Psychology of Behaviorism

Behaviorism is a school of thought in psychology that emphasizes that observable behavior should be the primary focus of investigation. It emerged in the early 20th century as a reaction to the prevailing introspective methods of psychology at the time.

According to behaviorists, the key to understanding human behavior lies in observing how individuals respond to their environment. They believe that organisms learn and shape behavior through a process called conditioning, which involves the association of stimuli with specific responses. Behaviorism has made significant contributions to various fields, including education, therapy, and even animal training. Therapists and counselors have used the behavioristic principles to design effective teaching strategies, helping individuals overcome phobias and addictions, and train animals for various purposes.

History of Behaviorism

Early concepts of conditioning emerged in the nineteenth century. Earlier research by Edward Thorndike (1874-1949), who pioneered the law of effect in the late nineteenth century, involved the use of consequences to strengthen or weaken behavior. He was concerned with how success and failure impacted future behaviors. Basically, he was interested in the operant conditioning of consequences. Thorndike referred to it as trial-and-error learning. However, Thorndike viewed cognitive antecedents as the ultimate causes of behavior (Pierce and Cheney, 2017).

Contemporary behavior analysis is based on ideas of Russian scientist Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (1849-1936). He discovered the conditioned reflex with his famous studies with dogs, occurring at the turn of the 20th century. John B. Watson incorporated Pavlov’s conditioned reflex research into a more general theory of behavior. Watson’s work and writing marks the officials beginning of behaviorism.

John Broadus Watson (1878-1958)

While Watson’s theory and research drew from the likes of Thorndike, he stripped behavior of all mental activities. Watson proclaimed that consciousness “is neither a definable or usable concept; that it is merely another word for the ‘soul’ of more ancient times.” He explained that behaviorism could no longer be “content with working with intangibles and unapproachables” (Watson, 1924).

We refer to Watson’s brand of behaviorism as methodological behaviorism. In methodological behaviorism, the scientist drops all mentalism concepts such as “sensation, perception, image, desire, purpose, and even thinking and emotions” as subjectively defined. Methodological behaviorism is the pure work with observable behaviors.

Watson explains that “it is the business of behavioristic psychology to be able to predict and to control human activity” (Watson, 1924). According to Watson, “everything we have been in the habit of calling ‘instinct’ today is a result largely of training.” He posits that humans possess no “mental traits, dispositions, or tendencies” at birth.

Watson is famously known for proclaiming that “give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I’ll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select—doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief, and yes, even a beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors” (Watson, 2024. Kindle location 1,451).

Little Albert

Watson is infamously known for his fear conditioning of little Albert, the child of one of the nurses working at Harriet Lane Hospital, where Watson conducted his conditioning experiments. When little Albert was three years old, Watson and his colleagues conditioned fear in the child by combining the stimulus of a friendly white rat and a loud noise. Everytime the child reached for the rat, the researchers struck a mental bar, producing a loud noise. Soon, little Albert was afraid of the rodent without any simultaneous stimuli being added.

B.F. Skinner (1904-1990)

One of the most influential figures in behaviorism is B.F. Skinner, who developed the concept of operant conditioning. Skinner proposed that behavior can be modified through positive or negative reinforcement, as well as punishment. Through shaping and reinforcement, individuals can acquire new behaviors and eliminate unwanted ones.

While Skinner largely accepted much of Watson’s theoretical concepts of conditioning, stimulus and response, and stimulus substitution. However, Skinner did not rigidly reject all the inner workings of the mind. He softened Watson’s hardline approach and introduced what he referred to as radical behaviorism.

Skinner acknowledges mental operations occur. We perceive and interpret outer environments. However, he posts that these psychic operations were not magical. They were conditioned operations following basic behavioristic principles of contingency reinforcement.

Radical Behaviorism

Skinner describes radical behaviorism as providing balance between Watson’s methodological approach and mentalistic psychologies.

Skinner did not reject all inner experience as nonsensical mysticism as Watson did. he explained that “what is felt or introspectively observed is not some non-physical world of consciousness, mind, or mental life but the observer’s own body” (Skinner, 1974). While Skinner agreed that these self-observations were not measurable, he suggested that they have value, providing practical usefulness. The self-observations provided clues:

• to past behavior and the conditions affecting it,
• to current behavior and the conditions affecting it, and
• to conditions related to future behaviors (Skinner, 1974. p. 35).

Biology and Environment

Skinner significantly departed from Watson in including biological forces and inheritances as contributors to behavior. He suggests that environment and biology contribute to behavior. He taught that “to the extent that either can be changed, behavior can be changed.” Skinner remarkably acknowledged the complex inner workings of the brain as important to the psychology of behavior. He predicts that “new instruments and methods will continue to be devised, and we shall eventually know much more about the kinds of physiological processes, chemical or electrical, which take place when a person behaves” (Skinner, 1974. p. 236).

Based on Skinner’s take on complexity of heredity and environmental interaction he thought that Watson’s remark about taking any child “at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select—doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief, and yes, even a beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors” was careless and irresponsible.

Observation of Behavior

A fundamental element of behaviorism is that research and evaluation is primarily accomplished through the observation of behavior. “Behavior theory states that all behavior is due to a complex interaction between genetic influence and environmental experience. The theory is based on observation and controlled experimentation, and it provides a natural-science account of the learning and behavior of organisms, including humans” (Pierce and Cheney, 2017).

Watson explains that behaviorist limit themselves “to things that can be observed, and formulate laws concerning those things” (Watson, 2024). Pierce and Cheney explain “behavior analysis is a comprehensive approach to the study of the behavior of organisms. Primary objectives are the discovery of principles and laws that govern behavior, the extension of these principles across species, and the development of an applied technology for the management of behavior” (Pierce and Cheney, 2017).

From these observations and understanding of the laws governing behavior, a researcher and therapist can both predict and change behavior of the organism. Or as Skinner puts it, to the extent that biology or environment “can be changed, behavior can be changed.”

One primary method for observing behavior is through watching other species in their own environments. These observations contribute to the understanding of human behavior.

See Comparative Psychology for more on this topic

Stimulus-Response

A primary concept in behaviorism is the stimulus response pattern of biological organisms reacting to their environments. This concept explains how individuals, including humans and animals, respond to various stimuli in their surroundings. According to behaviorism, these responses are not predetermined or based on internal factors, but rather shaped by the external environment.

The stimulus response pattern implies that when an organism encounters a stimulus, it will elicit a response. This response can be a specific behavior, an emotional reaction, or even a physiological change. For example, when a dog hears the sound of a doorbell (stimulus), it may exhibit excitement and start barking (response). Similarly, when a person feels pain from touching a hot stove (stimulus), they instinctively withdraw their hand (response).

Overall, the stimulus-response pattern is a fundamental concept in behaviorism that helps us understand how organisms interact with their environment. By studying these patterns, researchers and psychologists can gain insights into the underlying mechanisms of behavior and develop interventions to modify or shape behavior for various purposes, such as education, therapy, and training.

Simulus

We are constantly surrounded by elements in the environment or internally within our own bodies. These elements are referred to as stimuluses. Watson explains that “by stimulus we mean any object in the general environment or any change in the tissues themselves due to the physiological condition of the animal” (Watson, 1924).

Stimulus is the initiating circumstances in the environment that produces a reaction in the perceiver of those circumstances. A stimulus is the initiating event in a chain of events that leads to a response.

Response

The response is the reaction to the stimulus. Watson explains, “by response we mean anything the animal does—such as turning towards or away from a light, jumping at a sound, (and more highly organized activities such as building a skyscraper, drawing plans, having babies, writing books, and the like)” (Watson, 1924).

Skinner explains, “A part of the environment entered the body, was transformed there, perhaps was stored, and eventually emerged as a response” (Skinner, 1974). Watson explains that “now the organism does something when it is assailed by stimuli. It responds. It moves. The response may be so slight that it can be observed only by the use of instruments” (Watson, 1924). Basically, some stimuli are not significant enough to motivate large muscle movement. However, our bodies still react is some small way.

The third element in this chain is consequence. Basically, a stimulus occurs, the organism responds, and the response creates a consequences. Depending on the nature of the consequences, an organism may repeat it under similar circumstances in the future, or avoid the same response to similar conditions if the consequences were painful or undesirable.

Conditioning in Behaviorism

Conditioning refers to the process of learning through associations between stimuli, responses, and consequences. It is a fundamental concept that helps explain how organisms acquire new behaviors or modify existing ones. There are two main types of conditioning: classical conditioning and operant conditioning.

Behaviorists believe that we learn all behavior through conditioning, which can be either classical conditioning or operant conditioning. In classical conditioning, we acquire behaviors through associations between stimuli, while in operant conditioning, consequences such as rewards and punishments shape our behaviors.

The influential behaviorist Skinner believed that behavior could be understood and controlled through the careful manipulation of environmental factors. Skinner explains, “the environment affects an organism after, as well as before, it responds. To stimulus and response we add consequence, and it is not just a third term in a sequence.” He continues, “the occasion upon which behavior occurs, the behavior itself, and its consequences are interrelated in the contingencies of reinforcement” (Skinner, 1974). These contingencies of reinforcement can be manipulated to change behaviors.

Skinner expounds on the topic, “a response reinforced upon a given occasion is most likely to occur on a very similar occasion, but because of a process called generalization it may appear on occasions sharing only some of the same properties” (Skinner, 1974).

Classical Conditioning

Classical conditioning, also known as Pavlovian conditioning, is a fundamental concept in psychology that explores the association between a neutral stimulus and a naturally occurring stimulus to elicit a response. Pavlov famously demonstrated by in his groundbreaking experiments with dogs.

In Pavlov’s experiments, he initially presented a neutral stimulus, which was the sound of a bell. This bell had no inherent connection to the dogs’ natural response of salivating. However, Pavlov paired the sound of the bell with the presentation of food, which naturally caused the dogs to salivate. Over time, through repeated pairings of the bell and the food, the dogs began to form an association between the two stimuli.

As the experiments progressed, Pavlov discovered that something fascinating had occurred. Eventually, when Pavlov rang the bell alone, without presenting any food, the dogs still exhibited the response of salivating. This indicated that the dogs had formed a conditioned response, associating the sound of the bell with the expectation of food.

The significance of Pavlov’s experiments extends far beyond its application to dogs. Classical conditioning is a universal process that we can observe in human behavior as well. For example, think about a person who has a fear of dogs. If, during their childhood, they had a traumatic experience with a dog (the naturally occurring stimulus), they might develop a conditioned response of fear towards any neutral stimulus associated with dogs, such as the sound of barking or the sight of a leash.

Pavlov’s dog experiments remain a cornerstone of psychological research, illustrating the power of classical conditioning to shape behavior and learning. They serve as a constant reminder of how the simplest of stimuli can have a profound impact on our responses and highlight the intricate workings of the human mind.

Stimulus Substitution

A core concept of classical conditioning is that the conditioning creates a substitution for the original stimulus that elicits the unlearned behavior (salivation). We experience this all the time. An element in the environment may incite a fear reaction. A soft knock at our front door late at night may create a chain reaction of physiological changes (increased heart rate, heightened blood pressure, shallow breathing, and tightened muscles). Our physical reactions are unlearned. However, the stimulus of a knock at the door is a stimulus substitution.

A baby responds to very little stimuli. However, as we grow, because of stimulus substitution, we accumulate an ever-growing list of stimuli that sets physiological reactions into motion. Most reactions of an adult are learned responses. Basically, a reaction to stimulus substitution. We react to stimuli in the environment that would not impact an infant or a child.

The slight sound of a car engine may cause me to freeze before stepping into the street, while my two year-old grandson’s movements are undeterred.

Operant Conditioning

Operant conditioning, often contrasted with classical conditioning, represents a key aspect of behavioral psychology. It revolves around the concept of how consequences, rather than stimuli substitution, can shape and modify behaviors. In essence, operant conditioning focuses on the association between behaviors and their outcomes, be it positive or negative. This crucial learning process involves the use of reinforcement and punishment to strengthen or weaken certain behaviors.

Skinner made significant contributions to this field. Skinner’s innovative invention, the Skinner box, played a pivotal role in his research. This device, essentially a controlled environment for studying animal behavior, allowed him to explore the intricacies of operant conditioning in great detail.

Reinforcement and Punishment

Operant conditioning employs the use of reinforcement and punishment to influence behavior. Reinforcement refers to the process of increasing the likelihood of a behavior occurring again, while punishment aims to decrease the frequency of a particular behavior. Reinforcement can take various forms, including rewards, praise, or positive outcomes, that serve as an incentive for the desired behavior. On the other hand, punishment can involve the imposition of aversive consequences or the removal of pleasant stimuli, discouraging the unwanted behavior.

Through the process of operant conditioning, organisms acquire or suppress certain behaviors based on the consequences they experience. By associating their actions with either positive or negative outcomes, individuals learn to adjust their behavior accordingly. We can observe this dynamic process of learning in various contexts, ranging from simple tasks to complex, long-term behavioral patterns.

In summary, operant conditioning, with its emphasis on the relationship between behaviors and their consequences, offers valuable insights into how organisms learn and alter behaviors. Through the use of reinforcement and punishment, individuals can shape and modify their own behavior, as well as that of others. B.F. Skinner’s contributions and his exploration of operant conditioning using the Skinner box have been instrumental in advancing our understanding of this fascinating psychological phenomenon.

Criticism of Behaviorism

Empirical evidence strongly supports behaviorism. Research supports the behaviorists’ theories of learning. However, behaviorism has also faced criticism. Critics argue that focusing solely on observable behavior overlooks important aspects of human cognition and consciousness. Much of the critics aim their objections at Watson’s methodological concepts, since Skinner has reintroduced the role of brain processes in the outward expressions of behavioral responses to stimuli.

For over a decade, I held reservations to the behavioristic view of behavior because of Watson’s flippant remarks and arrogance. Like many of us commonly do, I generalized Watson’s views, attributing them to the entirety of the field of behaviorism. When early in my psychological studies, I heard that Skinner still held to behaviorism, the news astonished me. However, at the time, I pictured behaviorism as methodological behaviorism. Skinner was holding to his concepts of radical behaviorism which surprisingly align closely with my own beliefs.

Still, even Skinner’s radical behaviorism draws criticism. Friendly terms of freewill and self-determination come into question under the view of any science of behaviorism. These concepts are difficult for us to let go of in our complex narratives of self and autonomy.

Despite the criticisms, behaviorism continues to be influential in contemporary psychology and has paved the way for further developments in understanding human behavior. It has laid the foundation for behavior therapy, cognitive-behavioral approaches, and other branches of psychology that explore the complex interplay between thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.

In conclusion, behaviorism is a psychological perspective that places great emphasis on the study of observable behavior and its environmental influences. While it has its limitations, it has played a crucial role in shaping our understanding of human behavior and has had practical applications in various fields.

Last Update: February 27, 2024

References:

Pierce, W. David; Cheney, Carl D. (2017). Behavior Analysis and Learning: A Biobehavioral Approach. Routledge; 6th edition.

Skinner, B.F. (1974/2011). About Behaviorism. Vintage; 1st edition.

Watson. John B. (1924/2012). Behaviorism. Forgotten Books.

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