2.4: Behaviorism- Pavlov, Watson, and Skinner

While Freud and Erikson looked at what was going on in the mind, behaviorism rejected any reference to mind and viewed overt and observable behavior as the proper subject matter of psychology. Through the scientific study of behavior, it was hoped that laws of learning could be derived that would promote the prediction and control of behavior.[1]

Ivan Pavlov and Classical Conditioning

Ivan Pavlov (1880-1937) was a Russian physiologist interested in studying digestion. While recording the amount of salivation his laboratory dogs produced as they ate, he noticed that they actually began to salivate before the food arrived as the researcher walked down the hall and toward the cage. “This,” he thought, “is not natural!” One would expect a dog to automatically salivate when food hit their palate, but BEFORE the food comes? Of course, what had happened was . . . you tell me. That’s right! The dogs knew that the food was coming because they had learned to associate the footsteps with the food. The key word here is “learned”. A learned response is called a “conditioned” response.

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Ivan Pavlov.[2]

Pavlov began to experiment with this concept of classical conditioning. He began to ring a bell, for instance, prior to introducing the food. Sure enough, after making this connection several times, the dogs could be made to salivate to the sound of a bell. Once the bell had become an event to which the dogs had learned to salivate, it (the sound of the bell) was called a conditioned stimulus. The act of salivating to a bell was a response that had also been learned, now termed in Pavlov’s jargon, a conditioned response. Notice that the response, salivation, is the same whether it is conditioned or unconditioned (unlearned or natural). What changed is the stimulus to which the dog salivates. One is natural (unconditioned - the food) and one is learned (conditioned - sound of the bell).

Let’s think about how classical conditioning is used on us. One of the most widespread applications of classical conditioning principles was brought to us by the psychologist, John B. Watson.

John B. Watson

John B. Watson (1878-1958) believed that most of our fears and other emotional responses are classically conditioned. He had gained a good deal of popularity in the 1920s with his expert advice on parenting offered to the public.

Figure \(\PageIndex{2}\): John B. Watson.[3]

He tried to demonstrate the power of classical conditioning with his famous experiment with an 11 month old boy named “Little Albert”. Watson sat Albert down and introduced a variety of seemingly scary objects to him: a burning piece of newspaper, a white rat, etc. But Albert remained curious and reached for all of these things. Watson knew that one of our only inborn fears is the fear of loud noises so he proceeded to make a loud noise each time he introduced one of Albert’s favorites, a white rat. After hearing the loud noise several times paired with the rat, Albert soon came to fear the rat and began to cry when it was introduced. Watson filmed this experiment for posterity and used it to demonstrate that he could help parents achieve any outcomes they desired, if they would only follow his advice. Watson wrote columns in newspapers and in magazines and gained a lot of popularity among parents eager to apply science to household order.

B.F. Skinner and Operant Conditioning

Operant conditioning, on the other hand, looks at the way the consequences of a behavior increase or decrease the likelihood of a behavior occurring again. B. F. Skinner (1904-1990), who brought us the principles of operant conditioning, suggested that reinforcement is a more effective means of encouraging a behavior than is criticism or punishment. By focusing on strengthening desirable behavior, we have a greater impact than if we emphasize what is undesirable. Reinforcement is anything that an organism desires and is motivated to obtain.

Figure \(\PageIndex{3}\): B. F. Skinner.[4]

A reinforcer is something that encourages or promotes a behavior. Some things are natural rewards. They are considered intrinsic or primary because their value is easily understood. Think of what kinds of things babies or animals such as puppies find rewarding.

Extrinsic or secondary reinforcers are things that have a value not immediately understood. Their value is indirect. They can be traded in for what is ultimately desired.

The use of positive reinforcement involves adding something to a situation in order to encourage a behavior. For example, if I give a child a cookie for cleaning a room, the addition of the cookie makes cleaning more likely in the future. Think of ways in which you positively reinforce others.

Negative reinforcement occurs when taking something unpleasant away from a situation encourages behavior. For example, I have an alarm clock that makes a very unpleasant, loud sound when it goes off in the morning. As a result, I get up and turn it off. By removing the noise, I am reinforced for getting up. My getting up increases in order to avoid or escape that noxious sound.

Punishment is an effort to stop a behavior. It means to follow an action with something unpleasant or painful. Punishment is often less effective than reinforcement for several reasons. It doesn’t indicate the desired behavior, it may result in suppressing rather than stopping a behavior, (in other words, the person may not do what is being punished when you’re around, but may do it often when you leave), and a focus on punishment can result in not noticing when the person does well.

Figure \(\PageIndex{4}\): Operant conditioning with a laboratory rat. This rat in its cage will learn to press the lever (operant behavior) in order to obtain a food pellet (positive reinforcement). That the bottom of the cage is an electrified grid can be used as a negative reinforcer - teaching the rat to increase jumping to avoid getting an electrical shock; or as a punishment by teaching the rat to stop pressing the lever so that the shock stops. (Anna Leon, West Hills Community College, Children’s Development: Prenatal through Adolescent Development, CC BY 4.0)

Evaluation of the theory

As you might have noticed the tenets of behaviorism are completely different from those of Freudian theory. In fact, Behaviorism was born out of a desire to make psychology a “science” just like chemistry or physics. To that end, Behaviorists conducted a lot of research on their ideas and much of this research was done with cats, dogs, pigeons and rats. In fact, many current animal paradigms in biological research are based on the ideas of reward, punishment and conditioning that Behaviorism espoused.

However, even a cursory reading of these theories might make it clear that even though Behaviorism overcomes the most damaging criticism of Psychodynamism – and bases all ideas on empirical observation, swinging to that other extreme exclusively, results in other problems. The original behaviorists believed that all we should be concerned with is “observable” behavior and that anything that cannot be observed – dreams, motivations, thoughts, and so on – is not worthy of scientific examination. They also believed that all human experience can be explained by the principles of operant and classical conditioning.

The other criticism of the learning perspective (including social learning) comes from its failure to explain some major developmental issues like gender development and language development. These areas of psychology need an understanding of biology and cognition in order to explain their development.

Main Points about Behaviorism

• Behaviorists look at observable behavior and how it can be predicted and controlled.
• Pavlov experimented with classical conditioning, the process of conditioning a response to stimulus (the dog’s salivating to the bell).
• Watson offered advice to parents to show them how classical conditioning can be used. His most famous experiment was conditioning Little Albert to fear a white rat.
• Skinner believed that reinforcing behavior is the most effective way of increasing desirable behavior. This is called operant conditioning.

Attributions:

Child Growth and Development by Jennifer Paris, Antoinette Ricardo, and Dawn Rymond, 2019, is licensed under CC BY 4.0

Anna Leon, West Hills Community College, Children’s Development: Prenatal through Adolescent Development, CC BY 4.0

[1] History of Psychology by David B. Baker and Heather Sperry is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

[2] Image is in the public domain

[3] Image is in the public domain

[4] Image is in the public domain