WEEK 4 BEHAVIOIRSM

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 (John Watson, Behaviorism, 1930).

Behavioral psychology, also known as behaviorism, is a theory of learning based upon the idea that all behaviors are acquired through conditioning

Advocated by famous psychologists such as John B. Watson and B.F. Skinner, behavioral theories dominated psychology during the early half of the twentieth century. Today, behavioral techniques are still widely used in therapeutic settings to help clients learn new skills and behaviors

 The school of behaviorism emerged in the 1910s, led by John B. Watson.

 Unlike psychodynamic theorists, behaviorists study only observable behavior. 

 Their explanations of personality focus on learning. f. Skinner, Bandura, and Walter Mischel all proposed important behaviourist theories. 

Classical Conditioning Behaviorists have described a number of different phenomena associated with classical conditioning. 

1. Acquisition;ıt is the initial stage of learning when a response is first established and gradually strengthened. 

2. Extinction; ıt is when the occurrences of a conditioned response decrease or disappear. 

3. Spontaneous Recovery : it is the reappearance of the conditioned response after a rest period or period of lessened response.

4. Stimulus Generalization:it is the tendency for the conditioned stimulus to evoke similar responses after the response has been conditioned. 

5. Discrimination:it is the ability to differentiate between a conditioned stimulus and other stimuli that have not been paired with an unconditioned stimulus.

Operant Conditioning Operant conditioning was coined by behaviourist B.F. Skinner. As a behaviorist, Skinner believed that internal thoughts and motivations could not be used to explain behavior. Instead, he suggested, we should look only at the external, observable causes of human behavior.

"The consequences of behavior determine the probability that the behavior will occur again" -B. F. Skinner

Operant Conditioning 

Skinner used the term operant to refer to any "active behavior that operates upon the environment to generate consequences.” 

Reinforcement is any event that strengthens or increases the behavior it follows. There are two kinds of reinforcers: 

a. Positive reinforcers; are favorable events or outcomes that are presented after the behavior. In situations that reflect positive reinforcement, a response or behavior is strengthened by the addition of something, such as praise or a direct reward.

 b. Negative reinforcers; involve the removal of an unfavorable events or outcomes after the display of a behavior. In these situations, a response is strengthened by the removal of something considered unpleasant.

1. Punishment, on the other hand, is the presentation of an adverse event or outcome that causes a decrease in the behavior it follows. There are two kinds of punishment: 

a. Positive punishment, sometimes referred to as punishment by application, involves the presentation of an unfavorable event or outcome in order to weaken the response it follows. 

b. Negative punishment; also known as punishment by removal, occurs when an favorable event or outcome is removed after a behavior occurs.

    

    Techniques in behaviorism 

          Some of the techniques used by behavior analysts include: 

1. Chaining: This behavior techniques involves breaking a task down into smaller components. The simplest or first task in the process is taught first. Once that task has been learned, the next task can be taught. This continues until the entire sequence is successfully chained together. 

2. Prompting: This approach involves using some type of prompt to trigger a desired response. This might involve issues a verbal cue, such as telling the person what to do, or a visual cue, such as displaying a picture designed to cue the response. 

3. Shaping: This strategy involves gradually altering a behavior, rewarding closer and closer approximations of the desired behavior.

Behaviorism is a one-dimensional approach to understanding human behavior and that behavioural theories do not account for free will and internal influences such as moods, thoughts and feelings. 

This does not account for other types of learning, especially learning that occurs without the use of reinforcement and punishment. 

 People and animals are able to adapt their behavior when new information is introduced, even if a previous behavior pattern has been established through reinforcement. 

 Behaviourist researchers often do animal studies of behavior and then generalize their results to human beings. Generalizing results in this way can be misleading, since humans have complex thought processes that affect behavior. 

Behaviourists often underestimate the importance of biological factors. 

By emphasizing the situational influences on personality, some social-cognitive theorists underestimate the importance of personality traits.  

I basically thought that we can never just deny the fact that some of our beliefs and approaches to life are rooted in this body of knowledge.No any single theory could ever explain fully how we behave and learn in the context of a changing environement.

Can we assume human as just automotons and/ or animals?

 And I also wonder what is your biggest criticism for Behaviorism?