emphasizes that the behavior is mostly learned through conditioning and reinforcement.

BEHAVIORISM

CLASSICAL CONDITIONING

PAVLOV & WATSON

CONNECTIONISM

THORNDIKE

OPERANT CONDITIONING

SKINNER

CLASSICAL CONDITIONING

Pavlov (1902) started from the idea that there are some things that a dog does not need to learn. For example, dogs don’t learn to salivate whenever they see food. This reflex is ‘hard wired’ into the dog. In behaviorist terms, it is an unconditioned response (i.e. a stimulus-response connection that required no learning).

PAVLOV’S findings:• Stimulus Generation. Once the dog has

learned to salivate at the sound of the bell, it will salivate at other similar sound.• Extinction. If you stop pairing the bell with

food, salivation will eventually cease in response to the bell.• Spontaneous Recovery. Extinguished

response can be recovered after an elapsed time, but will soon extinguish again if the dog is not presented the food.

• Discrimination. The dog can learn to discriminate between familiar bells and discern which bell would result in the presentation of food and which would not.

• Higher Order Conditioning. Once the dog has been conditioned to associate the bell with food, another unconditioned stimulus, such as a light may be flashed at the same time that the bell is rung. Eventually the dog will salivate at the flash of the light without the sound of the bell.

Pavlov's concept of Classical Conditioning was utilized by John Watson to describe how humans learn and how behavior can be influenced by controlling the stimulus in the environment. His famous experiment with "Little Abert" (YouTube) was a demonstration of how human behavior can be conditioned. Watson viewed all behavior as learned, and urged parents to teach "correct" behavior to their children. Scheduled feeding and the avoidance of bad habits (incorrect behavior) were some issues addressed in the pamphlets produced to help parents raise their children. In 1920 he left John Hopkins and entered the advertising industry. By 1924, he was vice president at J. Walter Thompson, one of the largest ad agencies in the United States.Watson is recognized today as the "Father of Behaviorism".

CONNECTIONISM THEORY

Learning is the result of associations forming between stimuli and responses. Such associations or "habits" become strengthened or weakened by the nature and frequency of the S-R pairings. The paradigm for S-R theory was trial and error learning in which certain responses come to dominate others due to rewards. The hallmark of connectionism (like all behavioral theory) was that learning could be adequately explained without referring to any unobservable internal states.

LAW OF EFFECT

LAW OF EXCERCISE

LAW OF READINESS

THORNDIKE’S THEORY THREE PRIMARYLAW

States that the connection between S-R is strengthened when the consequence is positive and when the consequence is negative it weakens

States that the more an S-R bond is practiced the stronger it will become.

States that the more readiness the learner has to respond to a stimulus , the stronger the bond between them

Learning requires both practice and rewards (Law

of effect/exercise

A series of S-R connections can be

chained together if they belong to the same action

sequence. ( Law of readiness)

Transfer of learning occur because of previously

encountered situations.

Intelligenceis a function of the number of

connection learned.

PRINCIPLES DERIVED FROM THORNDIKES

CONNECTIONISM

OPERANT CONDITIONING

Skinner added his perspective on learning by introducing his concept of Operant Conditioning, with emphasis on the power of reinforcement in learning. He continued to focus on observable behavior and scientific study of how humans learn behavior. supported the premise that all behavior is learned and that behavior is goal directed. That goal is basically to seek pleasure and to avoid pain. In other words, a particular behavior increases when the result is pleasurable; and the behavior will tend to decrease when the result is painful or unpleasant. A pleasant outcome refers to a reinforcement, and a unpleasant outcome refers to a punishment.

• Positive reinforcement: Strengthen response by providing desirable rewards

Ex: Token economy• Negative reinforcement: Strengthen response by

removing aversive stimuliEx: STUDENTS -early dismissal for good behavior

• Punishment: Use aversive stimulus following response to decrease likelihood of behavior in the future

Ex: student coming late will not be allowed to join a group work.

TYPES OF REINFORCEMENT

• Extinction or Non reinforcement: responses that are not reinforced are not likely repeated.

Ex: ignoring student’s misbehavior may extinguish that behavior.

Shaping BehaviorsBF Skinner used both positive and negative reinforcements (he was not really into punishments) to change the behavior of both pigeons and rats. Now when Skinner tried to create a behavior in an animal it did not happen at one time. He did it is small successive steps that he called shaping. For example, let’s say you want to teach your dog to go fetch your slippers from the closet and you wanted to use positive reinforcement to do so. You would first give your dog a treat when he goes to your closet (that may take a couple of days). Then you would reinforce him again when he picks up your slippers. Then you give him a treat once again when he brings them to your feet. The idea is that reinforcing all of these small actions is more effective than doing the whole process at once; thus you are shaping the dogs behavior. Each successive action is called shaping the dog’s behavior, but linking each action to each other, in a particular order is called

Chaining.

Schedule of reinforcement

Reinforcement can occur after every response, a situation called continuous reinforcement. It can also occur only after some responses, intermittent reinforcement. A response learned under the latter conditions is more resistant to extinction, a phenomenon called the partial reinforcement effect.

• fixed-ratio schedule: reinforcement after a set number of responses

• variable-ratio schedule: reinforcement after a variable number of responses

• fixed-interval schedule: reinforcement after the same (fixed) interval of time has elapsed

• variable-interval schedule: reinforcement after a variable interval of time has elapsed

By way of example, consider the implications of reinforcement theory as applied to the development of programmed instruction (Markle, 1969; Skinner, 1968)

Practice should take the form of question (stimulus) - answer (response) frames which expose the student to the subject in gradual steps

Require that the learner make a response for every frame and receive immediate feedback

Try to arrange the difficulty of the questions so the response is always correct and hence a positive reinforcement

Ensure that good performance in the lesson is paired with secondary reinforcers such as verbal praise, prizes and good grades.

Principles Behavior that is positively reinforced will reoccur;

intermittent reinforcement is particularly effective

Information should be presented in small amounts so that responses can be reinforced ("shaping")

Reinforcements will generalize across similar stimuli ("stimulus generalization") producing secondary conditioning

Strengths:

1. It can be used to formulate behavioral contracts in the school as well as at home.2. It is helpful in bringing about behavior modification (desired outcome) with the help of reinforcement, punishment and extinction.3. Cueing responses to behavior allows the learner to react in a predictable way under certain conditions.4. Success of outcomes is easily measurable.5. Guarantees specific learning.6. Ease of application.

Weaknesses:

1. Some critics say that it is an extrapolation of animal behavior to humans.2. Behaviorism fails to explain the development of human languages.3. Effect of environment in shaping the behavior of a human, is not taken into account by the behaviorists.