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BEHAVIORISM - Villaran, John Lawrence H.

This document discusses four major contributors to behaviorism theory: Pavlov, Watson, Skinner, and Thorndike. It summarizes their key experiments and findings. Pavlov discovered classical conditioning through his dog experiment. Watson applied classical conditioning to humans. Skinner introduced operant conditioning and emphasized positive and negative reinforcement. Thorndike proposed three laws of learning: the law of effect, the law of exercise, and the law of readiness. Overall, the document provides an overview of the major theories and influential experiments in the development of behaviorism.

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John Lawrence Villaran
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98 views9 pages

BEHAVIORISM - Villaran, John Lawrence H.

This document discusses four major contributors to behaviorism theory: Pavlov, Watson, Skinner, and Thorndike. It summarizes their key experiments and findings. Pavlov discovered classical conditioning through his dog experiment. Watson applied classical conditioning to humans. Skinner introduced operant conditioning and emphasized positive and negative reinforcement. Thorndike proposed three laws of learning: the law of effect, the law of exercise, and the law of readiness. Overall, the document provides an overview of the major theories and influential experiments in the development of behaviorism.

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John Lawrence Villaran
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BEHAVIORISM:

PAVLOV

WATSON

SKINNER

THORNDIKE
- https://www.studocu.com/ph/document/xavier-university-ateneo-de-cagayan/
psychology/behaviorism-pavlov-thorndike-watson-skinner/13781624
INTRODUCTION
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, Watson, Thorndike and Skinner.

I. PAVLOV’S CLASSICAL CONDITIONING


Ivan Pavlov, a Russian physiologist, is well known for his work in classical
conditioning or stimulus substitution. Pavlov's most renowned experiment
involved meat, a dog and a bell. Initially, Pavlov was measuring the dog's
salivation in order to study digestion. This is when he stumbled upon classical
Conditioning.

Pavlov's Experiment. Before conditioning, ringing the bell (neutral stimulus)


caused no response from the dog. Placing food (unconditioned stimulus) in front
of the dog initiated salivation (unconditioned response). During conditioning,
the bell was rung a few seconds before the dog was presented with food. After
conditioning, the ringing of the bell (conditioned stimulus) alone produced
salivation (conditioned response). This is classical conditioning.
Pavlov also had the following findings:

STIMULUS GENERALIZATION: Once the dog has learned to salivate at the sound of
the bell, it will salivate at other similar sounds.Extinction. If you stop
pairing the bell with the food, salivation will eventually cease in response to
the bell.

SPONTANEOUS RECOVERY: Extinguished responses can be "recovered" after an


elapsed time, but willsoon extinguish again if the dog is not presented with
food.

DISCRIMINATION: The dog could learn to discriminate between similar bells


(stimuli) and discern whichbell would result in the presentation of food and
which would not.

HIGHER ORDER CONDITIONING: Once the dog has been conditioned to


associate the bell with food,another unconditioned stimulus, such as a light
may be flashed at the same time that the bell is rung.Eventually, the dog will
salivate at the flash of the light without the sound of the bell.
II. WATSON’S BEHAVIORISM THEORY
John B. Watson was the first American psychologist to work with Pavlov's
ideas. He too was initially involved in animal studies, then later became
involved in human behavior research. He considered that humans are born with a
few reflexes and the emotional reactions of love and rage. All other behavior
is learned through stimulus-response John Watson associations through
conditioning. He believed in the power 1878 1958 of conditioning so much that
he said that if he is given a dozen healthy infants he can make them into
anything you want them to be, basically through making
stimulus-response connections through conditioning.

Experiment on Albert: Watson applied classical conditioning in his experiment


concerning Albert, ayoung child and a white rat. In the beginning, Albert was
not afraid of the rat; but Watson made sudden loud noise each time Albert
touched the rat. Because Albert was frightened by the loud noise,he soon became
conditioned to fear and avoid the rat. Later, the child's response was
generalized to other small animals. Now, he was also afraid of small animals.
Watson then extinguished" or made the child "unlearn fear by showing the rat
without the loud noise.

Surely, Watson's research methods would be questioned today nevertheless, his


work did clearly show the role of conditioning in the development of emotional
responses to certain stimuli. This may help us understand the fears, phobias
and prejudices that people develop.
III. SKINNER’S OPERANT CONDITIONING THEORY

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, his 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. Changes in behavior are the result of an individual's response
to events (stimuli) that occur in the environment. A response produces a
consequence such as defining a word, hitting a ball, or solving a math problem.
When a particular Stimulus-Response (S-R) pattern is reinforced (rewarded), the
individual is conditioned to respond.

Reinforcement is the key element in Skinner's S-R theory. A reinforcer is anything


that strengthens the desired response. There is a positive reinforcer and a negative
reinforcer.

A positive reinforcer is any stimulus that is given or added to increase the


response. An example of positive reinforcement is when a teacher promises extra time
in the play area to children who behave well during the lesson. Another is a mother
who promises a new cell phone for her son who gets good grades. Still, other
examples include verbal praises, star stamps and stickers.
A negative reinforcer is any stimulus that results in the increased frequency of a
response whenit is withdrawn or removed. A negative reinforcer is not a punishment;
in fact it is a reward. For Instance, a teacher announces that a student who gets an
average grade of 1.5 for the two grading periods will no longer take the final
examination. The negative reinforcer is "removing" the final exam, which we realize
is a form of reward for working hard and getting an average grade of 1.5.

A negative reinforcer is different from a punishment because


punishment is a consequence intended to result in reduced responses. An example
would be a student who always comes late is not allowed to join a group work that
has already begun (punishment) and, therefore, loses points for that activity. The
punishment was done to reduce the response of repeatedly coming to class late.

IV. THORNDIKE’S CONNCTIONISM THEORY


The main principle of connectionism (like all behavioral theory) was that learning
could be adequately explained without considering any unobservable internal states.

Thorndike's theory on connectionism, states that learning has taken place when. a
strong connection or bond between stimulus and response is formed. He came up with
three primary laws:
Law of Effect: The law of effect states that a connection between a stimulus
and response is strengthened when the consequence is positive (reward) and the
connection between the stimulus and the response is weakened when the consequence is
negative. Thorndike later on, revised this"law" when he found that negative rewards
(punishment) do not necessarily weaken bonds, andthat some seemingly pleasurable
consequences do not necessarily motivate performance.

Law of Exercise: This tells us that the more an S-R (stimulus response) bond is
practiced the stronger it will become. "Practice makes perfect" seem to be
associated with this. However, like the law of effect, the law of exercise also had
to be revised when Thorndike found that practice without feedback does not
necessarily enhance performance.

Law of Readiness: This states that the more readiness the learner has to respond
to the stimulus,the stronger will be the bond between them. When a person is ready
to respond to a stimulus and is not made to respond, it becomes annoying to the
person. For example, if the teacher says, "Okaywe will now watch the movie
(stimulus) you've been waiting for." And suddenly the power goes off.The students
will feel frustrated because they were ready to respond to the stimulus
but were prevented from doing so. Likewise, if the person is not at all ready to
respond to stimuli and is asked to respond, that also becomes annoying. For
instance, the teacher calls a student to stand up and recite, and then the teacher
asks the question and expects the student to respond right away when he is
still not ready. This will be annoying to the student. That is
why teachers should remember to say the question first, and wait for a few
seconds before calling on anyone to answer.

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