Behaviorism is a school of psychology that focuses on observable behaviors and reactions to stimuli rather than internal mental states. Some key contributors to behaviorism include Ivan Pavlov, who discovered classical conditioning through his experiments with dogs; John B. Watson, who established behaviorism as a scientific approach and conducted experiments on conditioning with infants; and Edward Thorndike, who formulated the law of effect and conducted puzzle box experiments on animal learning. Behaviorism became a dominant approach in psychology from the 1920s through the 1950s and focused on stimulus-response learning through conditioning.

1. BEHAVIORISM
Presenter: Maham
Noor

2. INTRODUCTION
Behavioral psychology which is also known as
behaviorism, deals with the concept of learning
which states that all behaviors are learned through
interaction and observation with surroundings with
a process called conditioning. Behavior is actually a
response to environmental stimulus.
Basically stimulus-response behaviors are the main
concern of behaviorism
Behavioral psychologist analyzes how organism
learn or modify their behavior as they respond to
environment.

3. RISE OF BEHAVIORISM
 Behaviorism is a dominant experimental psychology and
its effect can still be seen today. Behaviorism is
accountable for forming psychology as a scientific
discipline because of its experimentation and objective
approaches.
 Behaviorism was established in 1913 through John B.
Watson’s (considered as the ‘father’ of behaviorism)
publication of article “Psychology as the Behaviorist
Views It”
 Behaviorism became the dominant school of thought in
psychology from 1920 through the mid-1950s.

4. Basic Assumptions
 All behaviors
are learned
from the
environment.
 Behaviorism is
concerned with overt
behavior.
 There is little
difference
between the
learning that
takes place in
humans and
that in other
animals.
 Behavior is the result
of stimulus-response.

5. TYPES OF BEHAVIOR
METHODOLOGICAL BEHAVIOR
RADICAL BEHAVIOR

6.  METHODOLOGICAL BEHAVIOR
Methodological behaviorism accepts that overt behavior
should be the main topic of psychology, but it should also
consider internal causes of behavior including
physiological and mental states.

7. RADICAL BEHAVIOR
 Radical behaviorism believe when unobserved internal events
occur they should be ignored and behavior should not be
explained in terms of these events.
 Radical behaviorism accepts that all organism are born with
innate behaviors and identifies the role of genetic factor and
biological components in behavior

8. Contributors of BEHAVIORISM
IVAN PAVLOV
JB WATSON
EDWARD THORNDIKE
William Mc DOugall

9. IVANPAVLOV (1849–1936)
 One Brilliant Russian psychologist
 His studies of digestive system won him a Nobel
Prize in 1905.
 Famous for his experiments on dogs and
explaining the effect of conditioning
 Contribution to psychology:
 Concept of conditioned response
 Learning by association

10. CLASSICALCONDITIONING
Classical conditioning is a type of learning that
happens unconsciously through association between
environmental stimulus and a naturally occurring
stimulus
When you learn through classical conditioning, an
automatic conditioned response (CR) is paired with
a specific stimulus which creates a behavior.
 Ivan Pavlov In an experiment on dog’s digestion,
he found that over time dogs were salivating not
only when their food was presented to them, but
when the people who fed them arrived.

11. Pavlov’s Experiment on dog
• Ivan Pavlov was researching salivation in dogs in
response to being fed. He inserted a small test tube into
the cheek of each dog to measure saliva when the dogs
were presented food.
• Pavlov predicted the dogs would salivate in response to
the food placed in front of them, but he noticed that his
dogs would begin to salivate whenever they heard the
footsteps of his assistant who was bringing them the
food.
• In behaviorist terms, food is an unconditioned stimulus
and salivation is an unconditioned response. (i.e., a
stimulus-response connection that required no learning).
Unconditioned Stimulus (Food) > Unconditioned Response (Salivate)

12. Continued…
 In his experiment, Pavlov used a bell as his neutral stimulus. By itself the
bell did not elicit a response from the dogs.
Neutral Stimulus (bell) > No Conditioned Response
 Next, Pavlov began the conditioning procedure, whereby the bell ring
was introduced just before he gave food to his dogs. After a number of
trials of this procedure he presented the bell on its own. As you might
expect, the sound of the bell on its own now caused an increase in
salivation.
Conditioned Stimulus (bell) > Conditioned Response (Salivate)
 So the dog had learned an association between the bell and the food and
a new behavior had been learned. Because this response was learned (or
conditioned), it is called a conditioned response (and also known as a
Pavlovian response). The neutral stimulus has become a conditioned
stimulus.

14. Principles of Classical Conditioning
 Acquisition: Initially learning stage of classical conditioning, NS become CS and
create CR
 Extinction: Process of behavior response being unlearned by breaking the association
between CS and UCS
 Generalization: Stimulus generalization is the tendency for the conditioned stimulus to
evoke similar responses after the response has been conditioned.
 Discrimination: Discrimination is the ability to differentiate between a conditioned
stimulus and other stimuli that have not been paired with an unconditioned stimulus.
 Spontaneous recovery: Spontaneous recovery is the reappearance of the conditioned
response after a rest period.

15. JB WATSON (1878-1958)
 Father of behaviorism
 American psychologist
 Claimed external forces not internal forces shape
peoples behavior and preferences
 Though regardless of who we think we are, we can
be molded or conditioned by external stimuli belief
in individual choice as an illusion
 He believed that the principles of behaviorism
could be used to shape babies into anything an
experimenter, parent, or another person might
want. He famously said:

17. JB WATSON (1878-1958)
 John B. Watson created the school of behaviorist methodology within
psychology and he published the article, entitled "Psychology as the
Behaviorist Views It," and it is commonly considered a manifesto on
behaviorism.
 The article outlined behaviorism as an objective branch of science that
would base its theories and findings on experimental research using purely
observable data. One goal of behaviorism was to understand how certain
behaviors develop as a consequence of conditioning to external stimuli.
 Watson was not particularly concerned with internal consciousness. He
thought it was foolish to interpret the inner workings of the mind and
believed psychologists should concern themselves with only what they
could see.

18. Watson And Little Albert
 In 1920, John Watson and his assistant Rosalie Rayner published one of the most famous
research studies of the past century.
 In attempted to condition a severe emotional response in a nine month old baby, Little Albert.
 He determined that white, furry objects like a rabbit or a rat would not bother the baby. But
when he paired the neutral stimulus with an unconditional stimulus A LOUND BANG , it
created fear in the baby.
 Watson created a new stimulus-response. When Albert saw the white, furry objects, he would
get scared because he associated them with a negative effect.
 In another study, Watson also found that such fears could be unlearned through exposure to
the feared object and learning new associations between stimuli.

20. WILLIAMMC DOUGALL (1871-1938)
 Studied Eugenics and heredity.
 Defined psychology as study of behavior.
 Behavior is goal-directed and stimulated by
instinctual motive.
 Individuals are motivated by inherited instincts
that push them towards goals which may be
unknown to them or they do not understand.
 Social Behavior is innate and stems from
instincts.

21. INSTINCT THEOREY OF MOTIVATION
 Instincts are goal-directed and innate patterns of behavior.
 Every organism is born with different biological traits and tendencies
in order to help them survive.
 These aren’t learned or experienced behaviors, rather patterns of
behavior that occur naturally and are goal-directed.
 He outlined different instincts:
maternal instinct, including hunger, rejection of particular substances,
curiosity, escape, maternal /paternal instinct, self-assertion, construction,
crying out or appeal, laughter, comfort, rest or sleep, and migration.

22. The Power of Instinctive Behaviors
 In animals, instincts are inherent tendencies to engage
spontaneously in a particular pattern of behavior. Examples of this
include a dog shaking after it gets wet, or a bird migrating before
the winter season.
 In humans, many reflexes are examples of instinctive behaviors as
is the suckling reflex (a reflex in which babies begin sucking
when a finger or nipple places of their mouth,)

23. EDWARD THRONDIKE (1874-1949)
 Father of modern educational psychology
 Interested in studying animal intelligence
 He found out that animal intelligence is based on
forming connections
 His famous studies on animals led to the
understanding of how humans learn.
 His theory of learned behavior is basically formed
on operant conditioning and classical conditioning.

24. PRINCIPLES OF LEARNING
 Thorndike specified three conditions that maximizes learning
 LAW OF EFFECT
IT states that the likely recurrence of a response in generally governed by its consequence
or effect generally in the form of reward or punishment.
 LAW OF RECENCY
It states that the most recent response is likely to govern the recurrence.
 LAW OF EXCERCISE
It states that the stimulus response association are strengthened through repetition.

25. THORNDIKE EXPERIMENT ON CAT
 Thorndike studied learning in animals (usually cats). He devised a classic
experiment in which he used a puzzle box to empirically test the laws of learning.
 He placed a cat in the puzzle box, which was encourage to escape to reach a scrap
of fish placed outside. Thorndike would put a cat into the box and time how long it
took to escape. The cats experimented with different ways to escape the puzzle box
and reach the fish.
 Eventually they would stumble upon the lever which opened the cage. When it had
escaped it was put in again, and once more the time it took to escape was noted. In
successive trials the cats would learn that pressing the lever would have favorable
consequences and they would adopt this behavior, becoming increasingly quick at
pressing the lever.
 Edward Thorndike put forward a “Law of effect” which stated that any behavior
that is followed by pleasant consequences is likely to be repeated, and any behavior
followed by unpleasant consequences is likely to be stopped.