...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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...1 Behaviorism and Learning 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...
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...Behaviorism as a Theory of Personality: A Critical Look Payal Naik Northwestern University This paper explores the theory of behaviorism and evaluates its effectiveness as a theory of personality. It takes into consideration all aspects of the behaviorism theory, including Pavlov's classical conditioning and Skinner's operant conditioning. Additional research in this field by scientists such as Thorndike is also included. As a result of this critical look at behaviorism, its weaknesses as a comprehensive personality theory are revealed. At the same time, its merits when restricted to certain areas of psychology and treatment of disorders are discussed. For as long as human beings can remember, they have always been interested in what makes them who they are and what aspects of their being set each of them apart from others of their species. The answer according to behaviorists is nothing more than the world in which they grew up. Behaviorism is the theory that human nature can be fully understood by the laws inherent in the natural environment. As one of the oldest theories of personality, behaviorism dates back to Descartes, who introduced the idea of a stimulus and called the person a machine dependent on external events whose soul was the ghost in the machine. Behaviorism takes this idea to another level. Although most theories operate to some degree on the assumption that humans have some sort of free will and are moral thinking entities, behaviorism refuses to acknowledge...
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...In other words, they are interested in the variables that mediate between stimulus/input and response/output. The main areas of study in cognitive psychology are: perception, attention, memory and language. The essence of the behavioral approach is the statement that all behavior is learned and that when we are born we are like a blank slate. Experience and interactions with the environment make us what we are. We become what we become as a result of forming stimulus-response units of behavior in reaction to the environment. This perspective has been called environmental determinism because it suggests that the environments in which we exist determine us. The second statement is that all behavior can be explained in terms of conditioning theory: stimulus and response (S-R) links that build up to produce more complex behaviors. In essence, conditioning refers to changing behavior in the absence of conscious thought, as in saying “I am conditioned to behave in that way”. The third main statement is that we need look no further than the behaviors we can observe in order to understand and explain how...
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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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...and our entire family should have gotten counseling. It was not until after my mother passed that my uncle shared with me the pain and agony that she had suffered but his emotional pain as well. Your view of helping As an adult I see the damage that family secrets and not having the capability to openly discuss problems, or seek professional help when needed can cause. I believe that helping people to identify and resolve their problems is a profession that requires hard work, responsibility, honesty, ethics, and skills. Counseling is the opportunity for a person to make a positive difference in the lives the clients being served. Through research, use, and experiments counselors have a variety of models and theories that can be used. Having the variety of theories and models provide...
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...Understanding Learning Through Behaviorism History Behaviorism started earlier works with a Russian physiologist named Ivan Pavlov. J.B Watson was one of the theories credited for his founding of the behavioral movement. B.F. Skinner played a major rule in the behavioral movement and is known for his research on operant conditioning and negative reinforcement. He developed a device called the "cumulative recorder," it showed rates of responding using a line, this device, he establish that behavior did not depend on the previous stimulus as Watson and Pavlov believed. Instead, Skinner found that the behaviors were dependent upon what happens following the response.(Waston, J. B. 1913) The behaviorism movement believes that behavior can be, measured also it can be trained; Watson set the stage for behaviorism, which soon become to lead psychology. While behaviorism did lose the hold it had on the other theories after 1950, however many of the main concepts are widely used today. The main components of the theory There are two concepts of behavioral theory that are very important one is classical and the other is operant conditioning, each involve the process of learning, however the processes are each different. Classical conditioning involves making an association between an involuntary response and a stimulus, while operant conditioning is about making an association between a voluntary behavior and a consequence. Classical conditioning can be used...
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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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...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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...neuroscience, philosophy and linguistics. Cognitive psychology began to emerge during the 1950s, partly as a response to behaviorism (Mcleod, 2011). Critics of behaviorism noted that it failed to account for how internal processes impacted behavior. This period of time is sometimes referred to as the "cognitive revolution" as a wealth of research on topics such as information processing, language, memory and perception began to emerge. The core focus of cognitive psychology is on how people acquire, process and store information. There are numerous practical applications for cognitive research, such as improving memory, increasing decision-making accuracy and structuring educational curricula to enhance learning. Until the 1950s, behaviorism was the dominant school of thought in psychology. Between 1950 and 1970, the tide began to shift against behavioral psychology to focus on topics such as attention, memory and problem-solving. Cognitive psychology is different than behaviorism. Unlike behaviorism, which focuses only on observable behaviors, cognitive psychology is concerned with internal mental states. Because cognitive psychology touches on many other disciplines, this branch of psychology is frequently studied by people in a number of different fields. One of the most influential theories from this school of thought was the stages of cognitive development theory proposed by Jean Piaget. The arrival of the computer gave cognitive psychology a metaphor and terminology to...
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...Behaviorism: How We Learn by Doing and The Effects it Has On Teaching New Behaviors Tina Marie Saunders American Intercontinental University February 1, 2015 Abstract In this paper, I will show how behaviorist theories have shaped and molded new behaviors. I will talk about the origins and a central component of each action theory, including Classical Conditioning, Law of Effect, and Operant Conditioning. Both Classical condition and operant conditioning are the central focal point in my paper. I will present a brief assessment of Classical Conditioning, Law of Effect, and Operant Conditioning experiments and how they directly link to learning new behaviors. I argue there is a direct relationship to how we learned behavior, is the foundation for building a new practice by performing a task repeatedly. Keywords: Behavior, conditioning, stimulus, shaping, prompting, fading How we learn From Doing has been the Foundation for Behaviorism and its Effect it has thrown on New Learning Explanations Behaviorism was a virtuoso among the most, sketchy, and most tried speculation in the field of psychology in the twentieth Century. Man has dependably been attractive with this "tell me, and I disregard" learning. The idea individuals can change conduct or adjusted, or spread out or diminished is the heart of behavior hypothesis. I will demonstrate how we learn from doing has been the foundation for behaviorism and its effect it has thrown on new learning explanations (of why...
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...Theories of Psychology AIU Theories of Psychology Cognitive Theory A learning theory in psychology is called Cognitive theory. Cognitive theory helps to explain the human behavior, and focuses on the thought process. The presumption is people make logical choices that are justifiable to them. Psychologist uses information processing to understand the mental process of a human mind, thus looking at similarities between a computer and human mind. Cognitive theory greatly discards behaviorism on the foundation that it lowers the complexity of human behavior, and refers to it as cause and effect. In the past there was a tendency to combine cognitive and behaviorism into one theory, the cognitive behavior theory. Thus, allowing therapist to combine the techniques and assist people in achieving their goals. A subset of cognitive theory is the social cognitive theory. Its main focus is how we learn to imitate the behavior of others. Psychologist uses social cognitive theory to treat certain psychological disorders like phobias (Fritscher, 2011). An example of cognitive behavior is someone is running late for an appointment. They know speeding is wrong, but they justify it with there is no police around, I need to get there on time. Again it’s the way the human mind works and the thought process in justifying why we do certain things, or why it’s okay to do certain things. Behaviorism Behaviorism is a theory that believes behaviors are trainable, changeable, and...
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...In the early twentieth century a new movement in the field of Psychology was being felt in educational research — behaviorism. This is a theory proposed by J. B. Watson and based on the works of Pavlov and Bekhterev, two Russian psychologists who developed an animal training model known as stimulus-response (Classical Conditioning). In the early twentieth century a new movement in the field of Psychology was being felt in educational research — behaviorism. This is a theory proposed by J. B. Watson and based on the works of Pavlov and Bekhterev, two Russian psychologists who developed an animal training model known as stimulus-response (Classical Conditioning). Watson set the stage for behaviorism, which soon rose to dominate psychology. While behaviorism began to lose its hold after 1950, many of the concepts and principles are still widely used today. Conditioning and behavior modification are still widely used in therapy and behavioral training to help clients change problematic behaviors and develop new skills. Watson set the stage for behaviorism, which soon rose to dominate psychology. While behaviorism began to lose its hold after 1950, many of the concepts and principles are still widely used today. Conditioning and behavior modification are still widely used in therapy and behavioral training to help clients change problematic behaviors and develop new skills. In his most famous and controversial experiment, known today as the "Little Albert" experiment, John Watson...
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...Outline of Portfolio Josephine Yadao Capstone Course in Psychology PSY/490 Mr. Darriel Mc Whorter December 18, 2014 Psychological theories are the foundation of psychology they give us an understanding of the many aspects within this science. Theories help to explain the connection between the mind and body. Theories teach psychologists and therapists how to help others with mental illnesses. Behaviorism Behaviorism is mental activities, such as emotions that may motivate an individual to act in a certain way. An example, such as when an individual is in pain, it is likely that he or she you will scream, cry, or yell in pain. Behaviorism became very popular and is just one of the many schools of thought within psychology developed to explore and explain observable behavior. Behaviorism as described by its founders is the subject matter of human psychology and the behavior of animals and humans. Behaviorism argued that consciousness is neither definite nor a useable concept and that only the observable behavior of the animal or human being studied was the basis of psychology. The most influential people in behaviorism are considered to be: Watson, Skinner, and Pavlov. These scientists pioneered the study of behavior with experiments, and expanded upon the knowledge already existing from previous notable scientists. However, the problem with this school of thought is that it suggests that only observable behaviors should be studied, since internal states such as cognitions...
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...and learn. As part of the larger field of cognitive science, this branch of psychology is related to other disciplines including neuroscience, philosophy and linguistics. Whereas Behaviorism suggests that all behavior can be explained by environmental causes rather than by internal forces. Behaviorism is focused on observable behavior. Theories of learning including classical conditioning and operant conditioning were the focus of a great deal of research. Cognitive psychology began to emerge during the 1950s, partly as a response to behaviorism. According to Anderson (1996), cognitive psychology first emerged in the two decades between 1950 and 1970. The modern development of cognitive psychology was due to the WWII focus on research on human performance and attention, developments in computer science, especially those in artificial intelligence, and the renewal of interest in the field of linguistics. Critics of behaviorism noted that it failed to account for how internal processes impacted behavior. This period of time is sometimes referred to as the "cognitive revolution" as a wealth of research on topics such as information processing, language, memory and perception began to emerge. One of the most influential theories from this school of thought was the stages of cognitive development theory proposed by Jean Piaget. Very much like physics, experiments and simulations/modelling are the major research tools in cognitive psychology. Often, the predictions of the models...
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