According to behaviorism psychology, learning is an observable change in behavior. Behaviorists were of the opinion that we cannot speculate something from what is going on “inside people’s heads”. Therefore, only observable change was regarded as learning. Behaviorism is a learning theory that provides the basis for the idea that all behaviors are acquired through conditioning, while conditioning takes place due to interaction with the environment. Certain types of behaviorism are explained in the underlying paragraphs.
Types of behaviorism
There are two types of behaviorism that are used to explain the formation of behavior.
Methodological Behaviorism
Methodological behaviorism is aligned with Watson’s approach which states that feelings, thoughts, and desires should not be part of psychological studies because they cannot be observed directly. These mental conditions or states and cognitive processes are not added to understand the behavior.
The proposal of Watson was that behaviors should be systematically studied while the internal mental states should be ignored. According to him, humans and animals learn behaviors and environment plays a vital role in shaping of this behavior.
Radical Behaviorism
B.F. Skinner created this radical behaviorism. This behavioral approach says that one’s past and present environment and reinforcements within it can best be utilized in understanding the behavior. So environment influences the behavior either positively or negatively.
Radical behaviorism incorporates feelings, thoughts, and emotions into the behavioral process. These internal states or events are accepted by radical behaviorism as influencing events of behavior. But they should be considered part of the environmental context.
Social learning
Because of various transformations in behaviorism, social learning theory has recently been extended, which stresses the role of plans and expectations in the behavior of people. According to social learning theory, people were observed to be thoughtful and self-reflecting.
Because in social learning theory attention, memory, and motivation are discussed, it is considered a bridge between behaviorism and cognitive learning theories.
Classical conditioning theory
Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov was working on the digestive system of dogs. In the Pavlovian conditioning experiment, he noticed an interesting behavior in the dog. He noticed that when the lab technicians entered the room with the food, the dogs began to salivate even before the food was served.
Pavlovian conditioning realized that the dogs began to salivate because they had come to know that the food was going to be presented to them. That is why the dogs associated the lab technician’s entry into the room with the food.
Classical conditioning theory experiments
Pavlov then conducted a series of experiments with his team of researchers on dogs. In Pavlovian conditioning experiments, the dogs were exposed to sound before receiving the food. He controlled the beginning of sound with food delivery and recorded the amount of saliva produced by dogs.
Initially, the dogs used to start the salivation when they saw the food but after several attempts, the dogs’ salivation started with just listening of the sound. From these experiments Pavlov concluded that the dogs learned to associate the sound with the presentation of food.
According to classical conditioning theory, learning takes place when neutral stimulus such as tone is associated with a stimulus such as food that naturally produces behavior.
So learning according to classical/ Pavlovian conditioning theory takes place through the principle of association and principle of substitution. Due to this association, neutral stimulus such tone/ ring is used to produce a behavior such salivation in this situation.
Stages of Pavloc Experiments:
In classical conditioning theory, the psychologists used specified terms for the identification of stimuli and responses. For example one term “unconditioned stimulus (US)” is says that it triggers some natural occurring response. The second term “unconditioned response (UR)” is used which is the naturally occurring response due to occurring of natural stimulus.
The next term they used in classical conditioning theory is the “Conditioned Stimulus” which is a neutral stimulus and it arouses a similar response as unconditioned stimulus. For example in the experiment of Pavlov, the ringing bell functioned as a conditioned stimulus for dogs and they learned to produce a conditioned response such salivation.
One of the important point raised in classical conditioning theory was that UR and CR are the same actions performed by the dogs such as salivation but the names are different names because they produced by different stimuli. Unconditioned response is produced by unconditioned stimulus while conditioned response is produced by conditioned stimulus.
Operant conditioning theory
This theory of operant conditioning was developed by B. F. Skinner. Operant conditioning theory also called instrumental conditioning. It is a learning theory which states that behavior is influenced by its consequences. A behavior is likely to be repeated which receives reinforcement (rewarded) but if a behavior is punished, it is less likely that it will be repeated.
Skinner developed different things during his development of his theory of operant conditioning. For example he created an operant conditioning chamber called skinner Box. The small animals such rats or pigeons could be kept in it. The box contained a lever, which could be pressed by the animals for receiving the food (reward). Similarly Skinner developed cumulative recorder for the purpose of recording the responses of the animals. This recorder contained a line which could be used for measuring the response rate of the animals.
Types of behaviors in operant conditioning theory
The following two types of behaviors were distinguished by Skinner in his theory of operant conditioning.
Respondent behaviors
These are the automatically occurring behaviors such as pulling hand from hot place etc. these behaviors are not learnt rather they are automatic and involuntary.
Operant behaviors
These behaviors remain under our control. Although these behaviors may occur purposefully or spontaneously, yet the results of these behaviors then decide in the future whether to repeat them or not.
Major concepts of operant conditioning theory
A number of concepts have been introduced by Skinner during development of his theory of operant conditioning. For example he used the term reinforcement and punishment which can affect the behavior of the individuals. These reinforcements and punishments are then split into positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, negative punishment, and positive punishment.
Reinforcements in operant conditioning
Reinforcement is the event the presentation of which increases the likelihood of the behaviors. These increases take place due to reinforcers. Reinforcers are a kind of reward for the repetition of the behavior. The reinforcers are explained below.
Primary reinforcers
The examples of primary reinforcers are food, shelter, and water.
Secondary reinforcers
They are the stimuli which are associated with primary reinforcers.
Generalized reinforcers
They occur when secondary reinforcer combines with reinforcers.
Positive reinforcers
These are the favorable events which are presented after the occurrence of a behavior. For example, the presentation of rewards after performing a positive behavior results in the strengthening of that behavior.
Negative reinforcers:
It involves the removal of undesirable or unfavorable event from the situation after repeating of a positive behavior. The removal of this unfavorable event increases the chances of repetition of that desirable behavior.
Punishment in theory of operant conditioning
Punishment is the presentation of a negatively valued event in a situation. The purpose of presenting this negatively valued event is to decrease the frequency of these undesirable behaviors. There are two kinds of punishments both of which aim to decrease the undesirable behaviors.
Positive punishment
This is also called punishment by application. In this situation, an unfavorable event is presented for the purpose of weakening of negative behavior. For example, when the teacher use spanking for undesirable behavior, this is the example of positive punishment.
Negative punishment
It is also called punishment by removal. This type of punishment occurs when a positively valued event is removed due to the occurrence of a negative behavior. For example if the video game is taken back from the child due to his negative behavior.
Reinforcement schedules in operant conditioning theory
Skinner found that reinforcement is not a simple process. There are a number of factors which affect the speed of learning of new things. In all the process, the time and frequency of reinforcement affects the speed of new learning and modification of old behaviors.
Skinner introduced the following reinforcement schedules which can influence the learning process.
1. Continuous reinforcement schedule
According to this schedule, reinforcement is delivered on every response. There is a chance that learning will take place quickly in this case. But it is possible that extinction may also occur if the reinforcement is stopped.
2. Fixed ratio reinforcement schedule
In this schedule, reinforcement is made after specific number of responses. This may lead to a steady response rate.
3. Fixed interval reinforcement schedule
In this situation, the behaviors are reinforced after a certain interval of time. The rate of response remains steady but when the time of reinforcement approaches, the response rate increases.
4. Variable ratio reinforcement schedule
In this schedule, the behavior is reinforced after varied number of responses. This schedule increases the response rate and slows down the extinction rates.
5. Variable interval reinforcement schedule
In this schedule, the behaviors are reinforced after variable amount of time. This results in faster response rate and slows down the extinction rate.
Social learning theory and behaviorism
Bothe the theories stem from similar ideas. Social learning theory and behaviorism both agree that outside affects the behavior of the individuals. But social learning goes further and state that behavior is also affected by internal psychological processes.
The argument of social learning theory is that it suggests that behavior is complicated instead of only stimulus response mechanism. According to social learning theory, students use observation for learning a behavior and also consciously imitating that behavior. Additionally emotions such as peer pressure and desire for fitting in also affect the behavior.