Behaviorism

Behaviorism (also spelled behaviourism) is a systematic approach to understand the behavior of humans and other animals. It assumes that behavior is either a reflex evoked by the pairing of certain antecedent stimuli in the environment, or a consequence of that individual's history, including especially reinforcement and punishment contingencies, together with the individual's current motivational state and controlling stimuli. Although behaviorists generally accept the important role of heredity in determining behavior, they focus primarily on environmental events. The cognitive revolution of the late 20th century largely replaced behaviorism as an explanatory theory with cognitive psychology, which unlike behaviorism examines internal mental states.

1 History of Behaviorism

Behaviorism was formally established with the 1913 publication of John B. Watson's classic paper, "Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It."3 It is best summed up by the following quote from Watson, who is often considered the father of behaviorism:
"Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I'll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select—doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and, yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors."
From about 1920 through the mid-1950s, behaviorism became the dominant school of thought in psychology. Some suggest that the popularity of behavioral psychology grew out of the desire to establish psychology as an objective and measurable science. Among psychologists behaviorism was even more popular than among philosophers. In addition to Pavlov, Skinner, Thorndike, and Watson, the list of behaviorists among psychologists included, among others, E. C. Tolman (1886–1959), C. L. Hull (1884–52), and E. R. Guthrie (1886–1959). Tolman, for example, wrote that "everything important in psychology … 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" (1938, p. 34).
During that time, researchers were interested in creating theories that could be clearly described and empirically measured, but also used to make contributions that might have an influence on the fabric of everyday human lives.

2 Two Types of Behaviorism

Methodological Behaviorism

In 1913, psychologist John B. Watson published the paper that would be considered the manifesto of early behaviorism: "Psychology as the behaviorist views it."
After Watson's paper , behaviorism gradually took hold. By the 1920s, a number of intellectuals, including well-regarded figures such as the philosopher and later Nobel Laureate Bertrand Russell, recognized the significance of Watson's philosophy.

Radical Behaviorism

Radical behaviorism is rooted in the theory that behavior can be understood by looking at one's past and present environment and the reinforcements within it, thereby influencing behavior either positively or negatively. This behavioral approach was created by the psychologist B.F. Skinner.

3 Classical Conditioning

Classical conditioning, discovered by Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov, is a form of unconscious learning. It involves creating a conditioned response by associating an unconditioned stimulus with a neutral stimulus.
Operant conditioning was developed by B.F. Skinner in 1938 and is form of learning in which the frequency of a behavior is controlled by consequences to change behavior.'

Positive reinforcement

  • Neutral Stimulus
    In classical conditioning, a neutral stimulus(NS) is a stimulus that initially does not evoke a response until it is paired with the unconditioned stimulus.

  • Unconditioned Stimulus
    In classical conditioning, the unconditioned stimulus is a feature of the environment that causes a natural and automatic response without prior conditioning.

  • Unconditioned Response
    In classical conditioning, an unconditioned response is an innate response that occurs automatically when the unconditioned stimulus is presented.

  • Conditioned Stimulus
    In classical conditioning, the conditioned stimulus (CS) is a substitute stimulus that triggers the same response in an organism as an unconditioned stimulus.

  • Conditioned Response
    In classical conditioning, the conditioned response (CR) is the learned response to the previously neutral stimulus.

One of the best-known examples of classical conditioning is Pavlov's classic experiments with dogs. In these experiments, the neutral Stimulus was the sound of a tone and the Unconditioned Response was salivating in response to food. By associating the neutral stimulus (bell) with the unconditioned stimulus (food), the sound of the tone alone could produce a salivation response.

4 Operant Conditioning

Operant conditioning was developed by B.F. Skinner in 1938 and is form of learning in which the frequency of a behavior is controlled by consequences to change behavior.
Positive reinforcement
Providing a stimulus that an individual enjoys, seeks, or craves, in order to reinforce desired behaviors.
Negative reinforcement
Increases the frequency of a behavior, but the behavior results from removing unpleasant or unwanted stimulus.
Positive punishment
Providing a stimulus that an individual does not desire to decrease undesired behaviors.
Negative punishment
Removing a stimulus that an individual desires in order to decrease undesired behaviors. An example of this would be grounding a child for failing a test. failed a test, this is negative punishment. The key here is the connection to the behavior and the result of the behavior.

5 notable behaviorists

Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (September 26,1849—February 27,1936)

Ivan Petrovich Pavlov was a Russian and Soviet experimental neurologist and physiologist known for his discovery of classical conditioning through his experiments with dogs. He developed a similar conceptual approach, emphasizing the importance of conditioning, in his pioneering studies relating human behaviour to the nervous system. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1904 for his work on digestive
Pavlov began examining the reflex system while studying the gastric systems of dogs. He studied the digestive system in earnest, and looked to determine the effects of nerves on digestive organs. He later studied the reflex system in relation to pain and stress. He realized that subjects often responded in the same way to different stimuli, regardless of their temperament. Carl Jung and William Sargant continued Pavlov's theories by researching human temperament types.
Pavlov is best known for his classical conditioning study, also known as Pavlovian conditioning, as published in Conditioned Reflexes in 1926. He developed this theory with Ivan Filippovitch Tolochinov, his assistant, in 1901. They found that when a bell was closely associated with the delivery of food, a dog would begin to salivate when the bell was rung. The bell served as a conditioned stimulus, which elicits a conditioned reflex. Salivating in response to food alone, by contrast, is an unconditioned reflex to an unconditioned stimulus. The experiments that Pavlov conducted on the salivating dogs have become recognized throughout common culture with the term "Pavlov’s Dogs."

John Broadus Watson (January 9, 1878 - September 25, 1958)

John Broadus Watson was an American psychologist who popularized the scientific theory of behaviorism, establishing it as a psychological school.[2] Watson advanced this change in the psychological discipline through his 1913 address at Columbia University, titled Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It.[3] Through his behaviorist approach, Watson conducted research on animal behavior, child rearing, and advertising, as well as conducting the controversial "Little Albert" experiment and the Kerplunk experiment. He was also the editor of Psychological Review from 1910 to 1915.[4] A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Watson as the 17th most cited psychologist of the 20th century

Burrhus Frederic Skinner (March 20, 1904 - August 18, 1990)

Burrhus Frederic Skinner was an American psychologist, behaviorist, inventor, and social philosopher.[2][3][4][5] He was the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University from 1958 until his retirement in 1974.
Skinner developed behavior analysis, especially the philosophy of radical behaviorism,[8] and founded the experimental analysis of behavior, a school of experimental research psychology. He also used operant conditioning to strengthen behavior, considering the rate of response to be the most effective measure of response strength. To study operant conditioning, he invented the operant conditioning chamber (aka the Skinner box),[7] and to measure rate he invented the cumulative recorder. Using these tools, he and Charles Ferster produced Skinner's most influential experimental work, outlined in their 1957 book Schedules of Reinforcement.

Albert Bandura (December 4, 1925 - July 26, 2021)

Albert Bandura was a Canadian-American psychologist and professor of social science in psychology at Stanford University. He played a pivotal role in bridging behaviorism and cognitive psychology, pioneering social learning theory, social cognitive theory, and the concept of self-efficacy. Bandura is renowned for the influential 1961 Bobo doll experiment, demonstrating the impact of social modeling on behavior.
Bandura was initially influenced by Robert Sears' work on familial antecedents of social behavior and identificatory learning and gave up his research of the psychoanalytic theory. He directed his initial research to the role of social modeling in human motivation, thought, and action. In collaboration with Richard Walters, his first doctoral student, he engaged in studies of social learning and aggression. Their joint efforts illustrated the critical role of modeling in human behavior and led to a program of research into the determinants and mechanisms of observational learning.
Major books

Dermot Barnes-Holmes,Vladimir Bekhterev,Sidney W. Bijou,Hans Eysenck,Charles Ferster,Jacque Fresco,Edwin Ray Guthrie,Betty Hart,Steven C. Hayes

6 Behavior therapy

Behavior therapy is a term referring to different types of therapies that treat mental health disorders. It identifies and helps change people's unhealthy behaviors or destructive behaviors through learning theory and conditioning. Ivan Pavlov's classical conditioning, as well as counterconditioning are the basis for much of clinical behavior therapy, but also includes other techniques, including operant conditioning—or contingency management, and modeling (sometimes called observational learning). A frequently noted behavior therapy is systematic desensitization (graduated exposure therapy), which was first demonstrated by Joseph Wolpe and Arnold Lazarus

Cognitive-behavior therapy

Most research on exposure therapies (also called desensitization)—ranging from eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy to exposure and response prevention—are conducted through a CBT framework in non-behavior analytic journals, and these enhanced exposure therapies are well-established in the research literature for treating phobic, post-traumatic stress, and other anxiety disorders (such as obsessive-compulsive disorder, or OCD).

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