BEHAVIORIST PERSPECTIVE

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 (reward
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
1. Behaviorism
2. Neo-behaviorism

Behaviorism, also known as behavioral psychology, is a theory of learning which states all
behaviors are learned through interaction with the environment through a process called
conditioning reinforcement (reward and punishment). Thus, behavior is simply a response to
environmental stimuli.

Behaviorism: Pavlov, Thorndike, Watson, Skinner

IVAN PETROVICH PAVLOV – a Russian physiologist who studied the behavior of dogs. He
discovered the concept of classical conditioning while studying the digestion in dogs using meat
and a bell.

Classical conditioning – is a learning process by which a subject comes to respond in a specific

way to a previously neutral stimulus after the subject repeatedly encounters the neutral
stimulus together with another stimulus that already elicits the response.

• Stimulus – something that exist of presented to someone or something

• Response – how animal or human responds to stimulus

Unconditioned Stimulus – produce a natural response or reaction (something that you don’t
have to learn but it causes you to react.)
Unconditioned Response – natural reaction to unconditioned stimulus occurs (just like seeing
an attractive person you become excited.)
Neutral Stimulus – It does not produce a response
Conditioned Stimulus – an originally stimulus that is paired with an unconditioned stimulus and
eventually produces the desired response in an organism when presented
Pavlov also had the following findings;
 Stimulus generalization – Response to similar conditioned stimulus In the conditioning
process, stimulus generalization is the tendency for the conditioned stimulus to evoke
similar responses after the response has been conditioned.
 Extinction - disappearance of a previously learned behavior when the behavior is not
reinforced.
 Spontaneous recovery - is a phenomenon that involves suddenly displaying a behavior
that was thought to be extinct.
 Discrimination - is the ability to tell the difference between two stimuli and similar
stimulus
 Higher-order conditioning -  refers to a situation in which a stimulus that was previously
neutral (e.g., a light) is paired with a conditioned stimulus

JOHN B. WATSON

 He is the first American psychologist to work with Pavlov’s idea. He was also involved in
animal studies, then later become involved in human behavior research.
 He wrote an article entitled 'Psychology as the behaviorist views it'
 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.
 He conducted the Little Albert Experiment

EDWARD THORNDIKE is a famous in psychology for his work on learning theory that lead to
the development of operant conditioning within Behaviorism.

- Father of modern educational psychology and founder of behavioral psychology

- He worked for education in term of student behavior. Like why students, individual,
young students behave in whatever manner behave in.
- He believed that human shouldn’t be use as guinea pig for an experiment
- He also performed classical conditioning. He observed a rat on how it would behave by
giving it stimulus.
- He came up with positive negative stimulus. So if there if you know that it is not good for
you, you will avoid that and you learn to promote the appropriate behavior. And that is
the connection.
- But in 1928 he studied adult behavior
Connectionism – learning connection or association of an increasing number of habits
-studied increasing a behavior with the use of rewards, reinforcement and practice

Connectionism theory –
- 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. The
paradigm for S-R theory was trial and error learning in which certain responses come to
dominate others due to rewards.
 - This work led to Thorndike's Law of learning.

Thorndike’s theory consists of three primary laws:

 The Law of Effect states that the likely recurrence of a response is generally
governed by its consequence or effect generally in the form of reward or
punishment.
 The Law of Exercise states that stimulus-response associations are strengthened
through repetition.
 The Law of Readiness states that the more readiness the learner has to respond to
stimulus, the stronger will the bond between them.

BURRHUS FREDERICK SKINNER

Like Pavlov, Watson, and Thorndike, he also believed in the stimulus-response pattern of
conditional behavior.
He believed that the best way to understand behavior is to look at the causes of an action and
its consequences. This was his concept of operant conditioning.

Operant Conditioning is based upon the notion that learning is a result of change in overt
behavior.

He believe that organisms are doing what do naturally until they accidentally encounter a
stimulus that creates conditioning which results in a change in behavior.

Reinforcement is the key element in Skinner’s S-R Theory

- Reinforcement is a consequence that increases the probability that a behavior will
occur.
- Punishment is a consequence that decreases the probability a behavior will occur
- Put it another way, reinforcement will strengthen a behavior while punishment will
weaken a behavior.
- Reinforcement is a fundamental concept of Operant conditioning, whose main purpose
is to strengthen or increase the rate of behavior. Reinforcement helps increase certain
behavior with the use of stimulus, which is called reinforcer.

Two types of Reinforcement and Punishment

 DANGERS OF PUNISHMENT
- Punishment can be abusive
- Punishment may create a new problem

Extinction or non-reinforcement – responses that are not reinforced are not likely to be
repeated.
Shaping of Behavior - refers to gradually molding or training an organism to perform a
specific response (behavior) by reinforcing any responses that are similar to the desired
response.
Behavior chaining - is a sequence of behaviors that happen in a particular order where
the outcome of the previous step in the chain serves as a signal to begin the next step
in the chain.
Reinforcement Schedules – once the desired behavioral response is accomplished,
reinforcement does not have to be 100%
1. Fixed interval schedule – the target response is reinforced after a fixed amount of
time has passed since the last reinforcement.
2. Variable interval schedules – similar to fixed interval schedules, but the amount of
time pass between reinforcement varies.
3. Fixed ratio schedules – a fixed number of correct responses must occur before
reinforcement may recur
4. Variable ratio schedule - the number of correct repetition of the correct response
for reinforcement varies