Behaviorism

What is behaviorism all

about?
• Behavioral psychology is the study of
external behavior
• Behavior is objective and observable,
where as what goes on in one’s mind can
never really be known or measured (the
mind is a “black box”)
• Behavior is the response of an organism to
stimuli
“Give me a dozen healthy
infants, well-
well-formed, and
my own special world to
bring them up in and I’ll
guarantee to take any
one at random and train
him to be any type of
specialist I might select
– a doctor, a lawyer,
artist…”

-Watson 1924
 B.F. Skinner (1904 –1990)
• American psychologist - influential from the 1930’s -
60’s – developed operant conditioning
• Skinner was interested in education
– He believed that behavior is sustained by
reinforcements or rewards, not by free will.
• Famous for the skinner box & the teaching machine
• Often worked with pigeons
& rats and applied what he learned
with these animals to human learning
 Operant Conditioning (Skinner)

This involves conditioning voluntary, controllable behaviors, not the automatic

physiological responses in Classical Conditioning

With Operant Conditioning the Response comes before the Stimulus (the
opposite of CC)

R S
Skinner’s rat
Operant behavior:
occurs without an
observable external
stimulus

Operates on the
organism’s
environment

The behavior is instrumental in securing a stimulus more

representative of everyday learning.
Skinner’s Operant Conditioning

Positive Presence of Pleasant

Reinforcement Stimulus Behavior
Increases
Negative Absence of Unpleasant
Reinforcement Stimulus

Presence of Behavior
Punishment Unpleasant Stimulus Decreases
Consequences for Behaviors

Positive Reinforcement – You behave in a certain

way that results in a reward, and as a result, you are
more likely to repeat that behavior

Negative Reinforcement – You behave in a certain

way that results in the removal of something
unpleasant, and as a result you are more likely to
repeat that behavior (ex: doing a paper early)

In both cases, something happened that you saw as
“good” and as a result, you exhibited the behavior more.
Limited Effects of
Punishment
Differences Between Negative
Reinforcement & Punishment

Negative reinforcement: Something unpleasant is removed

& as a result you are more likely to do it again

Something happened that was “good”

Punishment: A consequence happens that you don’t like
and you are less likely to do it again. The punishment can
add something or take something away.

Something happened that was “bad”
 Shaping New Behaviors

Shaping is a process of reinforcing a series of responses

that increasingly resemble the desired final behavior

When a desired behavior occurs rarely or not at all, we use
shaping

First reinforce any response that in some way resembles
the desired behavior, then one that is closer etc.

Think of animal training or the hyper kid who can’t sit in
his chair in class – do things in small steps
 Critiques of Behaviorism

• External rewards may diminish intrinsic motivation

–Studies where participants work on an interesting task (ex: puzzles)
- experimental group is given a reward when finished while the
control group is not.

– After initial period, during a non-rewarded time participants are

given a choice between continuing to work on the task or switching
to another activity. Typical result is that participants in the
experimental group spend less time on the activity than the control
group. This is taken as indicating that reward reduces intrinsic
motivation. Pizza Hut used to give away free pizza to kids who read a
certain number of pages. This practice was discontinued as it actually
eroded students intrinsic motivation to read!
 More Critiques …

Behaviorism doesn’t account for anything that isn’t an

observable behavior

There has to be more going on than what is
observable - doesn’t there?

Behaviorism only accounts for learning through direct
experience with the environment (not observational
learning)