Psychology Good Association More Like to Do Again Skinner

Chapter ii. Introduction to Major Perspectives

2.3 Behaviourist Psychology

Jennifer Walinga

Learning Objectives

1. Empathise the principles of behaviourist psychology and how these differ from psychodynamic principles in terms of theory and application.
2. Distinguish betwixt classical and operant conditioning.
3. Become familiar with key behaviourist theorists and approaches.
4. Identify applications of the behaviourist models in mod life.

Emerging in contrast to psychodynamic psychology, behaviourism focuses on observable behaviour every bit a means to studying the human psyche. The principal tenet of behaviourism is that psychology should business itself with the observable behaviour of people and animals, non with unobservable events that have identify in their minds. The behaviourists criticized the mentalists for their disability to demonstrate empirical testify to support their claims. The behaviourist schoolhouse of thought maintains that behaviours can exist described scientifically without recourse either to internal physiological events or to hypothetical constructs such as thoughts and beliefs, making behaviour a more productive area of focus for understanding human or creature psychology.

The chief influences of behaviourist psychology were Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936), who investigated classical workout though oftentimes disagreeing with behaviourism or behaviourists; Edward Lee Thorndike (1874-1949), who introduced the concept of reinforcement and was the first to employ psychological principles to learning; John B. Watson (1878-1958), who rejected introspective methods and sought to restrict psychology to experimental methods; and B.F. Skinner (1904-1990), who conducted research on operant conditioning.

The first of these, Ivan Pavlov, is known for his work on one important type of learning, classical conditioning. As nosotros learn, we alter the way nosotros perceive our environment, the fashion we interpret the incoming stimuli, and therefore the way we interact, or deport. Pavlov, a Russian physiologist, really discovered classical conditioning accidentally while doing research on the digestive patterns in dogs. During his experiments, he would put meat pulverization in the mouth of a canis familiaris who had tubes inserted into various organs to mensurate bodily responses. Pavlov discovered that the canis familiaris began to salivate before the meat powder was presented to it. Soon the domestic dog began to salivate as soon as the person feeding it entered the room. Pavlov quickly began to gain involvement in this phenomenon and abandoned his digestion inquiry in favour of his now famous classical conditioning written report.

Basically, Pavlov'south findings support the thought that we develop responses to certain stimuli that are non naturally occurring. When we touch a hot stove, our reflex pulls our hand back. We do this instinctively with no learning involved. The reflex is just a survival instinct. Pavlov discovered that we make associations that crusade u.s. to generalize our response to 1 stimuli onto a neutral stimuli it is paired with. In other words, hot burner = ouch; stove = burner; therefore, stove = ouch.

In his research with the dogs, Pavlov began pairing a bell sound with the meat pulverisation and plant that even when the meat pulverisation was not presented, a dog would somewhen begin to salivate after hearing the bell. In this case, since the meat pulverization naturally results in salivation, these two variables are called the unconditioned stimulus (UCS) and the unconditioned response (UCR), respectively. In the experiment, the bell and salivation are non naturally occurring; the dog is conditioned to respond to the bong. Therefore, the bell is considered the conditioned stimulus (CS), and the salivation to the bong, the conditioned response (CR).

Many of our behaviours today are shaped by the pairing of stimuli. The olfactory property of a cologne, the audio of a sure song, or the occurrence of a specific day of the year tin can trigger singled-out memories, emotions, and associations. When we brand these types of associations, nosotros are experiencing classical conditioning.

Operant conditioning is another blazon of learning that refers to how an organism operates on the environs or how it responds to what is presented to information technology in the environment (Figure two.12).

Figure two.12 Operant Conditioning.

Examples of operant conditioning include the following:

Reinforcement means to strengthen, and is used in psychology to refer to whatsoever stimulus which strengthens or increases the probability of a specific response. For case, if you desire your domestic dog to sit down on command, y'all may give him a care for every time he sits for yous. The dog will somewhen come to empathise that sitting when told to will result in a treat. This treat is reinforcing the behaviour because the domestic dog likes it and will result in him sitting when instructed to practice so. There are four types of reinforcement: positive, negative, punishment, and extinction.

• Positive reinforcement involves adding something in lodge to increment a response. For example, adding a treat will increase the response of sitting; adding praise will increase the chances of your child cleaning his or her room. The nearly common types of positive reinforcement are praise and reward, and most of u.s.a. have experienced this as both the giver and receiver.
• Negative reinforcement involves taking something negative abroad in lodge to increment a response. Imagine a teenager who is nagged past his parents to take out the garbage week after calendar week. After lament to his friends about the nagging, he finally one day performs the job and, to his anaesthesia, the nagging stops. The elimination of this negative stimulus is reinforcing and volition likely increment the chances that he volition take out the garbage side by side calendar week.
• Penalty refers to adding something aversive in order to subtract a behaviour. The most mutual instance of this is disciplining (e.g., spanking) a child for misbehaving. The child begins to associate being punished with the negative behaviour. The child does not like the penalty and, therefore, to avoid it, he or she will stop behaving in that manner.
• Extinction involves removing something in order to subtract a behaviour. Past having something taken abroad, a response is decreased.

Inquiry has found positive reinforcement is the nigh powerful of any of these types of operant workout responses. Adding a positive to increment a response non only works better, but allows both parties to focus on the positive aspects of the state of affairs. Penalty, when applied immediately post-obit the negative behaviour, can be constructive, but results in extinction when information technology is not applied consistently. Penalty tin also invoke other negative responses such as anger and resentment.

Thorndike'due south (1898) piece of work with cats and puzzle boxes illustrates the concept of conditioning. The puzzle boxes were approximately l cm long, 38 cm broad, and 30 cm tall (Effigy ii.13). Thorndike's puzzle boxes were built so that the cat, placed inside the box, could escape only if it pressed a bar or pulled a lever, which caused the string fastened to the door to elevator the weight and open up the door. Thorndike measured the time information technology took the true cat to perform the required response (e.thou., pulling the lever). Once information technology had learned the response he gave the cat a reward, usually food.

Figure 2.13 Thorndike's Puzzle Box.

Thorndike found that once a cat accidentally stepped on the switch, it would so press the switch faster in each succeeding trial within 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 South-shape). He observed that most animals had difficulty escaping at offset, 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 way merely at different speeds. His finding was that cats, for example, consistently showed gradual learning.

From his research with puzzle boxes, Thorndike was able to create his ain theory of learning (1932):

1. Learning is incremental.
2. Learning occurs automatically.
3. All animals learn the same manner.
4. Police of effect. If an association is followed by satisfaction, it will be strengthened, and if it is followed past badgerer, it will be weakened.
5. Law of use. The more than ofttimes an association is used, the stronger it becomes.
6. Law of decay. The longer an association is unused, the weaker it becomes.
7. Police force of recency. The most recent response is most likely to reoccur.
8. Multiple response. An animal will attempt multiple responses (trial and fault) if the first response does not pb to a specific situation.
9. Ready or attitude. Animals are predisposed to act in a specific manner.
10. Prepotency of elements. A subject can filter out irrelevant aspects of a problem and focus on and reply to significant elements of a problem.
11. Response by analogy. Responses from a related or like context may be used in a new context.
12. Identical elements theory of transfer. The more than similar the situations are, the greater the corporeality of information that will transfer. Similarly, if the situations have aught in common, data learned in one situation volition not be of any value in the other state of affairs.
13. Associative shifting. It is possible to shift any response from occurring with one stimulus to occurring with another stimulus. Associative shift maintains that a response is offset fabricated to state of affairs A, then to AB, and and so finally to B, thus shifting a response from ane status to another by associating information technology with that status.
14. Law of readiness. A quality in responses and connections that results in readiness to act. Behaviour and learning are influenced past the readiness or unreadiness of responses, as well as by their forcefulness.
15. Identifiability. Identification or placement of a situation is a kickoff response of the nervous organization, which tin recognize it. Then connections may exist fabricated to one another or to another response, and these connections depend on the original identification. Therefore, a large amount of learning is made upward of changes in the identifiability of situations.
16. Availability. The ease of getting a specific response. For case, it would exist easier for a person to larn to touch his or her nose or oral cavity with airtight eyes than information technology would be to draw a line five inches long with closed eyes.

John B. Watson promoted a change in psychology through his address, Psychology as the Behaviorist Views Information technology (1913), delivered at Columbia University. Through his behaviourist approach, Watson conducted research on animal behaviour, child rearing, and advertising while gaining notoriety for the controversial "Fiddling Albert" experiment. Immortalized in introductory psychology textbooks, this experiment set out to show how the recently discovered principles of classical conditioning could be applied to condition fright of a white rat into Little Albert, an 11-month-old boy. Watson and Rayner (1920) showtime presented to the male child a white rat and observed that the male child was non afraid. Next they presented him with a white rat and then clanged an iron rod. Little Albert responded by crying. This second presentation was repeated several times. Finally, Watson and Rayner presented the white rat by itself and the boy showed fear. Later, in an endeavour to see if the fearfulness transferred to other objects, Watson presented Little Albert with a rabbit, a dog, and a fur coat. He cried at the sight of all of them. This study demonstrated how emotions could become conditioned responses.

Burrhus Frederic Skinner called his particular brand of behaviourism radical behaviourism (1974). Radical behaviourism is the philosophy of the science of behaviour. Information technology seeks to understand behaviour every bit 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 chamber, popularly referred to as the Skinner box (Effigy two.fourteen), used to mensurate responses of organisms (most frequently rats and pigeons) and their orderly interactions with the environment. The box had a lever and a food tray, and a hungry rat inside the box could become nutrient delivered to the tray past pressing the lever. Skinner observed that when a rat was outset put into the box, it would wander effectually, sniffing and exploring, and would usually press the bar by blow, at which betoken a nutrient pellet would drop into the tray. After that happened, the rate of bar pressing would increase dramatically and remain high until the rat was no longer hungry.

Figure two.14 Skinner Box.

Negative reinforcement was too exemplified by Skinner placing rats into an electrified chamber that delivered unpleasant shocks. Levers to cutting the power were placed inside these boxes. By running a electric current through the box, Skinner noticed that the rats, later on accidentally pressing the lever in a frantic bid to escape, quickly learned the effects of the lever and consequently used this knowledge to cease the currents both during and prior to electric stupor. These 2 learned responses are known as escape learning and avoidance learning (Skinner, 1938). The operant bedchamber for pigeons involved a plastic disk in which the pigeon pecked in lodge to open a drawer filled with grain. The Skinner box led to the principle of reinforcement, which is the probability of something occurring based on the consequences of a behaviour.

Research Focus

Applying game incentives such every bit prompts, competition, badges, and rewards to ordinary activities, or gamification, is a growing approach to behaviour modification today. Wellness care has too applied some early innovative uses of gamification — from a Sony PS3 Motility motion controller used to aid children diagnosed with cancer to the launch of Games for Health, the first peer-reviewed journal defended to the research and design of health games and behavioural wellness strategies. Gamification is the process of taking an ordinary activity (similar jogging or car sharing) and calculation game mechanisms to it, including prompts, rewards, leader-boards, and competition between different players.

When used in social marketing and online wellness-promotion campaigns, gamification can be used to encourage a new, healthy behaviour such equally regular practise, improved diet, or completing actions required for treatment. Typically, gamification is web-based, unremarkably with a mobile app or as a micro-site. Behavioural change campaigns require an understanding of human psychology, specifically the benefits and barriers associated with a behaviour. At that place have been several campaigns using gamification techniques that have had remarkable results. For instance, organizations that wanted employees to exercise regularly have installed gyms in their offices and created a custom application that rewards employees for "checking in" to the gyms. Employees can form regionally based teams, check in to workouts, and nautical chart their team'south progress on a leader-board. This has a powerful upshot on creating and sustaining a positive behavioural change.

Like game mechanics have been used in sustainability campaigns aimed at increasing household ecology compliance. Such sites use game mechanics such as points, challenges, and rewards to increase daily "dark-green" habits similar recycling and conserving h2o. Other behavioural modify campaigns that have applied social gaming include using cameras to record speeding cars, which reduce the incidence of speeding, and offering products that allow users to rail their healthy behaviours through the twenty-four hours, including miles travelled, calories burned, and stairs climbed.

Key Takeaways

• Behaviourist psychology should concern itself with the observable behaviour of people and animals, not with unobservable events that accept place in their minds.
• The main influences of behaviourist psychology were Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936), Edward Lee Thorndike (1874-1949), John B. Watson (1878-1958), and B.F. Skinner (1904-1990).
• The idea that nosotros develop responses to certain stimuli that are not naturally occurring is called "classical workout."
• Operant workout refers to how an organism operates on the environs or how it responds to what is presented to it in the environment.
• Reinforcement means to strengthen, and is used in psychology to refer to whatsoever stimulus that strengthens or increases the probability of a specific response.
• In that location are four types of reinforcement: positive, negative, punishment, and extinction.
• Behaviourist researchers used experimental methods (puzzle box, operant workout or Skinner box, Picayune Albert experiment) to investigate learning processes.
• Today, behaviourism is still prominent in applications such equally gamification.

Exercises and Critical Thinking

1. Reflect on your educational feel and try to determine what aspects of behaviourism were employed.
2. Enquiry Skinner'due south other inventions, such every bit the "teaching machine" or the "air crib," and hash out with a group the underlying principles, behavior, and values governing such "machines." Do yous disagree or concur with their use?
3. What might be some other applications for gamification behavioural change strategies? Pattern a campaign or strategy for changing a behaviour of your pick (e.g., wellness, work, addiction, or sustainable exercise).

Image Attributions

Figure 2.12: Operant conditioning diagram by studentne (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Operant_conditioning_diagram.png) used nether CC BY SA 3.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/human activity.en).

Effigy 2.13: Thorndike'southward Puzzle Box. by Jacob Sussman (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Puzzle_box.jpg) is in the public domain.

Figure 2.14 : Skinner box scheme 01 past Andreas1 (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Skinner_box_scheme_01.png) used nether CC BY SA 3.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en).

References

Skinner, B.F. (1938). The behavior of organisms: an experimental analysis. Oxford, England: Appleton-Century.

Skinner, B.F. (1974). About behaviorism. New York, NY: Random House.

Thorndike, Edward Lee. (1898). Animal intelligence. Princeton, NJ: MacMillan.

Thorndike, Edward (1932). The fundamentals of learning. New York, NY: AMS Press Inc.

Watson, J. B. (1913). Psychology as the behaviorist views it. Psychological Review, xx, 158-177.

Watson, J. B., & Rayner, R. (1920). Conditioned emotional reactions. Journal of Experimental Psychology, three, 1-14.

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