Behaviorism: Learning Theories

1. Behaviorism
Learning Theories in Education
By
SHAHIDA PERVEEN

2. What is Behaviorism?
• Psychology is purely the study of external behavior
• Behavior is objective and observable, where as what
goes on in one’s mind can never really be known or
measured
• Behavior is the response of an organism to stimuli
• Stimulus Response

3. Behavioral Learning Theory
• According to the behaviorists, learning can be defined as “the relatively permanent change
in behavior brought about as a result of experience or practice.”
• Behaviorists recognize that learning is an internal event. However, it is not recognized as
learning until it is displayed by overt behavior.
• The focus of the behavioral approach is on how the environment impacts overt behavior.
• https://youtu.be/RU0zEGWp56Y

4. Behaviourist Learning Theorists –
Timeline:
I. Pavlov (1849-1936) [active 1890’s – 1900’s]
E.L. Thorndike (1874-1949) [active 1900’s – 1930’s]
J. Watson (1878–1958) [active 1910’s – 1920]
B. F. Skinner (1904 –1990) [active 1930’s – 1960’s]
https://youtu.be/xvVaTy8mQrg

5. History of Behavorism
Pavlov(1897) , a Russian
physiologist published
the results of an
experiment on
conditioning after
originally studying
digestion in dogs.

6. • John B. Watson (1916, 1926), an American
psychologist is credited as the founder of
behaviorism.
• Watson (1913) launched the behavioral school of psychology,
publishing an article, Psychology as the Behaviorist views it.
• Watson strived to make the new field of psychology more
scientific.
• He believed that all behavior, even that which appeared
instinctive, is the result of conditioning that occurs in response
to a stimulus.
• https://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Watson/views.htm

7. History of Behaviorism
Thorndike (1900’s - 1932) an American psychologist whose theory of
connectionism (forming associations between stimuli and responses)
was dominant in the US during the first half of the 20th century.
Thorndike focused much of his attention on education, especially
learning and transfer. He thought transfer happened only when the
situations have identical elements and call for similar responses.

8. ... (continued)
• B.F. Skinner(1930’s –1950’s), an American psychologist
who was also very interested in education.
• He believed that behavior is sustained by reinforcements or
rewards, not by free will.
• Skinner is famous for the skinner box and
teaching machines.

9. Classical Conditioning(PAVLOV)
• Pavlov was studying the digestive system of dogs and became intrigued with his
observation that dogs deprived of food began to salivate when one of his assistants
walked into the room.
• He began to investigate this phenomena and established the laws of classical
conditioning.
• Skinner renamed this type of learning "respondent conditioning” since in this type
of learning, one is responding to an environmental antecedent.

10. Classical Conditioning
• Classical conditioning was the first type of learning to be discovered and studied within the
behaviorist tradition (hence the name classical).
• The major theorist in the development of classical conditioning is Ivan Pavlov.
• A natural stimulus that produces a response (reflex action) is coupled with a conditioned
stimulus so that an association is formed.
• NS ---Response
• NS + CS--- Response
• CS----Response
Learning is developing a new stimuli-response association. A conditioned stimuli comes to
produce the same response as the original, natural stimuli.
https://youtu.be/qSqWiTG-o2Y

11. Classical Conditioning
• General model: Stimulus (S) elicits > Response (R)
• Classical conditioning starts with a reflex (R): an innate, involuntary behavior.
• This involuntary behavior is elicited or caused by an antecedent environmental
event.
For example, if air is blown into your eye, you blink. You have no voluntary or
conscious control over whether the blink occurs or not.

12. Classical Conditioning
The specific model for classical conditioning is:
• A stimulus will naturally (without learning) elicit or bring about a reflexive response
• Unconditioned Stimulus (US) elicits > Unconditioned Response (UR)
• Neutral Stimulus (NS) --- does not elicit the response of interest
• This stimulus is a neutral stimulus since it does not elicit the Unconditioned (or reflexive)
Response.

16. Classical Conditioning Theory in the Context
of Classroom
• In the area of classroom learning, classical conditioning is seen primarily in the
conditioning of emotional behavior.
• Things that make us happy, sad, angry, etc. become associated with neutral stimuli that
gain our attention.
For example, the school, classroom, teacher, or subject matter are initially neutral stimuli
that gain attention.
• Activities at school or in the classroom automatically elicit emotional responses and
these activities are associated with the neutral or orienting stimulus
• After repeated presentations, the previously neutral stimulus will elicit the emotional
response.

17. Classical Conditioning Theory in the Context
of Classroom
EXAMPLE:
 Child is harassed at school
 Child feels bad when harassed
 Child associates being harassed and school
 Child begins to feel bad when she thinks of school
In order to extinguish the associated of feeling bad and thinking of school, the connection between
school and being harassed must be broken.

18. Operant Conditioning (Skinner)
• Living things are ‘operating’ on their environment
• If during this operation a reinforcing stimulus is encountered, this
increases the ‘operant’ i.e. the behaviour immediately before the
reinforcement. The reinforcing stimulus increases the likelihood of
the organism repeating the behaviour.
• Typically this was tested in ‘Skinner boxes’:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQtDTdDr8vs&NR=1

19. Operant Conditioning Chamber
Skinner Box
Puzzle Box

20. Operant Conditioning
Operant Conditioning (Thorndike, Skinner)
• Simply reinforcing a behavior or rewarding the desired
response can condition a response to a stimulus.
• Associations are developed as a result of the
consequences of a behavior rather than its stimuli

21. Skinner’s Operant Conditioning
Behavior
Increases
Behavior
Decreases
Positive
Reinforcement
Negative
Reinforcement
Punishment
Presence of Pleasant
Stimulus
Absence of Unpleasant
Stimulus
Presence of
Unpleasant Stimulus

22. Consequences for Behaviors
• Positive Reinforcement – You behave in a certain way that results in a
reward, and as a result, you are more likely to repeat that behavior
• Negative Reinforcement – You behave in a certain way that results in the
removal of something unpleasant, and as a result you are more likely to
repeat that behavior (ex: doing a paper early)
• In both cases, something happened that you saw as “good” and as a
result, you exhibited the behavior more.

23. Consequences for Behaviors
• Punishment – A consequence that follows a behavior so that you do the
behavior less often in the future.
• Punishment can involve adding something (paying a fine, staying after
school) or involve removing something you like (losing recess time,
leaving your friends)
• In both cases, adding something or removing something, you perceive
it as “bad” and as a result, you exhibit the behavior less.
• https://youtu.be/ut1zmfolM9E

24. Differences Between Negative
Reinforcement & Punishment
• Negative reinforcement: Something unpleasant is removed & as a result
you are more likely to do it again
• Something happened that was “good”
• Punishment: A consequence happens that you don’t like and you are
less likely to do it again. The punishment can add something or take
something away.
• Something happened that was “bad”

25. Operant Conditioning
• Law of Effect (Thorndike): Behaviors that are rewarded are more likely to
occur again, behaviors that are not rewarded are less likely to occur again.
• Law of Exercise (Thorndike): The more a behavior follows a given
stimulus, the more likely it will occur again (habit, no reward necessary)

26. Operant Conditioning
• Shaping behavior(Skinner): teachers using carefully directed, contingent
rewards can create almost any behavior in students. Start simple,
increase complexity. -Shape the behavior by starting simple and build
up.
• Schedules for reward (Skinner): rewards not only create behavior, but
also maintain it. If you reinforce on an irregular schedule more likely to be
maintained.

27. Difference between Classical and Operant Conditioning
https://youtu.be/H6LEcM0E0io

28. Learning and Transfer in Behaviorism
• Learning is about strengthening or weakening connections between the stimulus and response
through reinforcements or non-reinforcements.
• Transfer is based on common elements (Thorndike 1903), where a response learned from one
stimuli transfers more strongly to a very similar stimuli than a very different stimuli.

29. Motivation in Behaviorism
• The best way to increase the occurrence of a behavior is to reward it.
• Motivation is assumed to occur mainly through external motivation (rewards
and punishments).
• A reward is only effective to the degree that the person wants it and a
punishment is only effective to the degree that the person wants to avoid it.

30. Critiques of Behaviorism
• External rewards may diminish intrinsic motivation
• In studies where participants work on an interesting task like puzzles, the
experimental group is given a reward when finished while the control group is
not.
• After the initial period, during a non-rewarded time participants are given a
choice between continuing to work on the task or switching to another
activity.
• A typical result is that participants in the experimental group spend less time
on the activity than the control group.
• This is taken as indicating that reward reduces intrinsic motivation.

31. Critiques of Behaviorism
• Behaviorism could not account for complex learning like language
acquisition
• Noam Chomsky criticized behaviorism for giving a description
of the stimuli and responses solely in terms of observable
behaviors. There has to be more to learning than what is
observable.

32. Behaviorism in Education
• Routines for effective transmission of knowledge
• Teachers choose the materials students will learn from and
organize student practice. Student efforts to organize learning
activities for themselves play little role.
• Individualization with technologies
• Behaviorist research showed the importance of individualized
feedback to help students learn to give correct responses, this has
led to computer programs that teach routine skills.

33. Behaviorism in Education
• Clear goals, feedback, and reinforcement
• Learning tasks are organized based on their complexity where
simpler tasks are prerequisites for more complex tasks and
objectives are stated up front.
• Many extrinsic rewards (grades, gold stars, extra credit, smiles,
scowls, and detentions)
• https://youtu.be/KYDYzR-ZWRQ

34. Further Links
• http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/beh.html
• https://teacherofsci.com/learning-theories-in-education/#Behaviourism