*Pavlov (1897) published the results of an experiment on conditioning after originally studying digestion in dogs* Watson (1913) launches the behavioral school of psychology (classical conditioning), publishing an article, "Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It".* Watson and Rayner (1920) conditioned an orphan called Albert B (aka Little Albert) to fear a white rat.* Thorndike (1905) formalized the "Law of Effect".* Skinner (1936) wrote "The Behavior of Organisms" and introduced the concepts of operant conditioning and shaping.* Clark Hull’s (1943) Principles of Behavior was published.* B.F. Skinner (1948) published Walden Two in which he described a utopian society founded upon behaviorist principles.* Bandura (1963) publishes a book called the "Social Leaning Theory and Personality development" which combines both cognitive and behavioral frameworks.* Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior (begun in 1958)B.F. Skinner (1971) published his book Beyond Freedom and Dignity, where he argues that free will is an illusion.Santrock 2004: We should examine only what can be directly observed and measured
There are two versions of the behaviorism approach that are prominent today. The view of B.F. Skinner and Social learning theorySkinner: Behaviorism emphasizes the scientific study of observable responses and their environmental determinantsThere is no universally agreed-upon classification, but some titles given to the various branches of behaviorism include:Methodological: The behaviorism of Watson;Radical: Skinner's behaviorism; Teleological: Post-Skinnerian, purposive, close to microeconomics. Focuses on objective observation as opposed to cognitive processes.Theoretical: Post-Skinnerian, accepts observable internal states Biological: Post-Skinnerian, centered on perceptual and motor modules of behavior, Psychological behaviorism (PB) Arthur W. Staats: First general behaviorism that centers on human behavior. Created time-out, token-reinforcement and other methods,]
Positive Reinforcement: It is a process that strengthens a behavior. Giving a child a chocolate for correctly accomplishing a job is an example of positive reinforcement Negative Reinforcement: It is a process that strengthens a behavior. It comes in two types escape and avoidance. The teacher must learn to escape before learning to avoid. Escape is when removing noxious stimuli following correct behavior (truing off an alarm clock by pressing the snooze button). Avoidance is when behavior avoids noxious stimulus (studying to avoid getting a bad grade)Punishment is divided to positive; by adding noxious stimuli following behavior (spanking a child for cursing) and Negative punishment is when removing appetitive stimulus following behavior (telling the child to go to his room for cursing)
Bandura demonstrated that modeling, otherwise known as imitation or observational learning is basis for wide variety of children’s behaviors; children acquire many responses by watching and listening to people around themMost recent revision of Bandura’s theory places so much emphasis on how children think about themselves and other people
Language: Imitation explains how children rapidly acquire complex utterancesMorality: Children learn to act morally through modeling Aggression: When children watch violence on TV and behave later in a violent wayRole of punishment and we talked about it earlier such as punishment for cursing Gender development: Social learning theory & cognitive development theory offer approaches to explaining children’ gender typing
Noam Chomsky (the father of modern linguistics) disagreed with Skinners explanation to how we learn language. The innate theory (The innateness hypothesis is a linguistic theory of language acquisition which holds that at least some linguistic knowledge exists in humans at birth)is opposed to behaviorist theory which claims that language is a set of habits that can be acquired by means of conditioningMany critics argue that behaviorism is a one-dimensional approach to understanding human behavior and that behavioral theories do not account for free will and internal influences such as moods, thoughts and feelings.Behaviorism 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.
