BEHAVIORISM

2. Behaviorism

Although behaviorism originated with the work of John B. Watson, an American psychologist who carried on the ideas of Pavlov (DeMar), its historical roots exist, in part, in the classical Associationism of the British Empiricists, foremost John Locke (1632-1704) and David Hume (1711-76) (Graham). Watson believed that behavior was measurable and predictable, and in the end it could be manipulated and controlled.

Today, behaviorism is more associated with Skinner and his work with laboratory animals. He agreed with Watson that behavior is conditioned by environment. However, he also felt that humans interacted with the environment to produce results. Classical behaviorism or operant conditioning stresses that behavior is determined by reinforcements provided by the environment.

Watsonian behaviorism attempted to define “life in essentially mechanistic terms” (Bigge, 51). This approach provides very little use in the field of education, however, contemporary behaviorists, including Skinner and Thorndike have developed the ideas of stimulus and response (S-R) conditioning, providing a great deal more that has been used in education.

Thorndike's work, referred to as connectionism, set the basis for stimulus-response theory. Simply stated, learning occurs as the result of associations between stimuli and responses. Desired behavior is encouraged with positive stimuli. Thorndike believed that all learning happened because of external stimuli. Thorndike established four major principles for learning: 1. Learning requires both practice and rewards (laws of effect /exercise) 2. A series of S-R connections can be chained together if they belong to the same action sequence (law of readiness). 3. Transfer of learning occurs because of previously encountered situations. 4. Intelligence is a function of the number of connections learned (http://tip.psychology.org/thorn.html).

S-R theories have allowed behaviorists to explain behavior as a response to the environment, especially when challenged to explain behavior that appears to be purposive (ibid). Behavior that seems to reflect conscious thought or intelligence can be explained as simply a reaction to a need or desire. Using this approach when studying how individuals learn allows the theorist to view learning as a reaction to the environment or an interaction with the environment that can be easily predicated and manipulated.

To Skinner, learning was seen as a change in behavior and that change occurred as a response to stimulus provided to the learner. Basically, behavior is modified with reinforcements in both positive and negative ways. A positive reinforcement would encourage the operant or learner to repeat the behavior, while a negative stimulus discourages repetition. It should be noted that Skinner did not condone negative reinforcement, but he did acknowledge their effectiveness.

Skinner also explained how behavior could be modified using schedules of reinforcement; operant conditioning occurs differently according to the timing and spacing of reinforcements. Skinner's work in this area led to the development of the concept of “shaping”. Shaping “involves first reinforcing a behavior only vaguely similar to the one desired.  Once that is established, you look out for variations that come a little closer to what you want” (Boeree). Ironically, Skinner himself rejected the ideas of learning theories.