Behaviorism Is An Approach To Psychology. This Is Based

There is also the argument between behaviourists to whether behaviour is learnt better through positive or negative reinforcement. Positive reinforcement is when someone does something correctly and we reward them with a sweet or chocolate. A strength of this is that the individual will repeat the action again, but a limitation is that the individual will expect the reward every time.

Behaviorism is one of the most used theories in education. Due to it can fit in both a classroom setting and at home. Educators had sought out the reason why for many years. But due to each child learns a different way so should the educator. Behaviorism was study by many great Psychologists over the years. Just to name some that had done work and publish books on the subject are, John Watson, Ivan Pavlov, Clark Hull, and B.F. Skinner.

Skinner’s reinforcement experiments conducted on rats showed the principles of operant conditioning. While working with rats, Skinner would place them in a Skinner box with a lever attached to a feeding tube. After multiple trials, rats learned the connection between the lever and food, and started to spend more time in the box procuring food than performing any other action. He used positive reinforcement, and negative reinforcement to produce or inhibit specific target behaviors. Therefore, if a specific behavior is reinforced then the probability of that behavior occurring again is increased. Based on Skinner’s view, this theory can be applied to learning because learning is nothing more than a change in behavior. Operant conditioning encourages positive reinforcement, which can be applied in the classroom environment to get the good behavior you want and need from students. One of the ways of reinforcing a student’s behavior is through praise. Also teachers can build operant conditioning techniques into their lesson plans to teach children possible skills as well as good behaviors. For example: to give a smiley face, or motivational stamps to encourage children to perform correctly and encourage them to repeat such action again.

Behaviorism is a theory that is driven off conditioning or repetition of something. The behaviorism theory might be a good theory for the younger grades because they are still trainable per se. Even though this theory might be great for children in the younger grades that react well to color charts and behavior chart it might have the opposite effect on children that have disorders or mental disabilities as these children do not react well to with just repetition and conditioning. In reading the article “My way or the Highway: Beyond Behaviorism” I found some very eye opening things that show how applying this theory alone is unsuccessful, but when applied with other theories it can be beneficial. Let us take a closer look.

The principle of operant conditioning and reinforcement is to repeat a response to a given stimulus. For the behavior modification to be successful, it is important to select a reinforcement that will strengthen the desired behavior (Rasnake, 1993).

It emphasizes on observable behaviors rather than on unconscious inner states. Behaviorist believe that human behaviors are molded by experience and that we are the result of what we have learned from our environment. The behaviorist approach gives two ways as to how people learn from their environment: classical conditioning and operant conditioning. Classical conditioning is when two stimuli (environmental factors) are linked together to produce a new learned response. Operant conditioning is learning from the consequences of behavior. A lot of the studies in behaviorism consist of controlled experiments as it is believed that behavior can be reduced to learned stimulus-response units. Behaviorism assumes that humans are born with a blank slate and are therefore born equal. They believe that it is environmental factors that make us different as opposed to biological factors. Behaviorist believe that cognitions, emotions, and moods are too subjective and that only observable behaviors should be studied. They believe that any person could be trained to perform any task with the right

Reinforcement schedules rely on the principles of operant conditioning which is a type of associative learning in which a person’s behaviour changes according to consequences associated with that behaviour.

“Behaviorism is predominantly concerned with evident and measurable aspects of human behavior. In defining behaviour, behaviourist-learning theories emphasise changes in behavior that result from stimulus-response links made by the learner. Behaviour is directed by stimuli. An individual selects one response instead

Firstly, the reinforcement is thought to be the most effective method to reinforce a behavior. Reinforcement is the behavior that repeats each time when an award is given (Wood & Boyd, p. 154). Unfortunately, it is an ineffective method because it can lead to extinction, decrease of behavior, when the award is not given anymore. For example, a mother giving her son money every time when he cleans his room is reinforcement. The son will most likely continue this behavior because receiving money increases his behavior to clean; but when his mother stops rewarding him, he stops cleaning his room. Reinforcement is not very effective in this case. The idea behind this myth is to help

John B. Watson coined the term “behaviorism”, or the scientific study of human behavior. Behaviorism is also referred to as behavioral psychology. Behaviorism is a theory of learning based upon the idea that all behaviors are acquired through conditioning, which occurs through interaction with the environment. In addition, Watson proposed the process of classical conditioning, based on Pavlov’s observations, had the ability to explain everything regarding human psychology (McLeod, 2004).

Behaviorism focuses on behaviors and not cognitive or abstract activities. It involves thinking, remembering and problem solving. Additionally, behaviorism relies on expressed, measureable behaviors and the repeat stimuli that cause behaviors. Students respond to the conditions in the environment. Therefore, knowledge is given and absolute. Learning occurs when students are able to provide the proper response to the given stimulus. The methods used by the teacher are the use of instructional cues, reinforcement (both positive and negatively) and practice. When this learning theory is used, the students learn basic skills before moving on to more difficult skills. The role of the teacher in the behaviorism approach is to be the transmitter of the knowledge. He/she is the expert that knows the material. The

According to Eggen and Kauchak (2012) behaviorism is a theory that explains learning in terms of observable behaviors and how they’re influenced by stimuli from the environment. It defines learning as a relatively enduring change in observable behavior that occurs as a result of experience (Schunk,

Reinforcement has to be delivered immediately. Individuals should know the moment when they should expect reinforcement. The individuals offering verbal reinforcement should not wait to the end of the week in order to reinforce someone else for doing something like remaining in their seats for the full duration of the classes during the week. The effect of positive verbal reinforcement is normally diluted, if not lost when we take long periods of time to deliver the verbal reinforcements. If giving verbal reinforcement immediately is not possible, it should be given as soon as the circumstances allow it. When delivered this way, the relationship between verbal reinforcement and behavior will be maintained and strengthened.

The formal method of instilling learning through reinforcement theory is to use a schedule. According to a fixed schedule, a person is rewarded for performing the behavior a specific number of times; according to a continuous ratio schedule, the reward occurs after every behavior, and according to a variable ratio schedule, the reward does not occur with any predictable consistency when the behavior is performed. The advantages of fixed and continuous rewards are that the behavior is more quickly instilled. The advantage of a variable schedule is that the behavior is less quickly extinguished, given the subject anticipates getting a reward for a longer period of time (Noe 2010: 143).

Behaviorism is the point of view where learning and behavior are described and explained in terms