Behaviourism

1. Behaviourism Pavlov, Watson, Skinner

2. Intro • Behaviourism was one of the great intellectual movements of the 20th century and continues to have an effect on the way that we see ourselves and the ways that we deal with people. The term behaviourism was first used by John Watson in a paper written in 1913 in which he outlined a plan for the conduct of Psychology which was to dominate for the next 50 years.

3. Main Assumptions • Psychology as the behaviourist sees it is an objective natural science. • Psychology’s goal should be the prediction and control of behaviour. • It should study only those behaviours that can be observed and measured. • Psychology becomes the science of behaviour rather than the science of minds or mental life.

4. There is no distinction between human and non-human behaviour. Human behaviour is just a more complex form of behaviour than that of other animals. • This being the case, rats, pigeons, cats and dogs can replace humans as experimental subjects. • Behaviourists emphasise the role of environmental factors in influencing behaviour. • This amounts to a focus on learning. The key form of learning is conditioning – both classical and operant. • All Behaviour is reduced to simple Stimulus – Response reactions.

5. Classical Conditioning • Classical Conditioning was first described by Russian psychologist Ivan Pavlov (1927). • Pavlov was investigating the salivatory reflex in dogs, a response which occurs automatically when food is placed on the animals tongue. • Pavlov found that after repeated trials the dog began to pre-empt the food. Producing Saliva before the food was presented. • He termed this Learning By Association

6. Pavlov’s Dog Experiment • Pavlov trained a dog to salivate to the sound of a bell. • By pairing the bell and the food together, he discovered that the Dog learned to associate the bell with getting fed. • The Saliva response is then passed to the Bell stimulus. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=CpoLxEN54ho&feature=related