Behaviorism A brief overview… What is behaviorism all about? • Behavioral psychology is the study of external behavior • Behavior is objective and observable, where as what goes on in one’s mind can never really be known or measured (the mind is a “black box”) • Behavior is the response of an organism to stimuli History of Behaviorism • Pavlov (1927), a Russian physiologist discovered classical conditioning in dogs. “Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own special world to bring them up in and I’ll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to be any type of specialist I might select – a doctor, a lawyer, artist…” -Watson 1924 Classical Conditioning • Explains some learning of involuntary emotional and physiological responses. – Dog drooling when it smells food and later when it hears a bell • It’s important for us as teachers to understand since school is often the cause of unintentional learning through classical conditioning, especially anxiety. – Test anxiety conditions us to have general school anxiety Ivan Pavlov's Classical Conditioning Before Conditioning Unconditioned Stimulus Neutral Stimulus Unconditioned Response No Response Ivan Pavlov's Classical Conditioning During Conditioning Unconditioned Neutral Unconditioned Stimulus Stimulus Response Ivan Pavlov's Classical Conditioning After Conditioning Conditioned Conditioned Stimulus Response Examples of Classical Conditioning • Kids who often get strep throat, after much swabbing of their throat, begin to gag as soon as they see the doctor with the swab. • Hearing a teacher, roommate, boyfriend/girlfriend say to you, “We need to talk”. Upon hearing this phrase your stomach “flutters”. • The point is, we learn to associate a stimulus with a response, and eventually our body does this automatically in the presence of the stimulus. Our response is involuntary. Classical Conditioning ….. • Classical conditioning can face “extinction”, where the learning is undone. – This can happen naturally (the dog stops getting meat when music is played) – Or can happen through some type of therapy in the case of severe anxiety reactions • Ex: people who are afraid to fly…. • Remember: Classical conditioning is more than forming an association – it is an involuntary, physiological response Classical Conditioning in the Classroom • Playing soothing music, dimming the lights to calm and relax students • Unintentional classical conditioning: – Test anxiety – Math anxiety – Public speaking anxiety – General school anxiety B.F. Skinner (1904 –1990) • American psychologist - influential from the 1930’s 60’s – developed operant conditioning • Skinner was interested in education – He believed that behavior is sustained by reinforcements or rewards, not by free will. • Famous for the skinner box & the teaching machine • Often worked with pigeons & rats and applied what he learned with these animals to human learning Operant Conditioning (Skinner) • This involves conditioning voluntary, controllable behaviors, not the automatic physiological responses in Classical Conditioning • With Operant Conditioning the Response comes before the Stimulus (the opposite of CC) R S Operant Conditioning • Teachers can deliberately use operant conditioning with their students (training) • How someone reacts to our behaviors determines whether or not we continue the behavior – if we are rewarded for something we will likely do it again - do you do this as a teacher? Skinner’s Operant Conditioning Positive Reinforcement Presence of Pleasant Stimulus Negative Reinforcement Absence of Unpleasant Stimulus Punishment Presence of Unpleasant Stimulus Behavior Increases Behavior Decreases Consequences for Behaviors • Positive Reinforcement – You behave in a certain way that results in a reward, and as a result, you are more likely to repeat that behavior • Negative Reinforcement – You behave in a certain way that results in the removal of something unpleasant, and as a result you are more likely to repeat that behavior (ex: doing a paper early) – In both cases, something happened that you saw as “good” and as a result, you exhibited the behavior more. Consequences for Behaviors • Punishment – A consequence that follows a behavior so that you do the behavior less often in the future. – Punishment can involve adding something (paying a fine, staying after school) or involve removing something you like (losing recess time, leaving your friends) – In both cases, adding something or removing something, you perceive it as “bad” and as a result, you exhibit the behavior less. Differences Between Negative Reinforcement & Punishment • Negative reinforcement: Something unpleasant is removed & as a result you are more likely to do it again – Something happened that was “good” • Punishment: A consequence happens that you don’t like and you are less likely to do it again. The punishment can add something or take something away. – Something happened that was “bad” Shaping New Behaviors • Shaping is a process of reinforcing a series of responses that increasingly resemble the desired final behavior • When a desired behavior occurs rarely or not at all, we use shaping – First reinforce any response that in some way resembles the desired behavior, then one that is closer etc. – Think of animal training or the hyper kid who can’t sit in his chair in class – do things in small steps Critiques of Behaviorism • External rewards may diminish intrinsic motivation –Studies where participants work on an interesting task (ex: puzzles) - experimental group is given a reward when finished while the control group is not. – After initial period, during a non-rewarded time participants are given a choice between continuing to work on the task or switching to another activity. Typical result is that participants in the experimental group spend less time on the activity than the control group. This is taken as indicating that reward reduces intrinsic motivation. Pizza Hut used to give away free pizza to kids who read a certain number of pages. This practice was discontinued as it actually eroded students intrinsic motivation to read! More Critiques … • Behaviorism doesn’t account for anything that isn’t an observable behavior – There has to be more going on than what is observable - doesn’t there? • Behaviorism only accounts for learning through direct experience with the environment (not observational learning) Check yourself… • Can you come up with classroom examples of: – Classical Conditioning (use all the right labels) – Operant Conditioning (again, use all the right labels) – Positive and Negative Reinforcement – Punishment
