Date: 25/11/2015
Course: Introduction to Basic Psychology I ( SOS 133 A ).
Name: Christelle Fernezelian.
ID: 12140445.
Topic: what is behaviorism? And in what aspect psychologist have similar concepts and theories and do they have some differences?
Behaviorism is a psychological study, John Watson was the one who introduced the behaviorism to the world. Behaviorism is a scientific study of the visible behavior which is anything related with the external body language and it does not include any internal study the study of the mind like thinking, ideas, thoughts and emotions, behaviorism is concerned in the stimulus and the response. To behaviorist the observable or the visible behavior can show what people think through their behavior.
The behaviorist school is a movement in psychology that has many remarkable behaviorist like Ivan Pavlov, John Watson, B.F. Skinner, Clark Hull and many others who has similar concepts but they also has some differences.
In psychology as we said earlier behaviorism was introduced by Watson who has an article 'Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It' Watson was interested in human behavior and he was with the idea that the conscious can't be seen or defined so for Watson anything that cannot be studied or defined can't be studied as a scientific study. The behaviorist Watson also study many points in the human behavior and showed that fear can be learned and unlearned through many conditions and experiences. Watson see as an infant is a tabula rasa where people's ideas and thought or even thinking are made through experiences. Watson made many experiences on children to prove his theories. For example, Watson did a study on 6 month old baby her name was Thorne, Watson bring many animals to see the reaction of the baby he showed her a bird, a rabbit and even a black cat. The reaction of the baby Throne was very normal she didn't show any reaction of fear. Then he decided to take the baby to a place full of animals and showed her to many types of animal like a zebra and a camel and then waited to see the reaction of the baby which again did not show fear however Thorne wanted to touch the animals and play with them. Watson conduct that babies don't born with fear of animal so he decided to make another experience on another baby a 11 months old baby which known as the famous little Albert and this time Watson wanted to create a situation of fear to see how the child will react or will response. Every time he sees the boy is happy or playing he shows the baby a white rat. The first time he shows the baby the rat, the baby did not show fear but after a minute in the back Watson make a loudly noise so the baby start to cry because he was afraid. On the second time while the little Albert was playing Watson put the rat beside the baby and when the baby wanted to touch the rat Watson banged the hammer so after repeating this thing many time the baby of the 11-month start to relate that seeing the rat will make him hear the loudly noise so every time the baby sees the rat he start immediately crying because babies are afraid from loudly noises. The behaviorist Watson than conduct that fear can be learned through negative experiences and from the environment and it's not born with a specific fear it's not innate and he made other experiences to see if fear can be also unlearned and he founded that fear can be eliminated or can be deleted by conditioning. For example let's take the example of the little Albert, when the baby showed a fear of rat to make the baby overcome his fear his parents can show him the rat an a very peaceful ways for example while his playing they can show him from a far distance the rat and then slowly bringing the rat near to the baby there are many ways they can make a baby overcome his fear. This condition of fear is not just for baby and kids it's also for adults. Watson also studied the variation of organisms to their environments, to be more specifically the stimulus and the organism's response so is the study of the relationships between the condition or the stimulus and the responses which is the behavior of the organism and also what are the consequences like reward, punishment and it can be without any effects or consequences. Watson see that the study of people and animal actions and the ability to control those actions it is also a study of psychology. Watson's view of psychology and his theory of behaviorism was based on the work of the physiologist Pavlov on his dogs.
Ivan Pavlov is one famous psychologist and known in the school of behaviorism who made many psychological experimental and he was known from the experiments of animals especially on his dogs. Pavlov is the one who introduce the classical conditioning to psychology which is also known as Pavlovian conditioning and is the theory of learning the new behavior through two simple words: the stimulus and the response in a person or animal. Pavlov was interested in the behavior of dogs which is led Pavlov to win a Noble Prize for his research on animals. In his experiments Pavlov noticed the salivation of his dogs every time he enter the room to feed them then he notice that every time he enter the room the dogs star to salivate even if he don't have food, then Pavlov entered a new stimuli which is the bell, every time the bells rings and he bring food to feed his dogs, so the dogs related the sound of the bell with food. When dogs start to hear the bell rings they immediately start to salivate. Pavlov repeated this experience many time and he was wondering how the dogs associate this two stimulus together so he conclude that the dogs see the sound of the bell as the stimulus and their responses or behavior for the stimulus is the salivation. Pavlov also noticed that if the time between the stimulus and the response is short the response which was made by a condition will be made faster. Because when he rang the bell immediately before giving food to his dogs the response of his dogs was faster than when he rang the bell before a period of time of feeding them. Pavlov called this a classical conditioning and the behaviorist Watson believed that people learn through stimulus. Pavlov call all the learning processes a classical conditioning but later there was many psychologist and specially behaviorist who introduce many other ways of learning.
Following the similar concepts and steps of John Watson and Ivan Pavlov, B.F.Skinner was a great behaviorist and an important and a famous person in the school of behaviorism. B.F.Skinner was interested in the operant conditioning which is different from the theory of Pavlov which is the classic conditioning. The operant conditioning is a way of learning through reinforcement, people's behavior can be influenced with the positive reinforcement, the negative reinforcement and the punishment. Skinner who added this new idea to the school of behaviorism think that psychologist should study only what we can see the observable behavior like all the behaviorists. As we said earlier there are 2 types of reinforcements the negative and the positive one and also the punishment so how this Skinner's theory of the operant conditioning does really influenced the behavior of child development? Skinner started his studies with animals for example when a dog owner play with his dog the play of chasing and picking the ball, every time the owner throw the ball and the dog run to chase and to pick the ball the dog receives a praise as a reward so the dog will relate his behavior of catching the ball and receiving a reward. Skinner made many research on the brain and how does the brain function. All action demand a reaction it can be positive or negative and it is shown through the kid's behavior. So that means that child's behavior can be affected and can be changed through reinforcement.
What happens to child behavior if he/she has a negative reinforcement? Skinner showed that negative reinforcement can affect a child behavior. As skinner showed us earlier that any person can learn and behave through reinforcement children are the same. For example if a student did not do or finish his/her homework, he/she will oblige to pay for his/her teacher money so instead of paying to his/her teacher he/she will do the homework even if he/she don't want to do it. Another example if a kid does not want or like to clean his room but he do it just to avoid his mother complying. So cleaning his room is the kid behavior and the complying mother is the negative stimulus to the kid that what Skinner called the negative reinforcement so which will make the behavior increase.
How a positive reinforcement does influenced a child behavior? Skinner found that a positive reinforcement work as a motivation and as a good stimulus for a child. With a positive reinforcement we can find a positive behavior. For example, if a child was playing with his/her toys and when he/she get done with this toys he/she put it back to their places and his/her mother start to clap her hands and tell him/her good job, excellent and giving him/her candies all this thing is a positive reinforcement and the child will see it as a positive stimulus and will know that that thing is right to do. In the end the child will like to repeat this thing to have every time a reward. Another example if a child do his homework his mother will buy him an ice-cream, doing his homework is the behavior and the ice-cream is the positive stimulus to the child. Skinner said the positive reinforcement can make the behavior be repeated many times in the future.
How does the punishment affect a child behavior? The behaviorist Skinner explained that the punishment is different than the negative reinforcement. Punishment is an immediately response for a behavior which is the consequences to a particular behavior. In skinner's research he found that punishment can be positive and can be negative. For example if a kid break his toys and his parents punish him for breaking the toys and decided to don't buy him for a certain time toys , so the kid will learn that this is bad and next time he will protected his toys. This punishment is a positive one because the child will not do the bad habit again. The negative punishment can cause fear or aggressive behavior and can show stress for example if a child like a certain sport like football and for example his on the team of football of the school during the match the kid misbehave and the coach take him out the game that what called the negative punishment. Through research skinner found that negative reinforcement increase behavior and punishment decrease the behavior in the future. Skinner who founded the operant conditioning found that all organism which means all human being and all animals learn behave through reinforcement.
As we mentioned earlier there are many notable behaviorist one of them is Clark Hull. Clark Hull have similar concepts as Watson, Pavlov and Skinner. Hull develop many of the objective methods for psychological studies this studies help to understand the principles of behavior. Hull made may experiments and research and he believed that the organism behavior is a result between two things: the organism and its environment, when the environment gives the stimulus and the organism make the response and because Hull was a behaviorist so he was interested in the observable behavior. Hull said that any response of an organism is a psychological need. Hull was also interested in the change or adaptation, how the organism can change or can adapt to the environment which is surround him to survive. Hull was into biology so he explains that the organism behavior result from biological conditions that can make an organism to survive. Hull's learning theories was also related to the habit of an organism and he said that the result of a behavior is related to the habit, and Hull said that every habit always started with the stimulus. For example if a person is hungry he should eat the stimulus is hungry the behavior is eating, if this person likes to eat while his studying and repeats this procedure many times it will start to be his habit and as hull said all habit start with a stimulus. Hull studied all organism behavior and all his theories are made as a mathematic system or functions. Hull was also into mathematics so he also presented his learning theories in an equation for example stimulus is written as S and response as R so when we have a stimulus and a response as a behaviorist he look also for the consequences for the organism response so hull explain this theory through a function S + R = Q. As we said earlier all behaviorist has similar theories but they difference in some concepts.
In life every idea, study or a theory some people will accept it, some people may refuse it and others may criticize it same thing for behaviorism some people accept it, some people study it and follow the behaviorism and other criticize it. Behaviorism was criticized for many reasons. Behaviorist was interested in one part of an organism, how they behave? They studied only the observable behavior. They studied how punishment, negative and positive reinforcement affected and influence a child, an adult an old person and even animals. Behaviorism studied the relation between the stimulus and the response and when an organism make an action what are the consequences, they studied the habit, all this experiments and researches was made by many psychologist through the observable behavior. Behaviorism wasn't interested in the mind of an organism, they didn't study how the brain works or functions. There are some areas Behaviorism was not able to explain like emotion, mental, desire, language, idea of an organism for this reasons behaviorism was criticized.
All human being wondered and they were interested to know what makes them the way they are and why there is some people different than other and in what aspect human being can differ from other species. Behaviorism can answer on some questions only in the way of the external events which is the environment, the experiences through behavior but behaviorism couldn't answer any question that is related in the internal events, emotion, and idea. In behaviorism there was many experiences and evidence about the classical conditioning or Pavlovian conditioning and the operant conditioning but most of this experiences was made on animals and was based on animal's behavior which is different than a human behavior because it's more complex so it must have done many experiences on human to conclude if this theories are totally right. Watson theory was behaviorism and all his study was the external observation which also he faced many critics about his theories because Watson said there is no internal or mental existence and anything that cannot been seen is not right. Watson also think that languages is way of habit and when a human being talk or change his voice he make a change in the shape of his tongue and of his lips, Watson gave an example that when a baby start to learn how to talk he imitate his parents for example when his father start to tell him say dada or any other word the baby will try to do like his father moves of his tongue and form of his lips and in this way the baby will learn to talk by observing the behavior of his parents. This theory was criticize because learning how to talk it includes thinking and also mental activity and for Watson theory of language does not include any internal or mental events and without giving any importance to the memory. Watson has a theory of emotions like love and like other theories Watson said that everything comes from a stimulus. Watson has also a theory of fear that fear can be learned and unlearned and all his experiments was only observing the behavior of an organism and he conduct that there are two simple term stimulus and the response and he said that the response of fear can be known through many the reaction made by any organism for example: start to breath faster, crying, screaming, closing their eyes, or running like trying to escape from something. Watson theories was criticized because he refused to say that they have to study the mind, thoughts and emotions for Watson like other behaviorist they study only the behavior what they can see. Clark Hull is a behaviorist and also his work was criticized because Hull conduct that his theory of behavior, which were made through many experiments especially experiments on rats, would be the same for all human being behavior. This is why Hull's theory was not considered as a way to understand the learning process because any process of learning should been study through the mind and the internal events. Another behaviorist like Ivan Pavlov and the one who introduce the classical conditioning to the school of behaviorism, Ivan Pavlov was criticize for his theory. The classical conditioning as we said earlier the study of the reflex of an organism. Ivan Pavlov was interested on his dogs which the first criticize about his theory of reflex that all his experiments was done on animals and human behavior differ from animal's behavior so this theory cannot be totally true. The second criticize is about the process of learning Pavlov didn't mentioned any relation of thinking and learning he mentioned on his experiments about the stimulus and the response. Ivan Pavlov theory of the classical conditioning or the Pavlovian conditioning was criticize because it is limited and also it ignores all mental aspects of learning. After Pavlov's death they continued to criticize his theory and the theory of the reflex because the reflex of an animal is different than the reflex of a human being, and studying only the reflex of animals does not explain what make an organism behave in a particular way. After the classical conditioning which was introduce by Pavlov and after its been criticize Skinner who is also a psychologist and famous in the school of behaviorism Skinner introduce the operant conditioning which is learning through reinforcement and as we explained earlier that there was many reinforcement positive, negative and the punishment. Skinner was interested in the behavior as the rest of the behaviorist. Skinner theory was accepted to a specific time until it was also criticize. Skinner theory of the operant conditioning was experiment on animals like rats and as we said earlier that animal's reaction or behavior is totally different than the reaction or behavior of a human being. The operant conditioning was also criticize because it fails to explain the reasons an organism can have depressions to have a complex problem. There was another reason why the operant conditioning was criticize because in this theory they don't study the internal events, thought or the genetics and if an organism behavior is related to genetic material. The last thing why Skinner theory of the operant conditioning was criticize because Skinner assumes that learning occurs only through reinforcement and that is not true because the human being have a brain and he think. There was many psychologist who criticized behaviorism but the one who criticize behaviorism the most is the famous psychologist Sigmund Freud. Sigmund Freud who was interested in the psychodynamic psychology which is the scientific study to explain the personality and he was interested in the conscious and unconscious. Freud criticize behaviorism because in behaviorism they delete anything that include the brain which means they remove anything that include thoughts, thinking, emotions and of course the genetic part. Freud theory was totally different because he was interested in the human mind he made many research through many year to explain the human mind. Freud explain that human being are not rational as the way they imagine and the free will is also a totally illusion. Freud explains that the mind consist of the conscious and the unconscious. Freud tried to explain all the human personality and behavior through the mind. Freud as he was interested in the human mind he said that the mind is separated into three sections. Section one is the 'conscious mind' which is the section where the human mind is aware, being in awake state, and is the section of the mind that the human use when he think. The second is the 'pre-conscious mind' or the 'sub-conscious' here the conscious is related to the unconscious with the sub-conscious and the last section is the 'unconscious mind' in this section the mind is unaware. Sigmund Freud explains that nothing can be forgotten instead the human conscious repress unwanted ideas, thoughts, emotions, desires and memories to the unconscious that why the human being behave in some particular way and that why we have the slip of the tongue, and dreams. Sigmund Freud also explain why we dream through the unconscious and couscous mind. Sigmund Freud was known in psychology and the one of the most who criticize behaviorism theories because they don't mention anything is related to the mental and the internal events in the human being.
In my opinion I agree with the behaviorism in some points like the theory of Watson that fear can be learned and unlearned, because fear cannot be innate or born with an organism instead fear is learned through bad experiences and through the environment. In this aspect I agree with the behaviorism because in my experience life I had a very bad experience with elevators. When I was a child I got stocked in the elevator many times so every time a see an elevator unconsciously I show a reaction of fear but through time I try to get over this fear. Before I don't even try to take the elevator I used to take the stairs but know I take the elevator but not alone with other people but through time I can get over this fear so fear can be learned and unlearned, fear is learned through the environment. I also agree behaviorism about the habit many people do something many time and in the end it start to be a normal thing that they do in their daily basis and start to be their habits, but in the other hand there are many another that I'm against behaviorism because we can't deny the internal and the mental events, we can't delete the process of thinking, learning In my own opinion I'm against Skinner theory that an organism learn through reinforcement because I think it's wrong. We can't also deny that human have feelings, thoughts, desires, motivations, emotions and it is not only the behavior is important in animal's live and the human life and most of all I disagree with behaviorism because behaviorism theories are based on the external observations, they study only what they can see and delete everything that are related to the internal events, we can't deny that genetics play an important role in our life. Our genetics tells who we are, what we look like, what we like, if we are intelligent or not, if we have disorders everything is written in our genes that we should not deny it and we study it and giving it a big part of our study.
References:
Understanding psychology book.
http://www.directessays.com/viewpaper/86740.html
http://www.personalityresearch.org/papers/naik.html
http://www.lifecircles-inc.com/Learningtheories/behaviorism/clarkhull.html
http://teorije-ucenja.zesoi.fer.hr/doku.php?id=learning_theories:operant_conditioning
http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/behaviorism.aspx
http://www.innovativelearning.com/teaching/behaviorism.html
http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/pavlov.htm
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_conditioning
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behaviorism
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