...Learning Journal on Behaviorism According to B.F. Skinner that an understanding of personality will develop from a consideration of the behavioral development of the human organism in continuing interaction with the environment. The organism is in the process of operating on the environment which in ordinary terms means it is a special kind of stimulus called reinforcing stimulus or reinforcement. This stimulus has the effect of increasing the behavior occurring. In operant conditioning the behavior is followed by a consequences and the nature of consequences modifies the organism’s tendency to repeat the behavior in the future. Responses to stimuli can be reinforced with positive or negative feedback to condition desired behaviors. Punishment is sometimes used in eliminating or reducing incorrect actions but Skinner believed that reinforcement is more effective than punishment as a strategy to reduce undesirable behavior. Punishment may be effective in the short-term and severe forms of punishment may lead to negative and destructive consequences which include aggression, escape or avoidance. However, some circumstances warrant punishment, if it is more preferable when reinforcement has not been found to work or when the behavior is more destructive than the punishment itself, then punishment might be justified. Reinforcement is very important in scaffolding our learners. Being a teacher we must know when and how to give reinforcement. Praising, motivating, giving rewards...
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...Behaviorism and Its Effect on the Understanding of Learning AIU Online Abstract This paper focuses on a brief summary on the history of behaviorism, starting with experiments conducted by Franklin Henry Giddings and Ivan Pavlov, a sociologist and a physiologist whom established the groundwork for behaviorism, particularly in America. In addition, this paper also explains the main components of behaviorism, which are classical conditioning and operant conditioning, connectionism, and the contiguity theory. It moves forward to explain four experiments that are popular through the study of behaviorism: the reason behind conditioned salivation in Ivan Pavlov’s dogs, conditioned responses in humans through Watson’s little Albert experiment, Thorndike’s research with cats and a puzzle box to demonstrate the law of effect through the use of reinforcements, and B.F. Skinner’s experiment with rats to prove how an organism learns through operant conditioning. Finally, this paper examines how, according to behaviorists, there are three principles of learning new and intricate behaviors, known as shaping, chaining, and fading. Behaviorism and Its Effect on the Understanding of Learning Behaviorism suggests that an organism learns from its environment. It is the result of the association between a stimulus and a response. An organism learns new behavior through classical or operant conditioning. It is a theory that does not base its ideals on emotions or prior knowledge. Some say behaviorism...
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...February 1, 2015 Abstract The theory of behaviorism is that human and animal behavior can be explained in terms of conditioning without any preconceived thought, but it can be defined by observable behavior that is researched. Behaviorism projects that individuals are products of their experiences and have become who they are because of conditioning. John Watson, who is credited with Behaviorism, made the comment that he could take “twelve healthy infants and take any one of them and mold them into any given occupation regardless of genetics, race, talents and/or abilities.”(Jenson, 2014) Watson felt that conditioning was a crucial part of behaviorism, as it was an extension of Pavlov’s discovery and his studies of stimulus-response reflexive relationships. In this paper the founding of behaviorism, the main components of the behaviorism theory, a brief description of 3 behaviorist experiments, and how behaviorism develops new behaviors will be discussed. Behaviorism and its effect on the learning process The founder of behaviorism is credited to John B. Watson. According to Watson, behavior was a subject matter in its own right, to be studied by the observational methods common to all sciences. This field of study and learning was founded in 1912, and it was formed as a reaction to the current focus on psychology at the time. In order to form this theory, John Watson studied the research of Ivan Pavlov. Watson felt that “psychology must have an empirical, objective...
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...Behaviorism and Learning Name Course Instructor Date Introduction Behaviorists argue that human behavior is learned hence the probability that human behavior can be unlearned, and new behavior can be learned is real. Behaviorist came to be as a counter for mentalists who emphasized on experimenting and understanding the mind. Behaviorists argue that the mind cannot be entirely tested to provide the true picture of learning. Instead, actions and reactions that people exhibit can be essential learning points about behavior. Behaviorist argued that what occurs in mind is non-observable hence focus should be on what is observable. Such perception led to the rise of behaviorism. Body Behaviorism is a hypothesis of learning based on the belief that behavior is acquired through conditioning. The responses that people demonstrate towards a certain environment shape his behavior. Behaviorism arose in early 20th century as a rejection of the analysis of the conscious and the unconscious mind. Ivan Pavlov is the earliest psychologists associated with the theory of behaviorism. Ivan discovered that behaviors could be learned through conditions association. Ivan conducted an experiment involving the digestive system of dogs to prove his theory. However, it is American psychologist John Watson who is recognized as the advocate of behaviorism. Watson introduce the theory of behaviorism in 1913 in the publication “psychology as the behaviorist views it” who later went...
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...LEARNING THEORIES Learning is the “comparatively lasting transform in behavior” (Burns, R., 2002) and can approach in the form of observable actions and interior processes. Explanations of what happens when these actions take place are recognized as learning theories. These theories include behaviorism, cognitivism, humanist, social learning and constructivist. In this essay behaviorism and cognitivism will be described, compared and contrasted in order to justly comprehend their approaches. BEHAVIORISM ORIENTATION DESCRIBED The behaviorism methodology endeavors to study learning and conduct inside an experimental custom and was created by John B. Watson in the early twentieth century. Three suspicions set out its ideas. Grippin, P., and Peters, S., (1984) stated that the center of study is by and large noticeable conduct, the earth shapes conduct, and the standards of contiguity and support are key in clarifying the learning procedure Behaviorisms keep up the supposition that we see and experience the world precisely as it exhibits itself physically, for everybody. This consequently prompts the idea that everything capacities as indicated by characteristic laws, and any change happening is because of a circumstances and end results. Henceforth, this hypothesis concentrates on how ecological boosts inspire conduct and reactions. COGNITIVISM ORIENTATION DESCIRBED Gestalt's perspectives of Bode, Wertheimer, Kohler, Koffka and Lewin later reprimanded the behaviorism hypothesis...
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...Summarize Behaviorism and How It Has Affected The Understanding of Learning Cynthia Diane King American InterContinental University Online Abstract Many people would argue that learning cannot stand alone without theories. When broken down, theories are a set of standards that guides us to construct predictions. Ones way of thinking is constructed from birth to adulthood. Theories are not set in stone and do not guarantee results. However, theories do guide a great deal of how we live, teach, and understand the world. As a result, this summary will explore the learning theories which guide our instruction as teachers, students, and how it has affected the understanding of learning. After this summary one will understand what behavioral, cognitive, and constructivist learning theories look like and how the understanding of these theories are applied to learning. The summary of behaviorism and how it has affected the understanding of learning When one thinks of the word behaviorism the root word behavior presents itself. According to Webster (2010) behavior is the way a person carries, acts, or presents oneself. Add ism to the word and it becomes a doctrine and/or theory. As a result, behaviorism is the theory that the way one presents oneself can be changed. Teachers may identify with the word behaviorism as the word behavior management. This an issue that one has found to be the most probing question of teachers…what type of behavior management...
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...Brief History of Behaviorism Behaviorism and education examines the behavior of a student rather than the mind of a student. The base of behaviorism lies in the understanding of how students verbally or emotionally react to influences or stimuli of external forces (their environment). Behaviorists believe that learning takes place because of a response that follows on a specific stimulus. By repeating the stimuli-response (S-R) cycle, the subject, whether it is animal or human, is conditioned into repeating a response whenever the stimulus is present. Simply put, the sources of a behavior and learning are external (environmental), not internal (scientific psychological processes). Modern Behaviorist take into account that people are not born as blank slates, what they become, how they learn, and what they learn is based on environmental conditioning of outside forces, i.e. parents, teachers, culture, as well as genetic makeup. However, the result of a direct stimuli response does create a chemical response in our brains, which can change our behavior, intelligence, etc. Therefore, learning and behavior are unquestionably affected by positive and stimulating environments, but does not exclusively rely on this. Behaviors and learning are also programmed by events in our past, ideas adopted from other people in our environment, and how our chemical biology responds to this stimulus. When parents, teachers, doctors, and psychologists first began to study children and...
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...Behaviorism is associated with many scientists in the past and our current society today. Behaviorism is a learning theory based on the thought that all behavior attain when conditioned is considered behaviorism. Also, behaviorism is the scientific study of observable behavior. Behaviorism is more interested with behavior than with feeling or knowing. The main focus is the objective and observable components of behavior. The behaviorist theories all share some version of stimulus-response mechanisms for learning. Behaviorism originated with the work of John B. Watson, an American psychologist. Watson held the view that psychology should only concern itself with the study of behavior, and he was not concerned with the mind or with human consciousness. This paper will discuss the history behind behaviorism, the components of the theory, and how behaviorism develops new behavior. Behaviorism is conducted by stimuli and it decides to select one response instead of another due to the conditioning. It assume that the learner is passive and starts off with a clean slate. The behavior then goes threw and positive and negative reinforcement. Behaviorists study stimulus events that cause behavior to occur, stop occurring, or change in some way as a function of antecedents or consequences to behavior. Behavioral scientists recognize, however, that environmental events that affect behavior as antecedents or consequences often vary from person to person....
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...even today. Behaviorism is, simply speaking, the analysis of a person’s response to his environment. John B. Watson, B. F. Skinner, and Edward C. Tolman would include their own varying details to accompany that definition. Most researchers in behaviorism concur that psychology should be considered as the study of behavior, not the study of the mental processes, and that behavior is caused by stimuli that abide in the external environment, not from the internal mind (Goodwin, 2008). From Watson’s first findings, which pushed behaviorism forward, Skinner proposed his own theory of behaviorism called radical behaviorism. Tolman believed that the important concepts of psychology could be deduced from the behavior displayed by rats traveling through mazes that he created (Goodwin, 2008). Even though they were thought of as behaviorists, their concepts and theories contrasted on a wide scale that went from Pavlov’s conditioning one end to the start of cognitive theory on the other end (Goodwin, 2008). Fundamental Perspective of John B. Watson John Watson (1878-1958) attended the University of Chicago where he studied under John Dewey. Dewey’s teachings did not satisfy him, and he soon decided to study under a functionalist psychologist named James Rowland Angell and Henry Donaldson, a physiologist. From their teachings, Watson began formulating his own beliefs, which would lead eventually to the establishment of what is called the psychological school of behaviorism. Watson’s...
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...Abstract Behavioral psychology also known as behaviorism in focusing on observable behaviors, which behaviorists uses key concepts of conditioning, punishment, and reinforcement. John B. Watson and B. F. Skinner’s approach on behaviorism exhibited behavioral psychology as the model of formal disciplinary. On the other hand, Edward C. Tolman’s approach on behavioral learning subsidized to behavioral psychology. Although Watson, Skinner, and Tolman’s approaches were different in describing and explaining their theoretical approach, Watson, Skinner, and Tolman contributed their own theories proven to impact a part of psychology in influencing the advancement of modern day psychology in understanding behavior and human learning. Perspectives John B. Watson (1878-1958) was born in a small city (Travelers Rest) in Greenville County of South Carolina to Emma Watson and Pickens Butler. Watson was an American psychologist who founded the psychological school of behaviorism and the first to advocate a behavioral approach. Watson believed that one could benefit a full understanding of behavior by learning and modifying the environment in which people function and control as well as he thought that it was feasible and probable to produce any desired type of behavior by controlling a person’s environment (Feldman, 2010). According to Watson, psychology should be the science of observable behavior in which he treated mental events outside the province of a scientific psychology. Watson’s...
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...promotion is a nursing theory designed to prevent illness and the maintain disease. Nursing Theory ”Health promotion emphasis on behavior in the direction of social and environmental Interventions” (WHO, 2015, P. 1). Health promotion makes families and communities aware of preventive methods of diseases. Health promotion emphases on maintaining a healthy lifestyle for families and communities. Health promotion also focuses on educational theories, behaviorism is one of three educational theories. Educational Theory Behaviorism holds an influential part in the study of psychology. In the 20th century behavior theorist thought learning was a noticeable change in behavior, which occurs when two events come together, a stimulus and a response (Aliakbari, Parvin, Heidari, & Haghani, 2015 para. 11). Early theorist thought learner who had behavioral reinforcement, with positive results would be conditional for good performance. Behaviorist persists on the significance of practice and repetition in learning. Positive or negative reinforcement could encourage...
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...Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, as they together were of the first to put forth an effort towards understanding, among many things, how people think and why. Roughly 2000 years later, there were a growing number of educated individuals beginning to take second look at everything we thought we knew about being human. Among these people, there was Ivan Pavlov, who began ringing a bell, and not only did Clarence get his wings, but what was learned through the well-known story of Pavlov and his dogs also served as the impetus for John Watson and B. F. Skinner and their ground-breaking notion of Behaviorism. Behaviorism, simplified, is the theory that a person is the product of their environment, and to change a person’s behavior, one needs to simply adjust their environment. More specifically, the term behaviorism was coined by John Watson which he defined as a “theoretical perspective in which learning and behavior are described and explained in terms of stimulus-response relationships” (Ormrod, 2010). Incidentally, this theory does not counter indicate the use of corporal punishment as a form of stimulus. The...
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...Learning Perspectives Lynnette Sharrer Grand Canyon University EDU 313 N June 3, 2012 Learning perspectives can be generalized into three groups; cognitive psychology, behaviorism, and social cognitive theory. The main focus of learning differs between the three perspectives, but they are similar in some ways and complement each other, which helps teachers build successful learning classrooms. According to Omrod (2011, pg. 356), “Diverse perspectives of learning often complement, rather than contradict, one another, and together, they give us a richer, more multifaceted picture of human learning than any single perspective can give us by itself.” All three perspectives can help teachers provide valuable lessons for student achievement and motivation to succeed. A brief description of the three learning perspectives and what a classroom with each perspective may look like, including lesson plans with the different perspectives is outlined in this essay. Cognitive psychology studies mental processes; how people think, perceive, learn, and remember. Cognitive psychology focuses on how people acquire, process, and store information. An internal mental phenomenon may or may not be reflected in behavior is how learning is defined, according to Omrod (2011). In cognitive psychology, new information and knowledge occurs from experiences. An important aspect of cognitive psychology is constructivism. Constructivism in theory is how learners construct knowledge from experiences...
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...Abstract Behaviorism is often referred to as behavioral psychology in which its’ theory of learning is focused on the notion that all behaviors are attained by way of conditioning, as conditioning takes place within the environment (DeGrandpre, 2000). Behaviorism focuses heavily on the utilization of conditioning as well as the study of observable behavior which can be scientifically and objectively measured. This paper will; (1) summarize the four conditioning theories of behaviorism, (2) analyze the strengths and weaknesses of behaviorism in general, (3) apply behaviorism to a practical situation in your specialization, describing the situation, how the theory can be applied, and what the expected outcomes would be, as well as (4) describe the relation of behaviorism to self-regulation. The four conditioning theories of behaviorism Connectionism- Thorndike’s connectionism theory explains that as an individual experiences life, the feelings that they develop during the experiences allows that individual to modify their behavior. According to Schunk (2012) the theory of connectionism was developed by Thorndike and is a theory that involves formation associations between responses and stimuli. Thorndike’s theory is composed of three primary laws; (1) the law of effect, (2) the law of readiness, and (3) the law of exercise, it is these three laws that connect the sensory experiences and neural impulses (Schunk, 2012). The law of effect indicates that...
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...eventually turn out to be a habit. A habit that will consume our senses until it will all become our Behavior. As to Psychologists, Behaviorism is more concerned with behavior than with thinking, feeling, or knowing. It focuses on the objective and observable components of behavior. Behaviorism focus on behaviors that can be observed only. Behaviorism deals with the consequences of behavior and those behaviors can be rewarded or punished. (Huitt, W., & Hummel, J. (2006). An overview of the behavioral perspective. Educational Psychology Interactive. Valdosta, GA: Valdosta State University. ) HISTORY Behaviourism is derived from the belief that free will is an illusion. According to a pure behaviourist, ( John B. Watson (1878-1958)) human beings are shaped entirely by their external environment. Alter a person's environment, and you will alter his or her thoughts, feelings, and behaviour. Provide positive reinforcement whenever someone perform a desired behaviour, and soon they will learn to perform the behaviour on their own. (Ivan Pavlov: 1891) The term behaviorism refers to the school of psychology founded by John B. Watson based on the belief that behaviors can be measured, trained, and changed. Behaviorism was established with the publication of Watson's classic paper "Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It" (1913). The origins of behaviorism grew out of the ideology of the American...
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