Behaviourists believe the environment controls behaviour, and that humans adapt to the environment and life experiences they encounter. How individuals learn is said to be through experience, developing skills and abilities are as a direct result of the learning experiences encountered. Skinner (1974) argued that learning is caused by the consequences of our actions. This means that people learn to associate actions with the pleasure or discomfort that follows. Skinner believed that learning could be explained using the idea of reinforcement which is referred to as ‘operant conditioning’. This is anything that can make behaviour stronger. Skinners work is used still today in many classroom settings. Students are motivated to complete a task by being promised a reward of some kind. Many times the reward takes the form of praise or a grade. Sometimes it is a token that can be traded in for some desired object; and at other times the reward may be the privilege of engaging in a self-selected activity. However, there are some limitations of using this approach as the overuse and misuse of techniques have been argued by Kohn (1993). Most of the criticisms of the use of reinforcement as a motivational incentive stem from the fact that it represents ‘extrinsic motivation’. That is a learner decides to engage in an activity to earn a reward that is not inherently related to the activity. Kohn suggest that this approach has potentially three dangers:…
“The consequences of an act affect the probability of it 's occurring again.” – B.F. Skinner. This quote relates to the ways of psychology that Skinner used to help shape it and life for the future. Famous for operant conditioning and negative reinforcement Skinner used these tools of thought to find the response and behavior of who or what he was testing. This was a form of behaviorism, which is the theory of learning based on an idea that behaviors are acquired through a way of conditioning. This is which I believe he is one of the most important psychologist of this time. By being rewarded for doing something good has been used all around the world, whether it be pets for doing a trick and later getting a treat. Or when a kid does something bad and is punished for it, he/she then learns to not repeat that action which is an example of operant conditioning. It goes to show how much of an influence this has been in our lives without use knowing.…
Bandura created a theory which supposes that children learn from watching others. They do not need to be taught directly, but will and observe and mimic what those around them are doing. This is a natural process and does not require the coercion of an adult. This way of learning is known as observational learning.…
Interweaving of character relationships is very eminent in the movie. From Molly Ringwald, who played as Claire, portraying a rich-cum-princess girl, to Anthony Michael Hall as Brian who acted as the brain, to Emilio Estevez and Ally Sheedy as, the jock and Goth basket case, respectively, and lastly to Judd Nelson as Bender - the loud, prissy, metal head punk. Other characters in the movie that are worth noting were the "sadistic principal, Paul Gleason, who taunted his students with his loud, bullying yet seemingly tired voice, and the other kids who were always willing to buckle down and dozed on their free day and time in the school library (Barsanti, 1999).…
The movie, “The Breakfast Club,” by John Hughes takes place at a high school in Illinois, where 5 kids have to come in on a Saturday for detention. These kids are all teenagers going through different walks of life, under the responsibility of a “power-hungry” teacher. At the beginning of the movie, the kids start out practically hating all of each other. As the movie progresses, the kids begin to tell their stories, and you begin to know a little bit about each person. You begin to learn why the kids ended up in the detention in the first place and it makes what each think about the other a little different. Firstly, you have Andrew, the jock, who is there because he bullied a former teammate to try and impress his father. He realizes that…
The features of Generation-Xers were efficiently showed in this movie. For most Generation-Xers they were lack of sense of safety and social identity, they were dissatisfied with the government because a lack of trust in leadership, which caused their misleading personality trait. When they watch The Breakfast Club they have to have the same sense of this movie.…
Albert Bandura was a psychologist who came up with what is known as the “Social Cognitive Theory” (“Albert Bandura,” 2015). He believed that two aspects, imitation and operant conditioning, result in social learning. According to Hannum (2005), “Bandura noted that our behavior is changed when we see a person take a specific action and be rewarded for that action”. This is where both operant conditioning and imitation comes in. Operant conditioning is any learning that is established through the use of punishments/behaviors (Cherry, 2015). In order for imitation to be successful, there are elements such as direct and vicarious reinforcements (Lefrancois, 2012, p. 326-327).…
He discusses several theorists and how their theories help children learn, and how teachers manage learning more effectively in the classroom. He talks about behaviourism and how children learn from life experiences. ‘Behaviourist claims that we are what we are, not because of innate intelligence or genetic factors, but solely due to our life experiences’. Potter (cited in Jacques et al 2004:63). Skinner, a pioneer in behaviourism, believed that behaviour could be controlled through ‘conditioning’, the act of rewarding desired behaviour (positive reinforcement) and ignoring undesired behaviour (negative reinforcement). Many of Skinner’s theories branch from his animal experiments, whereby he would reward with food and punish when saw unacceptable…
The Breakfast Club was a movie about five very different characters, Claire, Andrew, Brian, Allison, and John Bender. Claire was a popular girl, Andrew was a wrestler (jock), Brian was intellectually gifted, Allison was a basket case, and John Bender was a rebel. On the outside they seem like very different people, in fact they were all socially opposite, but they also shared so much.…
It is stated in the theory that when the responses that produce a satisfying effect in a particular situation becomes more likely to occur again in the situation but when the response produce discomforting effect it will less likely to occur again. This theory was made when Thorndike was experimenting the reaction of a cat when it is locked in a puzzle box and the only way to open it is the lever that is inside the box. This situation involves not just the location of the cat but also the stimuli just like the hunger or the desire of freedom. When the cat can open the box in the recent trial, the next time it will get inside the box it will recognize and remember the step on how to get away of the box. In this theory Thorndike concluded that once the stimuli and response are associated, the response of the subject is likely to occur even without the stimuli. If the rewards in the experimental stage produces positive effect to the students, the teachers will most likely do it again and have the big possibility that the students will get use to it. In connection to Thorndike’s theory it is possible that when the student was given reward and perform well they will continue to do such without the reward. Further more to that an extrinsic motivation can sometimes be the avenue for the students to develop their…
Skinner believed that learning is influenced by reward and punishment. Behaviour is affected by positive reinforcement. He believed children will repeat experiences that are enjoyable and stay away from those that are not.…
1. The character Allison Reynolds in the film The Breakfast Club exhibits Piaget’s formal operational thinking. The formal operational begins at the age of 12 and continues into adulthood, this stage also involves abstract thinking and moral reasoning. Teenagers are able to understand concepts and ideas on a more thought provoking level, with an emotional connection. Allison exhibits abstract thinking as an artist throughout the film. Although she is depicted as being strange and different, she is truly an abstract thinker. For example, when she draws a picture of an outdoor landscape during detention, she scratches her head to create dandruff to represent snow. Yes it is pretty disgusting, it is a good example of abstract thinking. A person in concrete operational thinking would have simply drawn snow in the picture, instead of creating it as Allison did. Allison also exhibited formal operational thinking during the scene when the students were smoking pot. Allison is the only student who is not seen smoking marijuana, which shows that she was strong in her morals and was able to make the formal operational decision to not participate although the other students were smoking. And lastly Allison uses the fabricated story of her shrink to manipulate Claire into saying that she is a virgin in front of the group.…
It will also help the child to understand that what they are feeling and experiencing in a certain situation is important to the support staff and they would want to help them to improve this. As well as working with the child themselves the support staff could also work with the parents as this will help them to get a better understanding of what their child is going through and it could also be a way of them getting the support they need on how to control the challenging behavior at home and hoe to promote positive behavior. It will also give them a good understanding of why is important for positive reinforcement and to keep praising the child if they do something good, even if its something little such as using the toilet or eating all their dinner. Bandura also argues that it is not just role models and how they behave that effects a child's behavior but also how the world around them effects their behavior. From that quote it would also suggest a way that a child has been bought up could effect their behavior, so linking into banduras theory, if a child sees a parent always in trouble with the law then they would think this is acceptable behavior because their parents are doing so they will then follow in their footsteps. However skinner did not agree with bandura as he believes that people can be reinforced by positive and negative experiences within their environment. However there are new models that have alternative views on how to control challenging behavior, for example one of these would be Lee Canter (1992). He believed that there are five steps to assertive discipline, these…
The Breakfast Club is a gathering of high school students who go to a saturday detention each with a different reason to why they are there. Mr. Vernon gives them a basic task to do while they are in there. They must write an essay about themselves. Every individual has a smart thought of what the other is. Yet, as they argue and speak about reality, they realized they care for eachother more than at first sight.…
One of the theories mentioned in the book that I found to be useful is Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory. Bandura’s research shows that children can learn certain behaviors through observational learning and modelling and do not necessarily need reinforcement in all situations. (Boyd, 2015) For example, if a risk taker in the classroom acts disruptive the teacher with typically give the child some sort of reinforcement or punishment. The other children will take note and not misbehave because they do not want to also receive a punishment. This theory can be useful in understanding the development and behavior of children. If you can shape their decisions through observational learning, you can then reinforce positive behavior and suppress negative…