Behavioral theorists

According to behavioral theorists, the mind is like a "black box" into which a stimulus is given and a reaction is received. Whatever is going on in the box can only be discovered by studying people's behavior. Understanding human or animal behavior and its relationships to environmental events is central to behaviorism. It focuses on observable behavior and ignores any that is dependent on a certain behavioral theory. The idea behind behaviorism as a school of psychology is that it is difficult to study the mind objectively. That is why behaviorists feel that psychologists should only research behavior. According to Watson (1928), behaviorism focus on studying human behavior scientifically with a goal of providing the basis for predicting and controlling human beings (p.2).

In the 19th century, existing forms of psychology found it difficult to make predictions that could be assessed experimentally. This led to the rise of behaviorism. The behavioral movement started when the American psychologist John Watson wrote an article called ‘Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It.' This article outlined many underlying suppositions of his methodology and behavioral analysis. Watson assumed that people learn all their behaviors from the environment, specifically through means such as classical and operant conditioning. Watson stressed that psychology should be perceived as a science when he stated that it is a branch of natural science that is purely objective experimental.

In the 20th century, the behavioral school of thought was existing concurrently with the psychoanalysis movement. Some of those who contributed to behaviorism the most were Ivan Pavlov, John B. Watson, and B.F. Skinner. Pavlov, a famous Russian scientist, examined classical conditioning, Watson limited psychology to experimental laboratory methods and rejected introspective methods. B. F. Skinner proposed that private experiences like thoughts and feelings should be subjected to controlling variables as observable behavior (Skinner, 2011, p.91). Skinner is often considered by many to be the most renowned behavioral psychologist. His approach became the basis of the philosophy known as radical behaviorism.

Skinner’s radical behaviorism concurred with Watson’s assumption of methodological behaviorism that the aim of psychology should be predicting and controlling behavior. Skinner, also identified the role played by internal mental occurrences. Even though he did not believe that one should use such incidents to explain behavior, Skinner did suggest that they ought to be described in explaining behavior. While Watson asserted that the mind is a blank slate at birth, Skinner maintained the notion that living organisms are born with some natural behaviors. According to his assumption genes and other biological components play a significant role in shaping behavior. Their take on to what extent environmental conditions affect behavior is the principal distinction between radical and methodological behaviorism. Even when their viewpoints differed at this point, radical behavior was meant to form the conceptual basis of experimentally analyzing behavior.

Since human beings can learn behaviors, it follows that their responses can be unlearned and new ones acquired in their place. Learning is nothing but gaining new behaviors based on a particular condition of the environment. Its major components are classical and operant conditioning. Classical conditioning refers to learning new behaviors through the process of association. A stimulus is linked to another to produce a newly learned response in an individual. Operant conditioning, refers to influencing a behavior using consequences. Positive consequences increase the chances of a behavior happening again while negative consequences reduce chances of a behavior reoccurring.

Skinner’s behavioral theory is based on operant conditioning. Animals or individuals are in the everlasting process of ‘operating’; moving in the environment doing what they do. During this process, individuals meet different kinds of stimuli called reinforcers. These reinforcers are responsible for the increase of an operant. Skinner researched molding behavior through positive and negative reinforcement. His idea was to put the organism on a program with steps. These steps were to set objectives which would help one discover how the organism would be changed by following the steps.

A rat placed in a cage called a Skinner box, which has got a bar or pedal on one wall that, when stepped on, causes a little mechanism to release a food pellet into the cage. The rat moves around the pen when it accidentally presses the bar and, as a result, a food pellet falls into the cage. The operant is the rat’s behavior of moving around and accidentally touching the bar while the reinforcer is the food pellet. In a reasonably short duration, the rat learns to press the bar whenever it wants food. These series of actions lead to one of the principles of operant conditioning that states that a behavior followed by a reinforcing stimulus brings about in an increased likelihood of that behavior happening in future.

The behavior becomes distinct when the rat touches the bar and continuously does not get food. This takes us to another of the principles of operant conditioning that states that behavior which is not followed by the reinforcing stimulus results to a decreased likelihood of that action occurring in the future. A times we might find painful or unpleasant responses called aversive stimuli. When a behavior is followed by such stimuli, the result is a decrease in chances of that behavior reoccurring in future. This is also a form of conditioning called punishment

On the other hand, if an already effective aversive stimulus is removed after a behavior is performed, the result is a negative reinforcement. Since an aversive stimulus causes discomfort and pain, its removal will be welcomed. This leads us to another principle of operant conditioning that says that when a behavior is followed by withdrawal of an aversive stimulus, the probability of that behavior happening again is increased.

Skinner’s primary focus was to target behavior and see that consequences deliver responses. He gave an example of a child refusing to go to school and explained that the center should be on what is making the child resist and not the refusal itself. He never advocated for punishment suggesting that punishment is very ineffective when it comes to controlling behavior. It only leads to a temporary change of behavior. People tend to avoid penalty instead of preventing the behavior that caused punishment. This explains why imprisonment does not reduce criminal behaviors. People still commit crimes but avoid their behavior from being discovered. Basically, instead of punishment altering behavior, it makes it more sophisticated at avoiding discovery. Reinforcement is best at providing a lasting change in behavior.

Behavior modification is a therapy method based on Skinner’s work. It extinguishes undesirable behaviors by removing their reinforcer and replacing them with favored ones by providing reinforcement schizophrenia -- and works particularly well with children. There are examples of back-ward psychotics who haven’t communicated with others for years.

Behaviorism concentrates on a single viewpoint of learning. The view is changing external behavior by use of reinforcement and repetition. This kind of training is also known as Rote learning. This technique and other behavioral techniques have been used in the field education to help shape children’s behavior by encouraging the desired behavior and discouraging the undesired ones. Consequences, contracts, extinctions, reinforcements, and behavioral modification are among the methods derived from the behaviorist theory meant for a practical classroom.

Behaviorism assumes learner is, in essence, submissive, responding to environmental stimuli (Skinner 2011, p.113). The learner begins with a clean slate, and their behaviors are molded through negative or positive reinforcement. Reinforcement dictates whether the behavior will happen again or not depending on whether it was a negative or positive reinforcement. On the contrary, any form of punishment, be it negative or positive, decreases the possibility of the antecedent behavior happening again. Positive reinforcement is the application of the stimuli while negative is the withholding the stimuli. B.F. Scanner taught pigeons how to dance and bawl a ball by use of reinforcement.

Learning as a critical process in human beings involves the acquisition of new knowledge and modification of the already existing ones. It is a step by step process in which people experience lasting and permanent changes in knowledge and behavior. Learning refers to any comparatively permanent change in the way a human being behaves. Such behavioral variations may occur due to practice and experiences. Changes resulting from growth, development, and maturity are not part of learning. In order to consider a behavioral change as learning, it should be relatively permanent and should last a reasonably long duration. Learning does not only study the formal education acquired in learning institutions. It is a continuous process that takes place throughout an individual’s lifetime.

John B. Watson was the first to investigate how the learning process affects human behavior forming behaviorism school of thought. The basis of this theory is that only observable behaviors are worth studying. Skinner followed and expounded on much of Watson’s research and findings. He believed that internal conditions could as well influence an individual’s behavior just like external inducements. Since the conception of behaviorism as a significant school of thought in early twentieth century, learning came to be a critical focus of study in psychology. It remains an important concept many areas of psychology such as social, cognitive, educational, and developmental psychology.

Pointing out the process of learning in people is easy especially when we compare simple scenarios. Complex modes of adult’s behaviors such as thoughts, habits, sentiments, skills and the like are very dissimilar to the crude manner in which children think and behave. People or rather children on their way to adulthood regularly interact with various environments that influence their behaviors. Such experiences with new and different settings make, acquire, change, drop, or modify their behaviors so that they feel accommodated in every situation. How human beings or animals can go from not knowing something to obtaining information, knowledge, and skills about that something is the most significant question that puzzles many.

The practices of learning new things are not always similar. Learning happens in various manners. How learning occurs is best explained by different psychological theories. Learning through classical conditioning is one of the most important ways that individuals learn different things. It is also known as to as learning through association. Ivan Pavlov discovered one method of learning during his experiments on dogs’ digestive systems. He found out that dogs would salivate at the sight of food. He noted that salivation was a reflexive process that was triggered automatically in response to a given stimulus and was not in any way under the control of conscious. The dogs later began salivating whenever his assistant walked in even without food. This observation made Pavlov suggest that salivation was a learned response and the dogs were responding directly to the white lab coat his assistant wore. The dogs had come to associate the lab coat with food presentation.

Pavlov also did another experiment involving the pairing of food with the sound of a ringing bell. After numerous pairings, the dogs started salivating at the sound of the bell alone. The kind of learning demonstrated in these experiments is classical conditioning that occurs through the establishment of associations. These associations are between an environmental signal and a signal that occur naturally. This manner of learning is in solidarity with behaviorism as they are all based on assumptions that learning occurs through interaction with an environment and environments mold behavior.

The consequences of people’s deeds also play a key role in determining what and how they learn and what and how they do not. Skinner observed that even though people could implore classical conditioning to explain some forms of learning, it could not account for all the ways people used in order to learn. He indicated that some forms of learning were as a result of reinforcements and punishments. When a particular action follows a specific behavior, it will either increase or reduce the likelihood of that behavior happening again in future. This process is called operant conditioning. Parents often use this process to instill learning and good behavior to their children. When a child demonstrates good and desired behavior, they are praised, shown affection, and rewarded with gifts. When they indulged in unwanted behavior or learn undesired behaviors, they are scolded, frowned at, privileges were withdrawn and time a little physical punishment implored. The association established in this process is a behavior and its consequences.

This principle relies on the premise that acts followed by desirable outcomes are likely to happen again while those that are followed by undesirable results are likely not to happen again in future. As early behaviorists concentrated on associative conditioning to explain learning, Skinner was more interested in knowing how consequences of people’s behavior affected their learning. His theory was inspired by the work of Edward Thorndike, the psychologist behind the law of effect.

Lastly, the tremendous amount of learning happens through watching other people, retaining the observed knowledge, skills or behavior and replicating them future. This process of learning occurs any time at any place. It is the most common type of learning in children. For instance, children learn how to wave to others by observing their parents and their caretakers do so. This process of learning happens indirectly, and it is referred to as observational learning. Children at very young ages try to mimic funny facial expressions directed to them. Such observable moves demonstrate how powerful observational learning is. Albert Bandura is often associated with learning through observation. He emphasizes the importance of learning through observation.





References

Cloninger, C. R. (1994). Temperament and personality. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 4(2), 266-273.

Pavlov, I. P., & Anrep, G. V. (2003). Conditioned reflexes. North Chelmsford, MA: Courier Corporation.

Skinner, B. F. (2011). About behaviorism. New York: Vintage.

Watson, J. B. (1928). The ways of behaviorism. New York and London: Harper & Brothers.