Which Historical Theory Of Behavior Deals With Behaviors That Are Reflexive Instead Of Learned?

half-dozen.ii A Short History of Behaviorism

Learning Objectives

By the stop of this section, y'all volition be able to:

Trace the chronological development of the psychological school of behaviorism
Develop an agreement of major themes pertaining to behaviorism
Recognize important contributors to behavioral learning theory

Behaviorism dominated experimental psychology for several decades, and its influence can still exist felt today. Behaviorism is largely responsible for establishing psychology as a science through its objective methods and especially experimentation.

Early work in the field of behavior was conducted by the Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov (1849–1936). Pavlov studied a form of learning behavior called a conditioned reflex, in which an animal or human being produced a reflex (unconscious) response to a stimulus and, over fourth dimension, was conditioned to produce the response to a unlike stimulus that the experimenter associated with the original stimulus. The reflex Pavlov worked with was salivation in response to the presence of nutrient. The salivation reflex could be elicited using a 2d stimulus, such equally a specific sound, that was presented in association with the initial food stimulus several times. Once the response to the second stimulus was "learned," the food stimulus could be omitted. Pavlov's "classical conditioning" is merely one form of learning beliefs studied by behaviorists.

Edward Thorndike's (1898) piece of work with cats and puzzle boxes illustrates the concept of conditioning. The puzzle boxes were approximately 50 cm long, 38 cm wide, and 30 cm tall (come across effigy below). Thorndike'southward puzzle boxes were built and so that the cat, placed inside the box, could escape simply if it pressed a bar or pulled a lever, which caused the string attached to the door to elevator the weight and open the door. Thorndike measured the time it took the true cat to perform the required response (e.g., pulling the lever). Once it had learned the response he gave the true cat a reward, unremarkably food.

Thorndike plant that once a cat accidentally stepped on the switch, it would then press the switch faster in each succeeding trial inside the puzzle box. By observing and recording how long it took a variety of animals to escape through several trials, Thorndike was able to graph the learning curve (graphed as an S-shape). He observed that most animals had difficulty escaping at showtime, and so began to escape faster and faster with each successive puzzle box trial, and eventually levelled off in their escape times. The learning curve also suggested that different species learned in the same fashion but at different speeds. His finding was that cats, for instance, consistently showed gradual learning.

From his enquiry with puzzle boxes, Thorndike was able to create his own theory of learning (1932).

"Thorndike'southward Puzzle Box" past Jacob Sussman is available through Public Domain"

Of the manifold parts of his theory, Thorndike's Law of Issue remains one of the theories' most well-known corollaries.

Police of Result: If an association is followed by satisfaction, it volition be strengthened, and if it is followed by annoyance, it volition be weakened.

That is, Thorndike believed that an organism would seek to strengthen the association between a stimulus and response, if that association was perceived to yield satisfaction or pleasure to that organism. Conversely, an organism would seek to weaken an association betwixt a stimulus and response if it brought annoyance. Consider a hungry mouse that is rewarded for pressing a lever with food. The association between the lever press and the food will be strengthened if the advantage is perceived to be pleasurable, which to the hungry mouse, is sure to find the advantage highly agreeable. Still, if the aforementioned mouse received an electric shock after pressing the lever, the mouse may cull to avoid the lever in future trials. If the stimulus is not elicited (lever printing), in that location will be no response – the mouse weakens the clan between lever printing and the electric shock. The law of effect after was replaced by terminology coined past later behaviorists, preferring the terms "reinforcement" and "punishment" over "satisfaction" and "annoyance".

John B. Watson (1878–1958) was an influential American psychologist whose most famous work occurred during the early 20th century at Johns Hopkins University. While Wundt and James were concerned with agreement conscious feel, Watson idea that the report of consciousness was flawed. Because he believed that objective analysis of the mind was impossible, Watson preferred to focus directly on observable behavior and endeavor to bring that beliefs under control. Watson was a major proponent of shifting the focus of psychology from the mind to behavior, and this arroyo of observing and controlling behavior came to be known as behaviorism. A major object of written report by behaviorists was learned behavior and its interaction with inborn qualities of the organism. Behaviorism commonly used animals in experiments under the supposition that what was learned using animal models could, to some degree, be applied to man behavior. Indeed, Tolman (1938) stated, "I believe that everything of import in psychology (except … such matters every bit involving society and words) can be investigated in essence through the continued experimental and theoretical analysis of the determiners of rat beliefs at a choice-point in a maze."

Burrhus Frederic (B.F.) Skinner (1904–1990) was an American psychologist. Like Watson, Skinner was a behaviorist, and he full-bodied on how behavior was afflicted past its consequences. B.F. Skinner called his item brand of behaviorism radical behaviourism (1974). Radical behaviorism is the philosophy of the scientific discipline of behaviour. It seeks to sympathize behaviour as a office of environmental histories of reinforcing consequences. This applied behaviourism does not accept private events such as thinking, perceptions, and unobservable emotions in a causal account of an organism's behaviour.

While a researcher at Harvard, Skinner invented the operant conditioning bedchamber, popularly referred to as the Skinner box (run into figure below), used to measure responses of organisms (near often rats and pigeons) and their orderly interactions with the surround. The box had a lever and a food tray, and a hungry rat inside the box could get nutrient delivered to the tray by pressing the lever. Skinner observed that when a rat was beginning put into the box, it would wander around, sniffing and exploring, and would usually press the bar past accident, at which indicate a food pellet would drib into the tray. After that happened, the rate of bar pressing would increase dramatically and remain high until the rat was no longer hungry. The Skinner Box has remained a crucial resource for researchers studying behavior (Thorne & Henley, 2005). Research conducted with the Skinner Box led to the principle of reinforcement, which is the probability of something occurring based on the consequences of a behavior.

A picture of an Operant Conditioning Sleeping accommodation or Skinner Box. This device allowed experimenters to study conditioning principles and understand reward/penalisation mechanisms in psychological inquiry.

"Skinner box" by Bd008 is licensed under CC BY SA 3.0

SUMMARY

The Law of Effect and the Principle of Reinforcement are amid the many insights that survive the school of behaviorism today. Even so, nosotros feel the influence of decades of behavioral research in various modern-day settings. For case, behavioral principles are commonly applied in behavioral and cognitive-behavioral therapy to create powerful changes in one's behavior. Behavior modification is likewise commonly used in classroom settings to encourage appropriate classroom behaviors and discourage potential disruptions. Overall, behaviorism has led to enquiry on environmental influences on human behavior.

References:

Introduction to Psychology text by [redacted writer(due south)] is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA. http://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/BookDetail.aspx?bookId=48

Introduction to Psychology – 1st Canadian Ed. by Jennifer Walinga is licensed nether CC BY-NC-SA. http://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/BookDetail.aspx?bookId=427

Openstax Psychology text by Kathryn Dumper, William Jenkins, Arlene Lacombe, Marilyn Lovett and Marion Perlmutter is licensed under CC BY v4.0. https://openstax.org/details/books/psychology

Introduction to Psychology: The Full Noba Collection by Robert Biswas-Diener and Ed Diener is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA. http://open up.umn.edu/opentextbooks/BookDetail.aspx?bookId=228

Exercises

Review Questions:

1. The results of Thorndike'southward Puzzle Box experiments demonstrated that the test animals took ____ time (relative to all attempts) initially when solving puzzle box trials and took ____ time with each subsequent, completed trial.

a. Less; More

b. Less; Less

c. More; Less

d. More; More

2. Thorndike'due south Law of Effect is differentiated from the Principle of Reinforcement because the ____ posits that ____.

a. Police of effect; organisms will initiate deportment which volition yield a pleasurable issue

b. Law of upshot; organisms volition initiate actions that impede the presence of an non-pleasurable effect

c. Principle of Reinforcement; an organism is more likely to pursue behaviors which are reinforced

d. Principle of Reinforcement; an organism is less likely to pursue behaviors which are not reinforced

eastward. None of the above.

3. One of the main tenets of Skinner's radical behaviorism was that___

a. the activities of the mind, apart from the performance of basic life-sustaining functions, had a causal influence on an organisms' behavior

b. an organism's perception is integral to guiding that organism's behaviors

c. an organism'southward emotional capacities is among the main influences for the initiation of behavior

d. a combination of an organism's thinking, perception and related emotional activities initiate behaviors

e. the private events of the human heed had no causal role pertaining to an organism's behavior.

Critical Thinking Questions:

1. Wlid are some of the weaknesses of radical behaviorism as it was conceptualized by B.F. Skinner?

Personal Application Question:

i. What are some ways y'all tin can potentially run across the application of behavioral principles (east.g., the police of event, principle of reinforcement) in your everyday life?

Glossary:

conditioned reflex: an animal or homo produced a reflex (unconscious) response to a stimulus.

classical conditioning: (briefly) a type of workout in which a natural, unconditioned stimulus (eastward.g., food) is paired with a novel stimulus (east.g., a sound, a bell) to create a circumstance in which the novel stimulus tin produce a desired response.

law of upshot: the precursor to the principle of reinforcement, this law describes the actions of an organism following a satisfying or dissatisfying outcome.

radical behaviorism: a philosophy in the scientific discipline of beliefs. Radical behaviorism seeks to understand behavior as a part of environmental histories of reinforcing consequences while simultaneously rejecting the role of thinking, perception or emotion in the initiation or maintenance of behaviors.

Skinner Box: an apparatus used to measure responses of organisms (nigh often rats and pigeons) and their orderly interactions with the surround.

Answers to Exercises

Review Questions:

i. C

2. Eastward (The Police of effect was finer co-opted into the principle of reinforcement for the sake of providing more easily testable experimental conditions)

3. E

Disquisitional Thinking Questions:

1. Answer: (should contain some of the post-obit primal points)

*non all human processes characterizing human behaviors have hands recognizable conditioned stimuli, and the behaviors that can exist considered conditioned are not easily traceable to a single source

*modern empirical research has mostly refuted the assumption that "private events" practice not influence behaviors (eastward.grand., cognitive psychological handling, phantom limb research)

*private events are constants which underlie ALL beliefs, voluntary or involuntary – to rule them out simply considering they are not observable is in essence, jumping to conclusions

Glossary:

conditioned reflex: an animate being or man produced a reflex (unconscious) response to a stimulus.

classical conditioning: (briefly) a type of conditioning in which a natural, unconditioned stimulus (e.thou., food) is paired with a novel stimulus (eastward.g., a sound, a bell) to create a circumstance in which the novel stimulus tin can produce a desired response.

law of result: the precursor to the principle of reinforcement, this law describes the deportment of an organism post-obit a satisfying or dissatisfying upshot.

radical behaviorism: a philosophy in the science of behavior. Radical behaviorism seeks to understand behavior equally a function of environmental histories of reinforcing consequences while simultaneously rejecting the role of thinking, perception or emotion in the initiation or maintenance of behaviors.

Skinner Box: an appliance used to measure responses of organisms (most often rats and pigeons) and their orderly interactions with the surroundings.