The behaviorist perspective states that human behavior is learned through conditioning and environmental influences, not innate. It focuses on observable and measurable behaviors and their causes. Major theorists included Pavlov, Thorndike, Watson, and Skinner. Pavlov studied classical conditioning, Thorndike proposed laws of learning, Watson conducted early human experiments, and Skinner developed operant conditioning based on reinforcement and punishment. Neobehaviorism incorporated cognitive elements, exemplified by Tolman's cognitive maps and goal-directed behavior and Bandura's social learning theory, which posited that people learn through observation and modeling.

1. What is behaviorist perspective?
The behaviorist perspective is a theory of psychology that states that human behaviors
are learned, not innate. The behaviorist approach asserts that human beings have no
free will and that all actions, characteristics and personality traits are the result of a
person's environment and the cultural forces that shape it.
The theory of behaviorism focuses on the study of observable and measurable
behavior. It emphasizes that behavior is mostly learned through conditioning and
reinforcement (rewards and punishment). It does not give much attention to the mind,
and the possibility of thought processes occurring in the mind. Contributions in the
development of the behaviorist theory largely came from Pavlov, Thorndike and
Skinner.
TWO CATEGORIES
Behaviorism: Pavlov, Thorndike, Watson, Skinner
The theory that human and animal behavior can be explained in terms of conditioning,
without appeal to thoughts or feelings, and those psychological disorders are best
treated by altering behavior patterns.
· Ivan Petrovich Pavlov was a Russian physiologist who studied the behavior of
dogs and developed a theory of classical conditioning, which explains how people
associate two stimuli in their minds and react to one of them as though it was the other.
Pavlov also had the following findings:
 Stimulus generalization
 Extinction
 Spontaneous Recovery
 Discrimination
 Higher-Order Conditioning
· Connectionism (Edward Thorndike) The learning theory of Thorndike represents
the original S-R framework of behavioral psychology: Learning is the result of
associations forming between stimuli and responses. Such associations or "habits"
become strengthened or weakened by the nature and frequency of the S-R pairings.
Thorndike’s theory on connectionism stated that learning has taken place when a strong
connection or bond between stimulus and response is formed.
He came up with this three primary law
“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.
“Law of Exercise (Thorndike)” The more a behavior follows a given stimulus, the
more likely it will occur again (habit, no reward necessary)
“Law of Readiness” This state that, the more readiness the learner has to response to
the stimulus, the stronger will be the bond between them.
Principles Derived from Thorndike’s Connectionism:
1. Learning requires both practice and rewards (law of effect/exercise)
2. A series of S-R connections can be chained together if they belong to the same
action sequence (law of readiness).
3. Transfer of learning occurs because of previously encountered situations.
4. Intelligence is a function of the numbers of connections learned.

2. John B. Watson was the first American psychologist to work with Pavlo’v idea. He too
was initially involved in animal studies, the later become involved in human behavior
research.
He considered that human are born with few reflexes and the emotional reactions
of love and rage. All other behavior is learned through stimulus-response associations
through conditioning.
Experiment on albert
· Burrhus Frederick Skinner Like pavlov, watson and thorndike, skinner believed in
the stimulus-response pattern of conditional behavior. Skinner’s work differs from that of
the three behaviorists before him, in that he studied operant behavior (voluntary
behaviors used in operating on the environment). Thus, is theory came to be known as
operant conditioning.
 Operant conditioning is based upon the notion that learning is a result of
change in overt behavior
 Reinforcement is the key element in skinner’s s-r theory
 Two type of Reinforcer
 Positive Reinforcer – is any stimulus that is given or added
to increase the response
 Negative Reinforcer – is any stimulus that result in the
increased frequency of a response when it is withdraw or
removed
 Extinction or non-reinforcement
 Responses that are not reinforced are not likely to be repeated
 Shaping of Behavior
 Behavior chaining
 Reinforcement schedules
 Once the desired behavioral response is accomplished,
reinforcement does not have to be 100%.
 Fixed interval schedules
 The target response is reinforced after a fixed amount of time has
passed since the last reinforcement.
 Variable interval schedules
 Similar to fixed interval schedules, but the amount of time that must
pass between reinforcement varies.
 Fixed ratio schedules
 A fixed number of correct responses must occur before
reinforcement may recur.
 Variable ratio schedules
 The number of correct repetition of the correct response for
reinforcement varies.
Implication of operant conditioning. This implication are given for
programmed instruction
• Practice should take the form of equation (stimulus) – answer (response)
frames which expose the student to the subject in gradual steps.
• Require that the learner makes a response for every frame and receives
immediate feedback
• Try to arrange the difficulty of the questions so the response is always
correct and hence, a positive reinforcement.

3. • Ensure that good performance in the lesson is paired with secondary
reinforcement such as vernal praise, prizes and good grades.
Principle derived from skinner’s operant conditioning
• Behavior that is positively reinforced will reoccur; intermittent
reinforcement is particularly effective.
• Information should be presented in small amounts so that response can
be reinforced (shaping).
• Reinforcement will generalize across similar stimulus (stimulus
generalization) producing secondary conditioning.
NEO BAHAVIORISM: TOLMAN and BANDURA
Neobehaviorism is a school of thought that posits that the study of learning and a
focus on rigorous objective observational methods form the key to scientific
psychology. Neobehaviorism is the second phase of behaviorism, which was closely
associated with B.F. Skinner, Clark Hull and Edward C. Tolman.
You are tasked to solve a maze. There are two mazes, Maze A and Maze B. Usually,
people who worked on the maze activity would say that they found the second maze
easier. This is because that the two mazes were identical, except that the entrance and
exit points were reversed. People create mental maps of things they perceived. These
mental maps help them respond to other things or tasks later, especially if they see the
similarity. You may begin to respond with trial and error (behavioristic), but later on our
response becomes more internally driven (cognitive perspective). This is what
neobehaviorism is about. It has aspects of behaviorism but it also reaches out to the
cognitive perspective.
Two theories reflecting neobaviorism that stands out:
Edward Tolman’s Purposive Behaviorism & Albert Bandura’s Social Learning Theory
Purposive behaviorism has also been referred to as Sign Learning Theory and is often
seen as the link between behaviorism and cognitive theory. Tolman’s theory was founded
on two psychological views, those of Gestalt psychologists and those of John Watson,
the behaviorist.
Tolman believed that learning is a cognitive process. Learning involves forming beliefs
and obtaining knowledge about the environment and then revealing that knowledge
through purposeful and goal-directed behavior
Tolman stated in his sign theory, that an organism learns by pursuing signs to a goal, i.e.,
learning is acquired through meaningful behavior. He stressed the organized aspect of
learning: “ The stimuli which are allowed in are not just simple one to one switches to the
outgoing responses. Rather the incoming impulses are usually worked over and
elaborated in the central room into a tentative map, indicating routes and paths and
environmental relationships, which finally determines what responses, if any, the animal
will make.

4. Tolman’s Key Concepts
●Learning is always purposive and goal-directed- Individuals do more than merely
respond to a stimuli; they act on beliefs, attitudes, changing conditions and they strive
toward goals.
●Cognitive maps in rats. In his famous experiments, one group of rats was placed at
random starting locations in a maze but the food was always in the same location in a
maze but the food was always in the same location. Another group of rats had the food
placed in different locations which always required exactly the same pattern of turns from
their starting location. The group that had the food in the same location performed much
better than the other group, supposedly demonstrating that they had learned the location
rather than the specific sequence of turns. This is tendency to “learn location” signified
that rats somehow formed cognitive maps that help them perform well on maze. He also
found out that organisms will select the shortest or easiest path to achieve a goal.
●Latent Learning – is a kind of learning that reminds or stays with the individual until
needed.it is learning that is not outwardly manifested at once.
Ex. Applied in human, a two-year-old always sees her dad operate the TV. remote control
and observes how the TV is turned on or how channel is changed and volume adjusted.
After sometime the parents are surprised that on the first time that their daughter holds
the remote control, she already knows which button to press for what function. Through
latent learning, the child knew the skills beforehand, even though she has never done
them before.
●The concept of intervening variable- are variables that are not readily seen but serve as
determinants of behavior. Tolman believed that learning is meditated or is influenced by
expectations., perceptions, representations, needs and other internal or environmental
variables.
●Reinforcement not essential for learning- Tolman concluded that reinforcement is not
essential for learning, although it provides an incentive for performance.
BANDURA’s SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY
A ten-year-old boy named Sergio Pelico died by hanging himself from a bunk bed was
apparently mimicking the execution of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Clinical
psychologist Edward Bischof of California said children Sergio’s age mimic risky
behaviors they see on TV such as wrestling or extreme sports without realizing the
dangers. He said TV appeared to be the stimulant in Sergio’s case.
Social learning theory focuses on the learning that occurs within a social context. It
considers that people learn from one another, including such concepts as observational
learning, imitation and modeling the 10-year-old boy Sergio Pelico did watch Saddam’s
execution in TV and then must have imitated it.
Among others, Albert Bandura is considered the leading proponent of this theory.
General principles of social learning theory

5. 1. People can learn by observing the behavior of others and the outcomes of those
behaviors.
2. Learning can occur without a change.
3. Cognition plays a role in learning
4. Social learning theory can be considered a bridge or a transition between behaviorist
learning theories and cognitive learning theories.
How the Environment Reinforces and Punishes Modelling?
●The observer is reinforced by the model
●The observer is reinforced by a third person
●The imitated behavior itself leads to reinforcing consequences
●Consequences of the model’s behavior affect the observer’s behavior vicariously
Contemporary Social Learning Perspective of Reinforcement and Punishment
●Contemporary theory proposes that both reinforcement and punishment have indirect
effects on learning.
● Reinforcement and punishment influence the extent to which an individual exhibits a
behavior that has been learned.
●The expectation of reinforcement influences cognitive processes that promote learning.
COGNITIVE FACTORS IN SOCIAL LEARNING
1. Learning without performance.
2. Cognitive Processes during learning
3. Expectations
4. Reciprocal causation
5. Modeling
Conditions necessary for effective modelling to occur
Bandura mentions four conditions that are necessary before an individual can
successfully model the behavior of someone else:
1. Attention- a person must pay attention to the model first
2. Retention-a person must remember what has been observed
3. Motor reproduction –ability to replicate the behavior that the model
demonstrated.
4. Motivation
Effects of modelling on behavior:
Modelling teaches new behaviors.

6. Modelling influences the frequency of previously learned behaviors.
Modelling may encourage previously forbidden behaviors
Modeling increases the frequency of similar behaviors.
Educational Implications of social learning theory
1. Students often learn a great deal simply by observing other people.
2. Describing the consequences of behavior can effectively increase the appropriate
behaviors and decrease inappropriate ones.
3. Modelling provides an alternative to shaping for teaching new behaviors.
4. Teachers and parents must model appropriate behaviors and take care that they do
not model inappropriate behaviors.
5. Teachers should expose students to a variety of other models.