Preview

The School of Thought Known as Behaviorism

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
2342 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The School of Thought Known as Behaviorism
Psychology changed dramatically during the early 20th-century as another school of thought known as behaviorism rose to dominance. Behaviorism was a major change from previous theoretical perspectives, rejecting the emphasis on both the conscious and unconscious mind. Instead, behaviorism strove to make psychology a more scientific discipline by focusing purely on observable behavior.

Behaviorism had it's earliest start with the work of a Russian physiologist named Ivan Pavlov. Pavlov's research on the digestive systems of dogs led to his discovery of the classical conditioning process, which demonstrated that behaviors could be learned via conditioned associations. Pavlov demonstrated that this learning process could be used to make an association between and environmental stimulus and a naturally occurring stimulus. Psychology changed dramatically during the early 20th-century as another school of thought known as behaviorism rose to dominance. Behaviorism was a major change from previous theoretical perspectives, rejecting the emphasis on both the conscious and unconscious mind. Instead, behaviorism strove to make psychology a more scientific discipline by focusing purely on observable behavior.

Behaviorism had it's earliest start with the work of a Russian physiologist named Ivan Pavlov. Pavlov's research on the digestive systems of dogs led to his discovery of the classical conditioning process, which demonstrated that behaviors could be learned via conditioned associations. Pavlov demonstrated that this learning process could be used to make an association between and environmental stimulus and a naturally occurring stimulus.Psychology changed dramatically during the early 20th-century as another school of thought known as behaviorism rose to dominance. Behaviorism was a major change from previous theoretical perspectives, rejecting the emphasis on both the conscious and unconscious mind. Instead, behaviorism strove to make psychology a more scientific

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    Ivan Pavlov was a Russian Physiologist. At the end of the 19th century Pavlov was conducting research into the physiology of digestion in dogs. During an experiment he discovered something very interesting about the dogs’ behaviour and started studying it. He came up with the theory of classical conditioning, which lead on to more research into behaviour.…

    • 1263 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Unit 6 FRQ AP Psychology

    • 420 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Many pioneering researchers have devoted their careers to understanding how we learn. These researchers included Ivan Pavlov, John Watson, John Garcia, B.F. Skinner and Albert Bandura. Ivan Pavlov researched classical conditioning. This is a type of learning in which one learns to link two or more stimuli and anticipate events. Pavlov researched a dog and how it began to salivate at the sight of food, the bowl for the food, the person delivering the food, and even the sound of the person’s approaching footsteps. Pavlov discovered that a neutral stimulus when paired with a natural reflex producing stimulus will begin to produce a learned response. For example at school when the lunch bell begins we begin to salivate. Pavlov’s work laid the foundation for John B. Watson’s ideas. Watson had an idea of behaviorism which said that psychology should be an objective science based on observable behavior. Watson wanted to focus on how organisms respond to stimuli in their environments.…

    • 420 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Behavioural psychology, also known as behaviourism, is a theory of learning based upon the idea that all behaviours are acquired through conditioning. Pavlov with his dog-meat-bell experiment[1 ] showed that behaviour can be conditioned through interaction with the environment. According to behaviourism, behaviour can be studied in a systematic and observable manner with no consideration of…

    • 2480 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The Behaviourist approach derived from the dissatisfaction at the time with the psychoanalytical school of thinking. at the time of Behaviourism is said to be a scientific approach, being based predominantly on observable behaviour and facts – and only crediting these. Behaviour is said to be all that matters.…

    • 916 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Behaviorism became a dominant school of thought during the 1950s. Behaviorism suggests that all behavior can be explained by environmental causes rather than by internal forces. Behaviorism is focused on observable behavior. Theories of learning including classical conditioning and operant conditioning were the focus of a great deal of research.…

    • 269 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Learning Theories

    • 374 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Pavlov’s discovery that dogs would salivate to particular sounds in his laboratory led him to identify a process of learning called classical conditioning. His work had a major influence on the field, particularly on the development of behaviorism. His research also demonstrated techniques of studying reactions to the environment in an objective, scientific method.…

    • 374 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Behaviorism, is the key approach in psychology, is based on the belief that people act the way they do because of conditioning. This means that there is no mental state of the individual and that the learning is based on the environment. It was believed that the way people behavied was because of conditioning. On way of conditioning was operant conditioning and that is “behavior is changed by its consequences” (Friedman, p. 198). This means that by shaping an individual by them knowing if they act a certain way there was a specific consequence for them acting that way. Classical conditioning is where a natural act is paired with a natural reponse. For example, when you walk into a bakery and smell all that fresh bread or pasteries then you immediately become hungry.…

    • 1081 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Behaviorism and Free Will

    • 681 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In his article, J. Moore describes behaviorism as a school in psychology. At first, the definition of it is given and we can find out that behaviorism is a paradigm in psychology, which was popular in the first half of the twentieth century. According to it, psychology should be seen as experimental natural science. The major task of psychologists is to observe people’s behavior, draw conclusions from it and consequently make predictions and try to control people’s will. This paradigm offers ideas about measuring people’s behavior and finding out what is objective. Behaviorism deals primarily with the outer signs of psychological processes, which are always expressed in people’s behavior. At the same time, it does not pay much attention to the internal processes, including emotions and thinking. According to this approach, scholars and researchers can explain these internal events with the help of behavior. It is not necessary to conduct deep analysis for this purpose and study something that you cannot see but can just feel. It is much easier to observe behavior and draw…

    • 681 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Perspectives Paper Psy 310

    • 1409 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Behavioral psychology, also known as behaviorism, is a perspective that became dominant during the early half of the 20th century thanks to prominent thinkers such as B.F. Skinner, and John B. Watson. The basis of behavioral psychology suggests that all behaviors are learned. Conditioning is the process of learning to react to the environment. Many theorists contributed to the theories of classical and operant conditioning, some theorists being Skinner, Watson, and Tolman. Each theorist contributed their own theories proven to impact a part of psychology. Many behaviors have been previously conditioned in the human species by the environment. Skinner, Watson, and Tolman all made their contributions to psychology with theories and proven statistics.…

    • 1409 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Watson defined behaviourism as “a natural science that takes the whole field of human adjustments as its own. It is the business of behaviouristic psychology to predict and control human activity” (Watson J, 2009). There are three different aspects to the perspective of behaviourism, classical conditioning, operant conditioning and social learning theory. Classical conditioning refers to an individual or animal learning through association. Research was carried out in 1909 by Ivan Pavlov. When he experimented on his dogs, they were offered food and saliva production increased. He also noticed something particularly interesting, salivation increased as the researcher opened the door to bring them the food. The dogs had now learnt the link between the door and their reflex response of salivation .Pavlov then added a bell into the equation, every time he fed the dogs he rung the bell, eventually the dogs would salivate to just the sound of the bell ringing. Pavlov had demonstrated classical conditioning through association (Eysenck, 2005).…

    • 1275 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Behavioral Therapy

    • 2240 Words
    • 9 Pages

    Behaviorism originated from the work of an American psychologist John B. Watson. He claimed that psychology wasn 't concerned with the mind or with human consciousness. Rather, psychology would be concerned solely with behaviour. Therefore humans could be studied objectively, just like rats and apes.…

    • 2240 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Behaviorism began with Ivan Pavlov early in the twentieth century. This theory explores the idea that behavior is determined and affected by the environment. For example, you get food poisoning at a restaurant and your behavior towards eating at that restaurant makes your stomach churn just as if you were sick all over again. This is an acquired reaction as a result of getting sick. Behaviorists, such as B.F. Skinner suggested that behavior can simply be understood through acquired reactions and that it is merely a product of the experience, (Kowalski & Weston, 2011).…

    • 783 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Behaviorism, mainly focuses on, how stimuli ( environment ) affects observable responses. Behaviorism is unique because, behaviorists believe in scientific methodology. They also believe that only observable behavior should be studied, being that it could be objectively measured. In the psychoanalytic approach, it is believed that in an unconscious state, there are thoughts, memories, and desires that people lack awareness of, yet these thoughts, memories, and desires have a great impact on one’s behavior.…

    • 904 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    On the other hand, a view which supports this idea of social conditioning is Behaviourism, which assumes our moral actions are carried out as a response to external stimuli. One such person who argues for this is Ivan Pavlov, who believed that humans can be trained to behave in certain ways in certain circumstances. He exemplified this in his experiment with dogs. He used a bell to…

    • 1000 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Classical conditioning became part of a careful study in the early twentieth century, when the Russian psychologist Ivan Pavlov identified it as an important behavioral process. Pavlov started out his research focusing on the process of digestion in dogs. Along his research he noticed that the dogs from his studies often began to salivate when they saw or smelled food but before they even tasted it. Some of the dogs even salivated at sight of the pan where the food was kept, or at the sight of the person who usually brings the food. Pavlov said that the stimuli had somehow became signals for the food itself. The dogs had learned that when the signals were present, food would soon follow. Pavlov quickly recognized the potential importance of his observation and started shifting his research.…

    • 1592 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays