Difference Between Behaviourism And Behaviorism

The basic assumption of the behaviourist approach is that all behaviour is learned through experiences a person has in their environment. From this we know that behaviourists are on the side of nature in the “nature vs. nurture” debate. In comparison bio psychologists will be firmly on the side of nurture.

Behaviourists focus on the influence of the environment, they chose not to be concerned with the internal mechanisms that occur inside the organism, they believe that your behaviour depends on what factors are present in the environment at any given time. Another big contributor to this approach is Ivan Pavlov who was made famous for conditioning in which he used dogs in an experiment.

Humanistic perspective is a psychological perspective popularized by Carlo Rogers and Abraham Maslow that emphasizes the human capacity for choice and growth. This perspective offers a very positive viewpoint of human nature and potential. It suggests that we are each responsible for our own happiness and well-being as humans. “The humanistic approach emphasizes the personal worth of the individual, the centrality of human

The humanistic approach states that the self is collected of concepts exclusive to

The behaviourist perspective is an idea that we can understand any type of behaviour by looking at what the person has learner. This includes personality traits such as shyness, confidence, optimism or pessimism. Behaviourist psychologists explain all human behaviour as resulting from experience. Two key psychologists are Pavlov and Skinner, although these two theorists believed that different processes were involved, they both explained all types of behaviour as being the result of learning. This is everything from shyness to aggression and happiness to depression.

In determining a view of who man is and how he develops, it is important to look at the past, present, and future goals to determine how to best help the individual. In Behavioral Theory, a great emphasis is placed on “…understanding reinforcement contingencies operative in an individual’s past”, which then “makes it possible to implement different contingencies in the present and, thus, to change behavior” (Murdock, 2009). This can be very important because many times certain behaviors are learned from a very early age and it will be important of the individual to understand where that behavior stems from in order to make a change. Rational Emotive Behavior Theory “…postulates that humans are a product of both inherited influences and environmental teaching” (Murdock, 2009). This does place some of the human experience on being born a certain way and those things being harder to change. However, it does provide the balance that another portion of the

Humanistic perspective is the approach that suggests that all individuals naturally strive to grow, develop, and be in control of their lives and behavior. This perspective is based on free will where an individual has the ability to make his or her own decisions and is determined to go above and beyond their control. Also, this perspective limits a person from relying on society in how they should act or what they should do with their life. For example, some parents have strict standards and have already planned out their children's’ future for them

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.

Behaviorists seek to understand how environmental responses and simple actions shape our development and decisions. Behaviorists believe that human behavior is learned. This belief gives behaviorists the second title of learning theorists (Berger, 2008).

As one of the oldest theories of personality, behaviourism dates back to Descartes, who introduced the idea of a stimulus and called the person a machine dependent on external events whose soul was the ghost in the machine. Although most theories operate to some degree on the assumption that humans have some sort of free will and are moral thinking entities, behaviourism does not accept that maladaptive characteristics are inherent in a person’s nature. “In the mind of the behaviourist, persons are nothing more than simple mediators between behaviour and the environment” (Skinner, 1993, p 428).

The behaviourist perspective believes in nurture and that all behaviour is learnt from environmental influences and experiences, due to this they reject the idea of free-will. They have a strong belief in scientific methodology and that only observable behaviours should be studied as behaviour can be objectively measured using scientific experiments. There are three keys strands of the behaviourist perspective, Classical conditioning, Operant conditioning, and social learning theory.

This perspective assumes that we all thrive for personality growth, through mental processes and behaviors.. This perspective is different in its methodology compare to the biological approach, and the psychodynamic approach. Both these perspectives assume that human beings are controlled by internal or external forces. There are deterministic in nature. The humanistic perspective, promotes free will, and people can be, whatever, they envision themselves. This perspective was influence by humanists such as Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow, who emphasizes on the importance of individual potentials.

The behaviourist perspective is a scientific approach within psychology which claims that we are blank slates at birth and all human behaviour is learnt.Behaviourism was developed by John Watson in America in the early 1900s, (Cullis, T1999). Behaviourists focus on external conditions, learning and experience

Learning is the relatively permanent change in behavior (Burns, 1995), and can come in the form of observable activities and internal processes. Explanations of what happens when these actions occur are known as learning theories. These theories include behaviorist, cognitivist, humanist, social learning and constructivist. In this essay behaviorist and cognitivists will be described, compared and contrasted in order to truly understand their approache.

A significant piece of several psychological theories in the late nineteenth century was introspection, which is “the examination or observation of one's own mental and emotional processes” (Press, 2013). In retort to this theory behaviorism came about. Behaviorism is predominantly concerned with observable and measurable aspects of human behavior. In other words behaviorism does not look at the biological aspects but it suggests that all behaviors are learned habits and changes in response to the environment. It endeavors to explain how these particular habits are formed. Behaviorism claimed that the causes of behavior was not necessarily found in the complexities of the mind but could be observed in one’s immediate environment, from stimuli that produced, reinforced, and punished certain responses also known later on as conditioning. It wasn’t until the twentieth century that the scientist began to discover the actual systems to learning, thereby laying a foundation for behaviorism. A theorist by the name of Ivan Pavlov was a major contribution to the discovering of significant behavioral theories.