Sharee Galbraith

Behaviorism
Behaviorism is primarily concerned with visible behavior, as opposed to internal
events, such as thinking and a persons emotions and feelings. The major influence on
human behavior is learning from our environment. This is a key element in classrooms.
Students need to feel safe and comfortable with the teacher, but still respect the teacher.
He/she needs to be the teacher in the classroom not a friend, while still being
approachable for students. The human race is always learning new behaviors and how to
modify our current behavior to better suit our environment. Sometimes this occurs based
on a need or sometimes a conscious effort in changing a behavior.

Classical Conditioning Theory is the theory of learning a new behavior through a
process of association. Association is an organization of people with a common purpose
and having a formal structure. In classical conditioning, the main point is to address how
stimuli are linked with one another and generate a response in the human or animal. The
three stages to complete classical conditioning are: neutral stimulus, conditioned
stimulus, and conditioned response. Stage one comes before conditioning. The stimulus
in the environment has produced a behavior or response, which is unlearned and is a
natural response that has not been taught. Therefore, no behavior has been taught or
learned. Another step in this process is when the neutral stimulus does not produce a
response until it is paired with the unconditioned stimulus. Stage two of conditioning is
when the stimulus produces no response and is associated with the unconditioned
stimulus. At this point, it is the stage that is distinguished as the conditioned stimulus.
During this step, the unconditioned stimulus is associated with the now conditioned
stimulus. This has taken on many repetitions so that the learning takes place with the
unconditional stimulus becoming the conditioned stimulus. Some instances may occur
when association is not necessary, such as food poisoning or drinking alcohol. If you
receive food poisoning from pizza while out eating one night you may develop the
associating pizza with being sick or puking. The same goes with alcohol and drinking too
much and becoming sick. In stage three, the conditioned stimulus has now been
associated with unconditioned stimulus to create a new conditioned response. A famous
example of classical conditioning is the experiment of Watson and Rayner in 1920 when
they organized the experiment of Little Albert or Ivan Pavlovs dogs.

The father of operant conditioning is Skinner. He based his thoughts and theorys
off of Thorndikes law of effects. Skinner thought that the best way to understand
behavior is looking at the causes of a deed and its consequences; therefore, known as
operant conditioning. Believing that we do have a mind, Skinner thought it was more
productively used to study and observe behaviors than to distribute and internal mental
events. Skinner introduced a new term reinforcement, which is when the reward tends to
be repetitive. Animals were placed in a Skinner Box, so that he conducted experiment
with operant conditioning. Operant conditioning roughly means changing the behavior by
the use of reinforcements, which are given after the desired response. Reptile Gardens in
Rapid City has used the Skinner Box to train some of their animals and is a great regional
example that people can visit.

There are three types of operant conditioning: neutral operant, reinforce, and
punishers. Neutral operant responses are from the environment that neither increases nor
decreases the probability of a behavior being repeated. Reinforcing is when the
environment that increase the probability of a behavior being repeated. This action can
be either positive or negative. A positive reinforcement would be rewarding a child for
doing their homework to increase the chances of their willingness to do future homework.
A negative reinforcement is when something unpleasant is avoided and becomes a
positive reward. Punishing is the response from the environment that decreases the
likelihood of a behavior being repeated. Punishment weakens the behavior. For example:
timeout for a child for hitting or pushing another child or having to lie down for having
bad behavior and throwing a fit.

An example of reinforcement is when Skinner showed positively reinforcing a
hungry rat by training it to press the lever to dispense food. This process is used
effectively in todays society with young children and even some adults. Some examples
are potty training young children, when they go to the bathroom they may receive
something that they enjoy like M&Ms or a Popsicle. Positive reinforcement is used to
help strengthen a desired behavior by rewarding the individual with a positive result for
that individual. Reinforcement could be a very helpful tool in the classroom. If a child is
given a reward for completing the given exercise they will be more likely to keep
repeating this behavior.

The removal of an unpleasant reinforce can also strengthen a behavior this is
known as a negative reinforcement This could be used in the class if a child does not
have their homework done from the previous day. A negative reinforcement could be
that the student may have to stay after school or have to do something they do not enjoy,
doing such as cleaning the board, clean gum off the tables or miss free time to be with
friends. Skinner did this with rats by using an electrical current to cause some distress and
eventually taught them how to avoid the current all together.

Punishment and negative reinforcement occasionally are hard to tell apart from
one another. Punishment is designed to weaken or eliminate an undesired behavior.
Punishment works by directly applying an unpleasant stimulus or by removing a
potentially rewarding stimulus.

In the 1890s a famous Russian physiologist by name of Ivan Pavlov was
performing experiments with dogs. He was focusing on the salivation of the dogs in
response to being fed. When the dogs were fed, he noticed that they would start
salivating. Eventually the dogs would salivate even when he entered the room with no
food present. Pavlov called the way the dogs brain had been rewired an unconditioned
response.

Pavlov started his observation by presenting the dogs with food and measuring the
saliva. Under further observation, the dogs soon associated the assistant with food, as
well as Pavlov when they fed them. Pavlov now found that the dogs had made an
association of food with the assistant and himself. The dogs had to have learned this
behavior, since the assistant was originally a neutral stimulus.

In Pavlovs second experiment, he used a bell as the neutral stimulus. He would
ring the bell and feed the dogs at the same time. After repeating this procedure several
times, he would ring the bell but with no food this time as he rang the bell the dogs began
to salivate. Therefore, associating the bell with food. This meant that the dogs had
learned a new behavior. The response had now been conditioned and could be called the
conditioned response.


McLeod, S. A. (2008). Classical Conditioning. Retrieved from
http://www.simplypsychology.org/classical-conditioning.html - See more at:
http://www.simplypsychology.org/classical-conditioning.html#sthash.qkkIBA33.dpuf

McLeod, S. A. (2007). B.F. Skinner | Operant Conditioning. Retrieved from
http://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html - See more at:
http://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html#sthash.NbqZ6gEN.dpuf


http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/association?s=t