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The Behaviorist School of Psychology – Behaviorism became a dominant school of thought during the 1950s. It was based upon the work of thinkers such as John B. Watson, Ivan Pavlov, and B.F. Skinner, Behaviorism suggests that all behavior can be explained by environmental causes rather than by internal forces.

Classical conditioning : This is a type of learning that involves associating a previously neutral stimulus with a stimulus that naturally and automatically triggers a response. For example, pairing the sound of a bell with the presentation of food. After an association is formed, the previously neutral stimulus will produce the same response as the natural stimulus. Operant conditioning : This type of learning involves using rewards and punishments to create an association between the behavior and the consequences of that behavior.

The behavioral school of psychology significantly influenced the course of psychology. Many ideas and techniques that emerged from this school of thought are still widely used today. Behavioral training, token economies, aversion therapy, and other methods are frequently used in psychotherapy and behavior modification programs.
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What did Watson and Skinner contribution to psychology?

Every teacher knows that they will usually have a student in class who is difficult to manage and work with. Their behavior is usually hard to control and it can be extra work to get them to pay attention and stop distracting others. If you’re studying to become a teacher, your courses will help you learn classroom management techniques that will prepare you for difficult students.

Additionally, it’s extremely valuable to learn about learning theories and recognize that there are different methods and thoughts about how people learn. Behaviorism or the behavioral learning theory is a popular concept that focuses on how students learn. Behaviorism focuses on the idea that all behaviors are learned through interaction with the environment.

This learning theory states that behaviors are learned from the environment, and says that innate or inherited factors have very little influence on behavior. A common example of behaviorism is positive reinforcement. A student gets a small treat if they get 100% on their spelling test.

1. In the future, students work hard and study for their test in order to get the reward.
2. Behaviorism is key for educators because it impacts how students react and behave in the classroom, and suggests that teachers can directly influence how their students behave.
3. It also helps teachers understand that a student’s home environment and lifestyle can be impacting their behavior, helping them see it objectively and work to assist with improvement.

Behaviorism started as a reaction against introspective psychology in the 19th century, which relied heavily on first-person accounts.J.B. Watson and B.F. Skinner rejected introspective methods as being subjective and unquantifiable. These psychologists wanted to focus on observable, quantifiable events and behaviors.

They said that science should take into account only observable indicators. They helped bring psychology into higher relevance by showing that it could be accurately measured and understood, and it wasn’t just based off opinions. Watson and Skinner believed that if they were given a group of infants, the way they were raised and the environment they put them in would be the ultimate determining factor for how they acted, not their parents or their genetics.

Pavlov’s Dogs is a popular behaviorism experiment. A group of dogs would hear a bell ring and then they would be given food. After enough time, when the bell would ring the dogs would salivate, expecting the food before they even saw it. This is exactly what behaviorism argues—that the things we experience and our environment are the drivers of how we act.

The stimulus-response sequence is a key element of understanding behaviorism. A stimulus is given, for example a bell rings, and the response is what happens next, a dog salivates or a pellet of food is given. Behavioral learning theory argues that even complex actions can be broken down into the stimulus-response.

In the classroom, the behavioral learning theory is key in understanding how to motivate and help students. Information is transferred from teachers to learners from a response to the right stimulus. Students are a passive participant in behavioral learning—teachers are giving them the information as an element of stimulus-response.

Teachers use behaviorism to show students how they should react and respond to certain stimuli. This needs to be done in a repetitive way, to regularly remind students what behavior a teacher is looking for. Positive reinforcement is key in the behavioral learning theory. Without positive reinforcement, students will quickly abandon their responses because they don’t appear to be working.

For example, if students are supposed to get a sticker every time they get an A on a test, and then teachers stop giving that positive reinforcement, less students may get A’s on their tests, because the behavior isn’t connected to a reward for them.

1. Repetition and positive reinforcement go hand-in-hand with the behavioral learning theory.
2. Teachers often work to strike the right balance of repeating the situation and having the positive reinforcement come to show students why they should continue that behavior.
3. Motivation plays an important role in behavioral learning.

Positive and negative reinforcement can be motivators for students. For example, a student may recieve praise for getting a good grade on a test, this is positive reinforcement. Negative reinforcement is still motivation to get the student to act in a desired way, but removes an element in order to get the student to do something.
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What theory did Watson and Skinner follow?

Key Takeaways –

• Behaviourist psychology should concern itself with the observable behaviour of people and animals, not with unobservable events that take place in their minds.
• The main influences of behaviourist psychology were Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936), Edward Lee Thorndike (1874-1949), John B. Watson (1878-1958), and B.F. Skinner (1904-1990).
• The idea that we develop responses to certain stimuli that are not naturally occurring is called “classical conditioning.”
• Operant conditioning refers to how an organism operates on the environment or how it responds to what is presented to it in the environment.
• Reinforcement means to strengthen, and is used in psychology to refer to any stimulus that strengthens or increases the probability of a specific response.
• There are four types of reinforcement: positive, negative, punishment, and extinction.
• Behaviourist researchers used experimental methods (puzzle box, operant conditioning or Skinner box, Little Albert experiment) to investigate learning processes.
• Today, behaviourism is still prominent in applications such as gamification.

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What was Watson’s school of psychology called?

J.B. Watson was an American psychologist best known for coding and popularizing a school of psychology called Behaviorism.
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What is the behaviourist school of psychology?

Key Terms – Behaviorism: A theory and school of thought in psychology which states that all types of human behavior can be learned through two key types of conditioning: classical conditioning and operant conditioning. The terms behaviorism and behavioral perspective can also be used interchangeably.

• Stimulus: Anything that occurs in the environment that elicits a response from an individual.
• Classical Conditioning: A learning technique that unconsciously pairs a specific action, or stimulus, with the resulting automatic behavioral response.
• When the action or stimulus is repeated, the automatic behavioral response is eventually learned to be associated with the action.1 Operant Conditioning: A learning technique that employs positive and negative reinforcements in the form of rewards or punishments to encourage an individual to pick up or stop a specific behavior.

It is sometimes referred to as instrumental conditioning.1 Positive Reinforcement: A consequence that aims to strengthen or encourage certain behavior, such as providing a reward for doing something well.
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Who created the behaviourist theory?

Why Is John B. Watson Considered the Founder of Behaviorism? – Given the many past and present tributes to John B. Watson, we might fairly ask why he is uniquely revered as the father of behavior analysis. He was so honored at the 2013 conference of the Association of Behavior Analysis International, but why was that? Why, for example, was Edward Thorndike not the honoree? Watson’s real academic career as a psychologist dealing with human behavior lasted only 12 years, from 1908 to 1920, coinciding with his time at Johns Hopkins University.

He gave talks and wrote popular books and articles after that, but his autobiography in 1936 pretty much ended his scholarly career, although he did continue to contribute to current practices in business: marketing, management, and (maybe) advertising (Coon 1994 ; DiClemente and Hantula 2000, 2003 ).

But he clearly viewed that as business, and Watson said that being in business was very different from having an academic job (Buckley 1989, p.177). As for behavioral research with humans, though he published little other than the “Little Albert” study that Todd ( 1994, p.102) contends has become the “baby-frightening experiment,” that serves mainly as introductory textbook lore.

1. We might also count some data on “handedness” included informally in Behaviorism (Watson 1930, pp.131–133), as well as similar brief data presentations on other topics appearing here and there in his other reports (e.g., his 1920 work with Karl Lashley on venereal disease education).
2. Mary Cover Jones ( 1924 ) did publish results of her work carried out under his direction but, like “Albert’s” data, that also dealt with acquired fears in children, this time their removal.

Altogether, that seems an unimpressive record of research involving humans and certainly one reason that the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis shows almost no references to Watson! We might ask again, “Why is Watson celebrated as the founder of behaviorism?” The answer may be simple.

• Watson was an attractive, strong, scientifically accomplished, and forceful speaker and an engaging writer at a time when anyone who could be called a proto-behaviorist was anxious to get along with the few other psychologists in the world.
• So such people, like Knight Dunlap (e.g., 1912 ), seemed weak, tentative, mealy mouthed, and ineffectual.

On the other hand, Watson was articulate and combative, a real fighter who publicly dismissed the accumulated psychology of his time as rubbish. And he was a full professor at Johns Hopkins University at the age of 29, editor of Psychological Review, and the object of universal scholarly respect, if not adoration (e.g., Jastrow 1929 ).1 Further, Watson had a message that seemed easy to understand, and that called for action, rather than quiet discussion and polite debate.

Not many paid attention in 1913 and for several years thereafter (Samelson 1994 ), but as 1920 approached, behaviorism was taking hold, partly because authoritative people like future Nobel laureate Bertrand Russell 2 and Harvard neorealist philosopher Ralph Barton Perry generally supported Watson’s program.

Others, like Walter Hunter at Brown, welcomed Watson’s revolution and tried to explain behaviorism to many uncomprehending readers (Hunter 1922 ). A few years later, Woodworth referred to “the outbreak of behaviorism in 1912–14” ( 1931, p.45) and described it as a “youth movement” (p.59).

But he quoted the New York Times opinion, that Behaviorism “marks an epoch in the intellectual history of man,” as well as the Tribune, which hailed it “as the most important book ever written” ( 1931, p.92). Watson the teacher directly inspired one future APA president who never took a traditional psychology course.

Karl Lashley, who many consider the greatest neuropsychologist of our time, took a seminar with Watson and became a lifelong correspondent and ally. As Lashley put it in 1958, “Anyone who knows American psychology today knows that its value derives from biology and from Watson” (Beach 1961, p.171).
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Did Watson use classical or operant conditioning?

Watson and Behaviorism – Let’s think about how classical conditioning is used on people, and not just with dogs. One of the most widespread applications of classical conditioning principles was brought to us by the psychologist, John B. Watson. Watson proposed that the process of classical conditioning (based on Pavlov’s observations) was able to explain all aspects of human psychology.

• He established the psychological school of behaviorism, after doing research on animal behavior.
• This school was extremely influential in the middle of the 20th century when B.F.
• Skinner developed it further.
• Watson believed that most of our fears and other emotional responses are classically conditioned.

He gained a good deal of popularity in the 1920s with his expert advice on parenting offered to the public. He believed that parents could be taught to help shape their children’s behavior and tried to demonstrate the power of classical conditioning with his famous experiment with an 18-month-old boy named “Little Albert.” Watson sat Albert down and introduced a variety of seemingly scary objects to him: a burning piece of newspaper, a white rat, etc.

But Albert remained curious and reached for all of these things. Watson knew that one of our only inborn fears is the fear of loud noises so he proceeded to make a loud noise each time he introduced one of Albert’s favorites, a white rat. After hearing the loud noise several times paired with the rat, Albert soon came to fear the rat and began to cry when it was introduced.

Watson filmed this experiment for posterity and used it to demonstrate that he could help parents achieve any outcomes they desired if they would only follow his advice. Watson wrote columns in newspapers and in magazines and gained a lot of popularity among parents eager to apply science to household order.
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What are Watson and Skinner’s ideas most similar to?

While Watson and Skinner differed in several ways in their conceptualizations and believes about behaviorism, they both shared the common idea that behavior is controlled by the environment.
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What do Pavlov Watson and Skinner have in common?

While Watson and Pavlov focused on classical conditioning, Skinner worked with operant condition, and Bandura experimented with observational learning. All in all, these psychologist discovered many things about the process of learning, many of which I can apply to my own life experiences.
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What is Watson’s theory of behaviourism?

Behaviorism, according to Watson, was the science of observable behavior. Only behavior that could be observed, recorded and measured was of any real value for the study of humans or animals.
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What is the behaviourism theory?

Behaviorist learning theory emphasizes how people interact with their environment. Over time, these interactions (called “stimuli”) form particular behaviors. John Watson is largely seen as the father of behavioral psychology, though he never claimed to have founded the discipline. Operant conditioning relies on positive and negative reinforcement to increase or decrease a certain behavior in a subject. Interested in the human mind? Learn more about psychology degrees from University of Phoenix!

That question has been asked, answered and debated for thousands of years. Theories about innate knowledge versus learned experience stretch back to the time of Plato and the Greek philosophers. Are human beings born blank slates, upon which life makes its imprint? Or do we have a certain amount of ingrained knowledge independent of any lived experience? One school of thought, known as behaviorism, sides with the former, emphasizing the lived experience, or nurture, side of this debate. Learning theories attempt to describe how knowledge becomes ingrained in a person’s memory in an observable way, whether that’s the solution to a complicated math problem or directions to the grocery store. The implications of understanding how we learn to go much further than mere theory, though.

Cognitive learning theory Constructivism learning theory Humanism learning theory Connectivism learning theory And of course, behaviorist learning theory

Learning theories provide teachers and students with an established framework in which to teach and learn successfully, In short, behaviorism emphasizes how people interact with their environment. Over time, these interactions (called “stimuli”) form particular behaviors.

The process by which this behavior is formed is known as conditioning, In general, behaviorists are concerned solely or primarily with understanding behavior as the response to environmental stimuli. They’re generally unconcerned with psychological phenomena that cannot be systematically observed. As we will see, some behaviorists are more extreme in this way of thinking than others.

The most extreme of this set, known as the radical behaviorists, entirely discount innate psychological phenomena outside of stimulus and response. For radical behaviorists, in other words, everything that makes up a person’s psychology, personality and knowledge is a result of interaction with their environment since birth. Behaviorist learning theory represents the culmination of various schools of thought in modern psychology. Here are some of the people and concepts that formed the behaviorist learning theory we know today. No discussion of modern psychology would be complete without the “father of experimental psychology” himself, Wilhelm Wundt.

• Born in 1832 in Germany, Wundt founded the first psychology laboratory in the world and carried out experiments that heavily influenced the field.
• Wundt’s experimental approach was novel during the 19th century: He proposed that psychology could be treated as natural science.
• In other words, the human mind could be studied through controlled experiments with reproducible results.

In his institute, he emphasized that which could be more objectively measured, like reaction times and attention spans. This work broke psychology away from an entirely “inside-out” field, and one that studied the human mind from the outside-in. This emphasis can be seen throughout the work of the first behaviorists, who would follow Wundt’s lead at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries.

One of the most well-known figures in the history of behaviorism, Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov produced a body of work that’s crucial to behaviorist learning theory. While working with dogs in his laboratory, Pavlov observed that his canine subjects began to salivate when certain lab assistants entered the room.

It was these lab technicians who normally fed the dogs, but Pavlov noticed that the dogs began to salivate regardless of whether the assistants were coming in to feed them or not. Pavlov’s conclusion ignited a career-defining inquiry. He surmised the dogs had associated the presence of these assistants with the presence of food, which triggered a physiological response (salivation).

The experience gave Pavlov an idea that grew into the concept of classical conditioning, He conducted an experiment in which he paired the ringing of a bell with the arrival of food and measured the resulting salivary response in dog subjects. Predictably, the dogs began to salivate when they saw the food arrive.

Pavlov repeated this food-bell pairing several times. He then rang the bell again but did not bring in the food. Even without seeing their meal, however, the dogs began to salivate at the ringing of the bell. These dogs had associated the ringing of the bell with the arrival of the food and reacted accordingly.

• Pavlov formalized his conclusions from this and other experiments into what’s now known as classical conditioning.
• According to this theory, a stimulus that’s neutral, or unrelated to a particular response, can be associated with a positive stimulus that’s related to that response.
• In the example, the ringing of the bell (a neutral stimulus) became associated with the positive stimulus (arrival of food) to produce the same behavior (salivation).

While Pavlov largely kept his experiments to animals, it would not be long before experimental psychologists began testing his theories on human subjects. Though Pavlov and Wundt were primary precursors, later psychologists would formalize their work into the behaviorist learning theory we know today. A pioneer in this regard is the American psychologist John Watson. Though he never actually claimed to be the founder of behavioral psychology, his work sits at the center of the discipline.

1. In 1913, he published the seminal “Psychology as a Behaviorist Views It,” an article that drew a connection between the conclusions of classical conditioning to human psychology.
2. Watson believed that behavior and its origins could be studied in experimental settings, and that belief led to one of his most infamous tests: the Little Albert experiment.

In his research, Watson conditioned a young child to fear a small rat by timing the arrival of the rat with a loud noise. Though ethically inexcusable by today’s standards, Watson’s experiment concluded that many of Pavlov’s findings also applied to human behavior.

1. This connection between external stimuli and developed behaviors is the bedrock upon which future innovators would build.
2. Many of the behaviorism concepts that are commonplace today, such as positive and negative reinforcement and operant conditioning, grew out of the work performed by our next behaviorist: the American psychologist B.F.

Skinner. Skinner’s landmark experiment involved placing a lab rat in an operant conditioning chamber, or “Skinner box,” outfitted with a lever or button. The animal could then press the lever or button to receive food. The animal was free to press the lever whenever it desired.

1. When it did so, it would be rewarded with food.
2. In other versions of the experiment, the animal would receive a small shock if it pressed the lever outside of conditions set by the experimenter (such as a light being on or off).
3. The two responses (food and shock) are dubbed reinforcements and punishments, respectively.

They’re important concepts in Skinner’s theory of operant conditioning. Skinner found that animals were more likely to press the lever when they received rewards, and less likely to do so when they did not. He termed this operant conditioning, He defined a sharp contrast between operant conditioning and classical conditioning developed by Pavlov. In operant conditioning, the operant is any behavior that a subject performs on their environment. The subject has control over these behaviors. Respondents, on the other hand, are automatic reflexes, like jumping away from a hot stovetop. As stated earlier, the concepts of reinforcement and punishment are central to Skinner’s theory of operant conditioning.

Reinforcement is any event that promotes the preceding behavior. Punishment is meant to discourage the preceding behavior. You might have heard of terms like positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement, These phrases are commonly used, and just as commonly misused. For example, when students behave well in class, they may receive a prize or a gold star.

This has the goal of reinforcing their good behavior and is known as positive reinforcement. Negative reinforcement, on the other hand, doesn’t have to be unpleasant to the student. Let’s say a teacher removes a reinforcement in response to good behavior.

This could mean exempting the student from clean-up duties or letting them skip an assignment. This type of reinforcement is meant to increase positive behavior by taking something away instead of giving something to the student. It’s subtractive and therefore called negative reinforcement. It follows then that there are also positive and negative punishments in operant conditioning.

Positive punishment is additive, in that it punishes bad behavior with a new, unpleasant stimulus. To take our classroom example. This might include assigning extra homework to a poorly behaved student. A negative punishment, on the other hand, is subtractive, like taking recess time away from an unruly pupil. Though teachers are often familiar with several learning theories and may use a combination of them in class, some concepts can find their roots in behaviorism, such as: If a teacher returns students’ papers within a week of submission, students may be more likely to learn from that feedback, compared to a teacher who waits several weeks.

• This is because a quick turnaround creates a stronger relationship between the behavior (writing the paper) and the reinforcement (receiving feedback).
• Many teachers implement reward systems for students to reinforce good behavior.
• When students receive extra credit for optional quizzes leading up to a big test, for instance, they might be more likely to pace their study with the quizzes, instead of cramming the night before the exam.

Of course, reward systems have to be assessed and reassessed to make sure they’re reinforcing the right behaviors and not opening the door to cheating or manipulation. Instead of jumping into lessons immediately, many teachers opt to start their class with routine activities.

• This can be as simple as leaving a problem up on the board for students to complete as the class begins.
• Such behaviors create consistency, which can help students remain focused while easing into a learning environment.
• Behaviorist learning theory has a long and rich history, one that affects how students learn in classrooms every day.

From Wundt to Skinner, innovators have shaped our understanding of how knowledge is acquired. And innovators, psychologists and educators will likely use these ideas well into the future. want to read more like this?
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What is Skinner’s theory of behaviorism?

B.F. Skinner – Skinner was a psychologist who continued to influence the development of behaviorism. His most important contributions were introducing the idea of radical behaviorism and defining operant conditioning. Unlike Watson, Skinner believed that internal processes such as thoughts and emotions should be considered when analyzing behavior.

The inclusion of thoughts and actions with behaviors is radical behaviorism. He believed that internal processes, like observable behavior, can be controlled by environmental variables and thus can be analyzed scientifically. The application of the principles of radical behaviorism is known as applied behavior analysis.

In 1938, Skinner published The Behavior of Organisms, a book that introduces the principles of operant conditioning and their application to human and animal behavior. The core concept of operant conditioning is the relationship between reinforcement and punishment, similar to Thorndike’s law of effect: Rewarded behaviors are more likely to be repeated, while punished behaviors are less likely to be repeated.

• Positive reinforcement is adding a positive stimulus to encourage behavior.
• Escape is removing a negative stimulus to encourage behavior.
• Active avoidance is preventing a negative stimulus to encourage behavior.
• Positive punishment is adding a negative stimulus to discourage behavior.
• Negative punishment is removing a positive stimulus to discourage behavior.

Reinforcement encourages behavior, while punishment discourages behavior. Those who use operant conditioning use reinforcement and punishment in an effort to modify the subject’s behavior. Figure 1. An overview of the five categories of operant conditioning. Positive and negative reinforcements can be given according to different types of schedules. Skinner developed five schedules of reinforcement:

Continuous reinforcement is applied when the learner receives reinforcement after every specific action performed. For example, a teacher may reward a student with a sticker for each meaningful comment the student makes.

• Fixed interval reinforcement is applied when the learner receives reinforcement after a fixed amount of time has passed. For example, a teacher may give out stickers each Friday to students who made comments throughout the week.
• Variable interval reinforcement is applied when the learner receives reinforcement after a random amount of time has passed. For example, a teacher may give out stickers on a random day each week to students who have actively participated in classroom discussion.
• Fixed ratio reinforcement is applied when the learner receives reinforcement after the behavior occurs a set number of times. For example, a teacher may reward a student with a sticker after the student contributes five meaningful comments.
• Variable ratio reinforcement is applied when the learner receives reinforcement after the behavior occurs a random number of times. For example, a teacher may reward a student with a sticker after the student contributes three to ten meaningful comments.

Skinner experimented using different reinforcement schedules in order to analyze which schedules were most effective in various situations. In general, he found that ratio schedules are more resistant to extinction than interval schedules, and variable schedules are more resistant than fixed schedules, making the variable ratio reinforcement schedule the most effective.

Skinner was a strong supporter of education and influenced various principles on the manners of educating. He believed there were two reasons for education: to teach both verbal and nonverbal behavior and to interest students in continually acquiring more knowledge. Based on his concept of reinforcement, Skinner taught that students learn best when taught by positive reinforcement and that students should be engaged in the process, not simply passive listeners.

He hypothesized that students who are taught via punishment learn only how to avoid punishment. Although Skinner’s doubtful view on punishment is important to the discipline in education, finding other ways to discipline are very difficult, so punishment is still a big part in the education system.

Skinner points out that teachers need to be better educated in teaching and learning strategies (Skinner, 1968). He addresses the main reasons why learning is not successful. This biggest reasons teachers fail to educate their students are because they are only teaching through showing and they are not reinforcing their students enough.

Skinner gave examples of steps teachers should take to teach properly. A few of these steps include the following:

1. Ensure the learner clearly understands the action or performance.
2. Separate the task into small steps starting at simple and working up to complex.
3. Let the learner perform each step, reinforcing correct actions.
4. Regulate so that the learner is always successful until finally the goal is reached.
5. Change to random reinforcement to maintain the learner’s performance (Skinner, 1968).

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What are the three school of psychology?

The schools are cognitive, humanistic, and behavioral (see Figure 4.1). Although the ideas from the three appear to be independent, you will see they share many beliefs.
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What is the difference between functionalism and behaviourism school of psychology?

Conclusion – It is important to understand the difference between functionalism and behaviorism when studying psychology. Behaviorism is concerned with observable behaviors, while functionalism studies how mental states or functions give rise to those behaviors.
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What is Skinner’s theory called?

How Reinforcement and Punishment Modify Behavior – Operant conditioning, also known as instrumental conditioning, is a method of learning normally attributed to B.F. Skinner, where the consequences of a response determine the probability of it being repeated.

Through operant conditioning behavior which is reinforced (rewarded) will likely be repeated, and behavior which is punished will occur less frequently. By the 1920s, John B. Watson had left academic psychology, and other behaviorists were becoming influential, proposing new forms of learning other than classical conditioning,

Perhaps the most important of these was Burrhus Frederic Skinner. Although, for obvious reasons, he is more commonly known as B.F. Skinner. Skinner’s views were slightly less extreme than those of Watson (1913). Skinner believed that we do have such a thing as a mind, but that it is simply more productive to study observable behavior rather than internal mental events.
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Who is the father of behaviorism Why?

John B. Watson
Born	John Broadus Watson January 9, 1878 Travelers Rest, South Carolina, US
Died	September 25, 1958 (aged 80) Woodbury, Connecticut, US
Education	Furman University (MA) University of Chicago (PhD)
Known for	Founding behaviorism Methodological behaviorism Behavior modification
Scientific career
Fields	Psychology
Doctoral advisor	J.R. Angell
Other academic advisors	John Dewey, H.H. Donaldson, Jacques Loeb
Influences	Ivan Pavlov
Influenced	Leonard Bloomfield, Karl Lashley

John Broadus Watson (January 9, 1878 – September 25, 1958) was an American psychologist who popularized the scientific theory of behaviorism, establishing it as a psychological school, Watson advanced this change in the psychological discipline through his 1913 address at Columbia University, titled Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It,
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What is the difference between the theory of Pavlov and Skinner?

In regards to the difference between Pavlov’s and Skinner’s theories, Pavlov’s theory focused on conditioning of the individual compared to Skinner’s theory that focused on the use of specific functions, or facilitators, to produce the behavior that was desired.
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Is classical conditioning Pavlov or Watson?

Classical conditioning (also known as Pavlovian or respondent conditioning) is learning through association and was discovered by Pavlov, a Russian physiologist. In simple terms, two stimuli are linked together to produce a new learned response in a person or animal.

• John Watson proposed that the process of classical conditioning (based on Pavlov’s observations) was able to explain all aspects of human psychology.
• If you pair a neutral stimulus (NS) with an unconditioned stimulus (US) that already triggers an unconditioned response (UR) that neutral stimulus will become a conditioned stimulus (CS), triggering a conditioned response (CR) similar to the original unconditioned response.

Everything from speech to emotional responses was simply patterns of stimulus and response. Watson completely denied the existence of the mind or consciousness. Watson believed that all individual differences in behavior were due to different learning experiences.
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What type of conditioning did Watson use?

Watson was able to carry out the process of classical conditioning on Little Albert, since he was able to take a neutral stimulus (white rat) and pair it with the unconditioned stimulus (loud noise) to create the conditioned stimulus (white rat) and conditioned response (fear).
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Did Watson study operant conditioning?

John Broadus Watson pioneered the psychological school of thought known as behaviorism. Watson’s work helped aid the advancement of other behaviorist theories, including B.F Skinner’s operant conditioning.
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What is the contribution of Skinner in psychology?

B.F. Skinner’s Contributions to Psychology – Skinner’s most notable discoveries or contributions to the field of psychology include:

The operant conditioning process (Skinner’s theory of learning)The notion of schedules of reinforcementIntroduction of response rates as a dependent variable in researchThe creation of the cumulative recorder to track response rates

B.F. Skinner also proposed that emotions could be translated into a person’s predisposition to act in specific ways. For example, if someone experiences the emotion of anger toward someone else, they are more likely to exhibit behaviors such as yelling at the other person or maybe even acting out against them physically.

Skinner’s remarkable legacy has left a lasting mark on psychology and numerous other fields, ranging from philosophy to education. While behaviorism is no longer a dominant school of thought, his contributions remain vital today. For instance, mental health professionals often utilize Skinner’s operant techniques when working with clients.

Teachers also frequently use reinforcement to shape behavior in the classroom. Even animal trainers rely heavily on B.F. Skinner’s techniques to train dogs and other animals.
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What are the major contributions of behaviorism to psychology?

Behavioral Psychology – Early work in the field of behavior was conducted by the Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov (1849–1936). Pavlov studied a form of learning behavior called a conditioned reflex, in which an animal or human produced a reflex (unconscious) response to a stimulus and, over time, was conditioned to produce the response to a different stimulus that the experimenter associated with the original stimulus.

The reflex Pavlov worked with was salivation in response to the presence of food. The salivation reflex could be elicited using a second stimulus, such as a specific sound, that was presented in association with the initial food stimulus several times. Once the response to the second stimulus was “learned,” the food stimulus could be omitted.

Pavlov’s “classical conditioning” is only one form of learning behavior studied by behaviorists. Figure 1, John B. Watson is known as the father of behaviorism within psychology. John B. Watson (1878–1958) was an influential American psychologist whose most famous work occurred during the early 20th century at Johns Hopkins University. While Wundt and James were concerned with understanding conscious experience, Watson thought that the study of consciousness was flawed.

Because he believed that objective analysis of the mind was impossible, Watson preferred to focus directly on observable behavior and try to bring that behavior under control. Watson was a major proponent of shifting the focus of psychology from the mind to behavior, and this approach of observing and controlling behavior came to be known as,

A major object of study by behaviorists was learned behavior and its interaction with inborn qualities of the organism. Behaviorism commonly used animals in experiments under the assumption that what was learned using animal models could, to some degree, be applied to human behavior.

Indeed, Tolman (1938) stated, “I believe that everything important in psychology (except such matters as involve society and words) can be investigated in essence through the continued experimental and theoretical analysis of the determiners of rat behavior at a choice-point in a maze.” Behaviorism dominated experimental psychology for several decades, and its influence can still be felt today (Thorne & Henley, 2005).

Behaviorism is largely responsible for establishing psychology as a scientific discipline through its objective methods and especially experimentation. In addition, it is used in behavioral and cognitive-behavioral therapy. Behavior modification is commonly used in classroom settings.

Behaviorism has also led to research on environmental influences on human behavior.B.F. Skinner (1904–1990) was an American psychologist. Like Watson, Skinner was a behaviorist, and he concentrated on how behavior was affected by its consequences. Therefore, Skinner spoke of reinforcement and punishment as major factors in driving behavior.

As a part of his research, Skinner developed a chamber that allowed the careful study of the principles of modifying behavior through reinforcement and punishment. This device, known as an operant conditioning chamber (or more familiarly, a Skinner box), has remained a crucial resource for researchers studying behavior (Thorne & Henley, 2005). Figure 2, (a) B.F. Skinner is famous for his research on operant conditioning. (b) Modified versions of the operant conditioning chamber, or Skinner box, are still widely used in research settings today. (credit a: modification of work by “Silly rabbit”/Wikimedia Commons) The Skinner box is a chamber that isolates the subject from the external environment and has a behavior indicator such as a lever or a button.

When the animal pushes the button or lever, the box is able to deliver a positive reinforcement of the behavior (such as food) or a punishment (such as a noise) or a token conditioner (such as a light) that is correlated with either the positive reinforcement or punishment. Skinner’s focus on positive and negative reinforcement of learned behaviors had a lasting influence in psychology that has waned somewhat since the growth of research in cognitive psychology.

Despite this, conditioned learning is still used in human behavioral modification. Skinner’s two widely read and controversial popular science books about the value of operant conditioning for creating happier lives remain as thought-provoking arguments for his approach (Greengrass, 2004).

During the early 20th century, American psychology was dominated by behaviorism and psychoanalysis. However, some psychologists were uncomfortable with what they viewed as limited perspectives being so influential to the field. They objected to the pessimism and determinism (all actions driven by the unconscious) of Freud.

They also disliked the reductionism, or simplifying nature, of behaviorism. Behaviorism is also deterministic at its core, because it sees human behavior as entirely determined by a combination of genetics and environment. Some psychologists began to form their own ideas that emphasized personal control, intentionality, and a true predisposition for “good” as important for our self-concept and our behavior.
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What do Pavlov Watson and Skinner have in common?

While Watson and Pavlov focused on classical conditioning, Skinner worked with operant condition, and Bandura experimented with observational learning. All in all, these psychologist discovered many things about the process of learning, many of which I can apply to my own life experiences.
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What was Watson’s theory psychology?

Contribution to Psychology – Watson published his groundbreaking article on behaviorism in 1913, “Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It,” often referred to as “The Behaviorist Manifesto.” Because there was little evidence of a specific behavior mechanism in his theory, many of Watson’s colleagues did not accept his beliefs as scientifically valid.

His 1919 text, Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist, was more readily accepted, though Watson’s behaviorist theories were not fully adopted into academia and mainstream psychology for another decade. Watson’s behaviorist theory focused not on the internal emotional and psychological conditions of people, but rather on their external and outward behaviors.

He believed that a person’s physical responses provided the only insight into internal actions. He spent much of his career applying his theories to the study of child development and early learning. Watson conducted several experiments exploring emotional learning in children.

One of his most famous experiments was the Little Albert experiment, which explored classical conditioning using a nine month-old baby boy. In the experiment, Watson demonstrated that Little Albert could be conditioned to fear something, like a white rat, when no such fear existed initially. Watson combined a loud noise with the appearance of the rat, in order to create fear in the baby.

The experiment was highly controversial and would likely be considered unethical by today’s research standards. In 1928, Watson published Psychological Care of Infant and Child, in which he cautioned against providing children with too much affection, and instead endorsed the practice of treating children like miniature adults.

• He believed that excessive early attachments could contribute to a dependent, needy personality in adulthood, emphasizing that people do not receive excessive comfort in adulthood and therefore should not receive it in childhood.
• He specifically argued against thumb-sucking, coddling, and excessive sentimentality, and he emphasized that parents should be open and honest with children about sexuality.

While the book sold well in its first year, some found Watson’s unsentimental advice chilling. Two years after the books publication, Watson’s wife published an article entitled “I am a Mother of Behaviorist Sons” in Parents magazine that encouraged the displays of affection that her husband admonished.

1. Watson’s behaviorism has had a long-lasting impact on the nature-versus-nurture debate, and his work illuminated the strong role early experiences play in shaping personality.
2. Watson paved the way for subsequent behaviorists, such as B.F.
3. Skinner, and behaviorism remains a popular approach for animal training.

Some mental health professionals use behaviorist principles to condition away phobias and fears. In addition, advertisers frequently use behaviorist conditioning to encourage consumers to purchase products. References:

John Watson. (n.d.). PBS: A science odyssey, Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/bhwats.html Plucker, Jonathan A. (2003). John Broadus Watson. Encyclopedia of Education, Retrieved from http://www.gale.cengage.com/InContext/bio.htm Rilling, M. (2000). How the challenge of explaining learning influenced the origins and development of John B. Watson’s behaviorism. The American Journal of Psychology, 113 (2), 275-301. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/224842367?accountid=1229

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