The Theory Of Behaviorism Operant Conditioning

Behaviorism is a type of psychology and a theory of learning. Behaviorism mainly involves experimentation and observation. It doesn’t look into internal thoughts like thinking or emotions. What behaviorism believes that people have no free will and our surrounding and our environment determine our behavior. As we release our very first breath to this world, our brain is in a blank state. Which is ready to learn from what surrounds us in our environment. So behaviorism deals with the behavior modification.

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.

Behaviourism is a psychological approach that emphasis on environmental factors influencing observable human behaviour. This approach consists of two main processes: Classical conditioning which means learning things by associating them with something e.g. if you ate Chinese food before and it made you feel queasy and unwell then the next time you see Chinese food you will associate it to that experience you had before. Operant conditioning which means learning things by positive and negative reinforcement and association e.g. when you do well in school and your parents buy you the game you’ve always wanted (positive reinforcement).

One of the most influential members of the behaviorist movement, as well as among psychologists who study human development was B.F. Skinner (Diessner, 2008, p. 134). Skinner was notable for his description of the acquisition of new behavior through the use of reinenforcement and punishment called operant conditioning (Diessner, 2008). Skinner also contributed his behaviorist explanation of language development through his concept of verbal behavior (Diessner, 2008).

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.

Though this theory mainly focuses on Skinner, another theorist named John B. Watson is mentioned. Watson believed that human behavior is the result of specific stimuli that elicited certain responses. His basic idea was that the conclusions about human development should be based on the observation of overt behavior rather than speculation. Watson was also a professor of psychology at Hopkins University and “By the time he left the field for good in the early 1930s, behaviorism had succeeded in taking center stage within American psychology” (Wozniak, 1997).

The situation that I wish to change is my brother chooses to play video games from as soon as he gets home to when he goes to bed and staying up late to do so. This causes him to fall behind on assignments as well as not get enough sleep to where it is difficult for him to get up in the morning. As well as missing classes when he oversleeps. This behavior has been going on for a couple years and has gotten worse within the past couple months. The operant behavior in this situation would be playing video games all night.

Operant conditioning is considered the second learning principle. This type of learning occurs due to the cause-and-effect relationship between a behavior and its consequences. Operant conditioning has a common sense element. When we reward a behavior, it increases. When we punish a behavior, it decreases (Horvath et.al. 2013). Individuals who dislike particular substances have little risk for developing an addiction to those substances. Such dislikes to certain drugs or substances are not uncommon. Some people do not enjoy certain substances so therefore this protects them from developing an addiction simply because those substances are not enjoyable so therefore they are not rewarding (Horvath et. al. 2013), because addiction is considered

Of the five perspectives covered in chapter 2, the Learning perspective would be the most beneficial to a mother trying to teach her child to say “please.” While other perspectives might give more insight into the how and why a child develops in a certain fashion, changing a child’s behavior is best accomplished through operant conditioning.

Behavioral conditioning is used in many studies to train lab animals to perform certain tasks, but studying the concept of behavioral conditioning in itself could be beneficial as well. Behavioral conditioning is known to have associations with dopamine in the brain's reward center, but the exact process is completely figured out. Studying dopamine and DA neuron activity in the brain can provide further clues as to how this process occurs, and allow for the implementation of these results in the future. Understanding the mechanics of behavioral conditioning can provide enough understanding to make training research animals more efficient and effective. On a much larger scale, by understanding the processes that occur when behavior is learned, this knowledge can be used to figure out what exactly should be targeted when figuring out the most effective methods of teaching.

And through this new friendship they might pick up new things or different ways to commit a crime, which is also known as the social learning theory. “Social learning theory is designed to explain how people learn criminal behavior using the psychological principles of operant conditioning” (Walsh, 2015, p. 130). As stated above, the new attachment that a criminal has with his new friends, who are also criminals, will learn new things from these friends. For instance, a burglar that has been sent to prison and after being released he joins a street gang. Upon entering the street gang, the burglar might learn different offenses and how to avoid to get caught by the police. If the criminals do not get caught by the police, then they are going to have better and strong connections with the street gang members (Anderson, 2016).

“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

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,

picked up the wallet and ran away, then Kevin is likely to see this as

operant behavior and because of the emphasis on the response it is called type R and also called operant conditioning. In type R conditioning, the strength of conditioning is shown by response rate, however in Type S conditioning the strength of conditioning is usually determined by the magnitude of the conditioned response. One example I can provide for Type S, on a daily basis, is when I see the mailman entering my building to drop off my mail. I immediately start feeling anxious and sometimes I feel afraid to get the mail, since in past occasions, I have received negative outcomes (career wise) by means of a letter. On another note, and example of how my behavior has been shaped through Type R conditioning is depicted in the following: In the past, I was involved in frequent traffic stops, due to not following or obeying traffic laws. Many times, I would just get a warning, but eventually, I received a traffic citation for rolling a stop sign. From that day forth, and upon receiving my punishment, I decided to be more aware of my driving habits, ensuring that I would not violate any traffic laws. I knew that if I did not change by way of driving (behavior), then I would continue receiving punishment in the form of traffic citations.