Download Behaviorism - WordPress.com

Jared Pieper
Intro to Psychology
Due: 6/13/14
Behaviorism
Behaviorism has been studied by many psychologists and is a very interesting property of the
human psyche. Some of the more famous psychologists that have intensely studied behaviorism include
Ivan Pavlov, BF Skinner, and John Watson. There have been some very helpful studies and experiments
conducted by these brilliant people that will be explained below. Not only does behaviorism help us
understand the mind, it also helps us see what impact the environment can have on our everyday lives,
even when we do not notice it.
Behaviorism emphasizes observable behavior and the role of the environment as a determinant
of that behavior. According to William M. Baum in his work Behaviorism, Private Events, and the Molar
View of Behavior he believes that “understanding behaviorism explains the basis of behavior analysis
and its application to human problems in a scholarly but accessible manner.” Baum also explains how
behaviorism should be viewed, from the perspective of important psychologists he says that “Watson
proposed… that the science of behavior should be a natural science, and Skinner, coining the term
radical behaviorism, similarly asserted that the science of behavior (behavior analysis) is a natural
science.” In contrast to radical behaviorism, methodological behaviorism is define by Jay Moore in his
work On Mentalism, Methodological Behaviorism, and Radical Behaviorism to be “regarded as a set of
experimental practices, together with the variables responsible for such practices … pertaining to how a
psychologist should observe the scientific method while doing psychology.”
Behaviorism became popular first in the 20th century as a way to break away from the excessive
attempts to study the inner mind through examining perceptions, thoughts, and feelings. This became
another very important way to study psychological aspects, which proved to be very useful in
understanding the inner mind. This made psychologists completely reconsider the approach to studying
the mind. John Watson believed that it is too difficult to scientifically study and observe conscious
thinking and inner experiences. He believed it to be more efficient and productive if psychologists
Jared Pieper
Intro to Psychology
Due: 6/13/14
Behaviorism
focused on outward behavior. Behavior is something that is easily measured and observed, making it a
good starting place to dig in to some basic psychological principles. A few very important concepts that
have emerged with and as a result of behaviorism. Classical conditioning, for example is the process by
which a previously neutral stimulus acquires the capacity to draw out a response through association
with a stimulus that already draws out a similar response. BF Skinner’s research showed the effects of
reinforcement and punishment in behavior. Where reinforcement improves or strengthens a response,
punishment weakens the response making a particular behavior less likely to occur. These concepts are
also known as Operant Conditioning.
John Watson was heavily influenced by Ivan Pavlov, the Russian psychologist mentioned above.
He is one of the pioneers in psychology, and also very well known for his famous dog experiment, which
in my opinion shows behaviorism at its finest and makes the concept much more understandable. As
Pavlov was studying dogs in 1979, he noticed something very interesting. He noticed that the dogs
would salivate at the sight of food and also that they would salivate at the sight of the person who fed
them. There was nothing special about these feeders, which made Pavlov curious as to why the dogs
would salivate when seeing them. In order to help him understand this, he developed an experiment to
observe the dogs’ behavior. Every time the dogs were fed, he sounded a tone. After a while, he
observed that the dogs would salivate from only hearing the tone, even when there was no food
presented to the dogs. The reaction to this bell is the reason why behaviorism is often referred to as
“stimulus-response”.
A few years ago, I was serving a mission in Germany for my church. In Germany, and all
throughout Europe, a large percentage of the population smokes. Not only do many people smoke, but
they start smoking at a much younger age and become very addicted by their early adult life. One of our
services was to help these people quit smoking. What is very interesting, is that the program we used to
Jared Pieper
Intro to Psychology
Due: 6/13/14
Behaviorism
help was based on this psychological concept of behaviorism. Essentially, it is a similar situation to
Pavlov’s dogs where instead of a physical desire for food, it was a desire for nicotine. The program
explained how a lot of things become associated with the desire to smoke, just as the dogs associated
the tone to receiving their food. Some of these things for example are eating food right before smoking
or drinking a cup of coffee before. These small behaviors can act as a stimulus which results in the
response of the person wanting to smoke. To simplify, this program used behaviorism in a reverse
manner to avoid those things that would trigger a desire to smoke and replaced it with behaviors that
would not induce the urge. This included drinking grapefruit juice after each meal, or brushing teeth
and using mouthwash. It was very interesting to see how successful this really was. I personally saw
several people quit smoking in only two weeks, because the change in their behavior was significant
enough to avoid the “tones” that created the urge to smoke. It is very apparent how this technique or
concept can be used in many different ways to help improve lives by changing behavior for something
more desirable and/or healthy.
In conclusion, behaviorism provided a new way to approach the study of the inner mind. This
new method of behavior observation provided very concrete measurable results that can be used to
understand the things that aren’t so apparent when trying to study cognitive thinking and conscious
experiences. Thanks to great psychologists, we can now use behaviorism to help us change the way we
live and improve the lives of those we love.
Jared Pieper
Intro to Psychology
Due: 6/13/14
Behaviorism
Sources Cited
William M Baum, Behav Anal (2011, Fall). Behaviorism, Private Events, and the Molar View of Behavior.
Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3211378/
Jay Moore, Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies (Spring, 1981). On Mentalism,
Methodological Behaviorism, and Radical Behaviorism. Retrieved from
http://www.jstor.org/stable/27758972
Daniel L. Schacter, Daniel T. Gilbert, Daniel M.Wegner, (2011). Introducing Psychology