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Who contributed to this perspective? Key theorists in the behavioral approach to learning include Ivan Pavlov, Edward L. Thorndike, John B. Watson, and Burrhus F. Skinner. In the early 1900s, Pavlov's famous experiments with the salivary responses of dogs to a neutral stimulus became the foundation of the behaviorist movement. By the 1940s, Thorndike had expanded behaviorist thinking by postulating that learning is essentially the process of forming and practicing associations between stimuli and responses. Furthermore, such responses could be transferred from one stimulus to another, a process that was first demonstrated by Pavlov's classical conditioning experiments. In his 1948 book Behaviorism, Watson suggested that learning was simply a question of conditioning, that is, stimulating appropriate responses. Pavlov and Thorndike were known as associationists from the association they sought to establish between stimulus (S) and response (R). Through experimentation, they demonstrated the predictability of responses given specific stimuli. Both Pavlov and Thorndike conducted their research on animals. Through this research, they were successful in showing that learning did, in fact, occur through a series of S - R connections. Pavlov's work expanded on this initial S - R theory by pairing unrelated stimuli to achieve a specific response. In his experiments, he began the conditioning process by eliciting a response to a related stimuli. For example, in his famous experiment with dogs, the dogs would salivate (R) in response to the stimulus, food (S). Pavlov then proceeded to ring a bell each time food was served. He thus paired the two unrelated stimuli: the food and the sound of a bell. Soon the dogs would begin to salivate when they heard the bell, whether or not they were presented with the food. Pavlov called this process classical conditioning. John B. Watson applied associationist theory to humans. He, along with James R. Angell, gave the name behaviorism to this school of psychology. One of Watson's most famous experiments was the Albert experiment. Watson successfully conditioned a very young child, Albert B., to respond with fear to anything white and furry. He did this by making a loud noise (S) every time Albert was shown a rat (paired stimulus). Eventually, Albert, who was frightened by the loud noise, became fearful whenever he saw anything resembling a white, furry rat. In Watson's view, Albert learned to be afraid through conditioning. Interestingly, despite Watson's best efforts to decondition the child, Albert was never able to successfully learn to be unafraid. Watson believed that human behavior could be shaped to be anything desired by S - R conditioning. Heredity, cultural and economic background, racial and gender identification—all counted for nothing. He believed that individuals could be programmed to believe and act through the application of behavioristic principles. In Behaviorism, he said,
It was B. F. Skinner who, in the 1960s, took this behavioristic perspective to its logical educational conclusion. He applied the principles of behaviorism to further refine a behaviorist view of learning through the development of his theory of operant conditioning. Skinner defined operants as responses without direct links to stimuli or learned responses. Operant conditioning is the process of modifying behavior through reinforcers that determine the responses or consequences of an action or behavior. Skinner identified four general kinds of reinforcers: positive reinforcers (rewards), negative reinforcers (removal of the stimuli giving rise to the response), punishment (infliction of a painful physical or emotional experience), and extinction (ignoring an undesirable response). Skinner believed that through the careful control of appropriate reinforcers, behavior could be programmed in accordance with the wishes of the programmer. In Skinner's view, learning was indeed the result of a response to stimuli, but he further postulated that a targeted response could be elicited through careful manipulation of reinforcement. He thus defined learning and indeed many cognitive phenomena simply as responses that had been appropriately reinforced. He emphasized the careful timing and intensity of reinforcement as critical factors in eliciting learning. Behaviorism was a dominant learning theory in the 1950s and 1960s. It triggered the creation of a variety of behavioristic educational practices, including behavior modification applied to classroom management and programmed instruction, an instructional technique that is explored more fully later in this chapter. The unifying principle of all of these practices is the emphasis on behavioral changes rather than on any aspect of cognition. Activity Describe classroom situations in which you have seen behaviorist theory implemented. Seeing this theory at work, do you feel you will apply it when you teach? Give examples. Be prepared to share your views. Want to know more? Check out these sites: http://www.sntp.net/behaviorism/motivation.htm http://chiron.valdosta.edu/whuitt/col/behsys/operant.html http://tip.psychology.org/Skinner.html Sources Pavlov, I. P. 1927. Conditioned reflexes. London: Oxford University Press. Skinner, B. F. 1953. Science and human behavior. New York: Macmillan. Skinner, B. F. 1958. Teaching machines. Science, 128, 969 - 977. Skinner, B. F. 1974. About behaviorism. New York: Alfred Knopf. Thorndike, E. L. 1901. Education as science. Psychological Review, VIII. Thorndike, E. L. 1911. Animal intelligence. New York: Macmillan. Watson, J. P. 1962. Behaviorism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
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