Behaviorism In Psychology

Principles of Behaviorism

The behaviorist movement began in 1913 when John B. Watson wrote an article entitled Psychology as the behaviorist views it, which set out several underlying assumptions regarding methodology and behavioral analysis:

All behavior is learned from the environment:

One assumption of the learning approach is that all behaviors are learned from the environment. They can be learned through classical conditioning, learning by association, or through operant conditioning, learning by consequences.

Behaviorism emphasizes the role of environmental factors in influencing behavior to the near exclusion of innate or inherited factors. This amounts essentially to a focus on learning. Therefore, when born, our mind is “tabula rasa” (a blank slate).

Classical conditioning refers to learning by association, and involves the conditioning of innate bodily reflexes with new stimuli.

Pavlov’s Experiment

Ivan Pavlov showed that dogs could be classically conditioned to salivate at the sound of a bell if that sound was repeatedly presented while they were given food.

He first presented the dogs with the sound of a bell; they did not salivate so this was a neutral stimulus. Then he presented them with food, they salivated.

The food was an unconditioned stimulus and salivation was an unconditioned (innate) response.

Pavlov then repeatedly presented the dogs with the sound of the bell first and then the food (pairing) after a few repetitions, the dogs salivated when they heard the sound of the bell.

The bell had become the conditioned stimulus and salivation had become the conditioned response.

Examples of classical conditioning applied to real life include:

• taste aversion – using derivations of classical conditioning, it is possible to explain how people develop aversions to particular foods
• learned emotions – such as love for parents, were explained as paired associations with the stimulation they provide
• advertising – we readily associate attractive images with the products they are selling
• phobias – classical conditioning is seen as the mechanism by which – we acquire many of these irrational fears.

Skinner argued that learning is an active process and occurs through operant conditioning. When humans and animals act on and in their environmental consequences, follow these behaviors. 

If the consequences are pleasant, they repeat the behavior, but if the consequences are unpleasant, they do not.

Behavior is the result of stimulus-response:

Psychology should be seen as a science:

Theories need to be supported by empirical data obtained through careful and controlled observation and measurement of behavior. Watson (1913) stated:

“Psychology as a behaviorist views it is a purely objective experimental branch of natural science. Its theoretical goal is … prediction and control.” (p. 158).

The components of a theory should be as simple as possible. Behaviorists propose using operational definitions (defining variables in terms of observable, measurable events).

Behaviorism introduced scientific methods to psychology. Laboratory experiments were used with high control of extraneous variables.

These experiments were replicable, and the data obtained was objective (not influenced by an individual’s judgment or opinion) and measurable. This gave psychology more credibility.

Behaviorism is primarily concerned with observable behavior, as opposed to internal events like thinking and emotion:

The starting point for many behaviorists is a rejection of the introspection (the attempts to “get inside people’s heads”) of the majority of mainstream psychology.

While modern behaviorists often accept the existence of cognitions and emotions, they prefer not to study them as only observable (i.e., external) behavior can be objectively and scientifically measured.

Although theorists of this perspective accept that people have “minds”, they argue that it is never possible to objectively observe people’s thoughts, motives, and meanings – let alone their unconscious yearnings and desires.

Therefore, internal events, such as thinking should be explained through behavioral terms (or eliminated altogether).

There is little difference between the learning that takes place in humans and that in other animals:

There’s no fundamental (qualitative) distinction between human and animal behavior. Therefore, research can be carried out on animals and humans.

The underlying assumption is that to some degree the laws of behavior are the same for all species and that therefore knowledge gained by studying rats, dogs, cats and other animals can be generalized to humans.

Consequently, rats and pigeons became the primary data source for behaviorists, as their environments could be easily controlled.

Types of Behaviorist Theory

Historically, the most significant distinction between versions of behaviorism is that between Watson’s original methodological behaviorism, and forms of behaviorism later inspired by his work, known collectively as neobehaviorism (e.g., radical behaviorism).

John B Watson: Methodological Behaviorism

As proposed by John B. Watson, methodological behaviorism is a school of thought in psychology that maintains that psychologists should study only observable, measurable behaviors and not internal mental processes.

According to Watson, since thoughts, feelings, and desires can’t be observed directly, they should not be part of psychological study.

Watson proposed that behaviors can be studied in a systematic and observable manner with no consideration of internal mental states.

He argued that all behaviors in animals or humans are learned, and the environment shapes behavior.

Watson’s article “Psychology as the behaviorist views it” is often referred to as the “behaviorist manifesto,” in which Watson (1913, p. 158) outlines the principles of all behaviorists:

“Psychology as the behaviorist views it is a purely objective experimental branch of natural science. Its theoretical goal is the prediction and control of behavior. Introspection forms no essential part of its methods, nor is the scientific value of its data dependent upon the readiness with which they lend themselves to interpretation in terms of consciousness.”

In his efforts to get a unitary scheme of animal response, the behaviorist recognizes no dividing line between man and brute.

Man’s behavior, with all of its refinement and complexity, forms only a part of the behaviorist’s total scheme of investigation.

This behavioral perspective laid the groundwork for further behavioral studies like B.F’s. Skinner who introduced the concept of operant conditioning.

Radical Behaviorism

Radical behaviorism was founded by B.F Skinner, who agreed with the assumption of methodological behaviorism that the goal of psychology should be to predict and control behavior.

Radical Behaviorism expands upon earlier forms of behaviorism by incorporating internal events such as thoughts, emotions, and feelings as part of the behavioral process.

Unlike methodological behaviorism, which asserts that only observable behaviors should be studied, radical behaviorism accepts that these internal events occur and influence behavior.

However, it maintains that they should be considered part of the environmental context and are subject to the same laws of learning and adaptation as overt behaviors.

Another important distinction between methodological and radical behaviorism concerns the extent to which environmental factors influence behavior. Watson’s (1913) methodological behaviorism asserts the mind is a tabula rasa (a blank slate) at birth.

In contrast, radical behaviorism accepts the view that organisms are born with innate behaviors and thus recognizes the role of genes and biological components in behavior.

Social Learning

Behaviorism has undergone many transformations since John Watson developed it in the early part of the twentieth century.

One more recent extension of this approach has been the development of social learning theory, which emphasizes the role of plans and expectations in people’s behavior.

Under social learning theory, people were no longer seen as passive victims of the environment, but rather they were seen as self-reflecting and thoughtful.

The theory is often called a bridge between behaviorist and cognitive learning theories because it encompasses attention, memory, and motivation.

Historical Timeline

• Pavlov (1897) published the results of an experiment on conditioning after originally studying digestion in dogs.
• Watson (1913) launches the behavioral school of psychology, publishing an article, Psychology as the behaviorist views it.
• Watson and Rayner (1920) conditioned an orphan called Albert B (aka Little Albert) to fear a white rat.
• Thorndike (1905) formalized the Law of Effect.
• Skinner (1938) wrote The Behavior of Organisms and introduced the concepts of operant conditioning and shaping.
• Clark Hull’s (1943) Principles of Behavior was published.
• B.F. Skinner (1948) published Walden Two, describing a utopian society founded upon behaviorist principles.
• Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior began in 1958.
• Chomsky (1959) published his criticism of Skinner’s behaviorism, “ Review of Verbal Behavior .”
• Bandura (1963) published a book called the Social Leaning Theory and Personality development
  which combines both cognitive and behavioral frameworks.
• B.F. Skinner (1971) published his book, Beyond Freedom and Dignity, where he argues that free will is an illusion.

Applications

Mental health

Behaviorism theorized that abnormal behavior and mental illness stem from faulty learning processes rather than internal conflicts or unconscious forces, as psychoanalysis claimed.

Based on behaviorism, behavior therapy aims to replace maladaptive behaviors with more constructive ones through techniques like systematic desensitization, aversion therapy, and token economies. Systematic desensitization helps phobia patients gradually confront feared objects.

The behaviorist approach has been used in treating phobias. The individual with the phobia is taught relaxation techniques and then makes a hierarchy of fear from the least frightening to the most frightening features of the phobic object.

He then is presented with the stimuli in that order and learns to associate (classical conditioning) the stimuli with a relaxation response. This is counter-conditioning.

Aversion therapy associates unpleasant stimuli with unwanted habits to discourage them. Token economies reinforce desired actions by providing tokens redeemable for rewards.

Education

The implications of classical conditioning in the classroom are less important than those of operant conditioning, but there is still a need for teachers to try to make sure that students associate positive emotional experiences with learning.

If a student associates negative emotional experiences with school, then this can obviously have bad results, such as creating a school phobia.

For example, if a student is bullied at school, they may learn to associate the school with fear. It could also explain why some students show a particular dislike of certain subjects that continue throughout their academic career. This could happen if a teacher humiliates or punishes a student in class.

Addiction

Cue reactivity is the theory that people associate situations (e.g., meeting with friends)/ places (e.g., pub) with the rewarding effects of nicotine, and these cues can trigger a feeling of craving (Carter & Tiffany, 1999).

These factors become smoking-related cues. Prolonged use of nicotine creates an association between these factors and smoking based on classical conditioning.

Nicotine is the unconditioned stimulus (UCS), and the pleasure caused by the sudden increase in dopamine levels is the unconditioned response (UCR). Following this increase, the brain tries to lower the dopamine back to a normal level.

The stimuli that have become associated with nicotine were neutral stimuli (NS) before “learning” took place but they became conditioned stimuli (CS), with repeated pairings. They can produce the conditioned response (CR).

However, if the brain has not received nicotine, the levels of dopamine drop, and the individual experiences withdrawal symptoms therefore is more likely to feel the need to smoke in the presence of the cues that have become associated with the use of nicotine.

Issues & Debates

Critical Evaluation

Behaviorism has experimental support: Pavlov showed that classical conditioning leads to learning by association. Watson and Rayner showed that phobias could be learned through classical conditioning in the “Little Albert” experiment.

An obvious advantage of behaviorism is its ability to define behavior clearly and measure behavior changes. According to the law of parsimony, the fewer assumptions a theory makes, the better and the more credible it is. Therefore, behaviorism looks for simple explanations of human behavior from a scientific standpoint.

Many of the experiments carried out were done on animals; we are different cognitively and physiologically. Humans have different social norms and moral values that mediate the effects of the environment.

Therefore people might behave differently from animals, so the laws and principles derived from these experiments, might apply more to animals than to humans.

Humanism rejects the nomothetic approach of behaviorism as they view humans as being unique and believe humans cannot be compared with animals (who aren’t susceptible to demand characteristics). This is known as an idiographic approach.

In addition, humanism (e.g., Carl Rogers) rejects the scientific method of using experiments to measure and control variables because it creates an artificial environment and has low ecological validity.

Humanistic psychology also assumes that humans have free will (personal agency) to make their own decisions in life and do not follow the deterministic laws of science. 

The behaviorist approach emphasis on single influences on behavior is a simplification of circumstances where behavior is influenced by many factors. When this is acknowledged, it becomes almost impossible to judge the action of any single one.

This over-simplified view of the world has led to the development of ‘pop behaviorism, the view that rewards and punishments can change almost anything. 

Therefore, behaviorism only provides a partial account of human behavior, that which can be objectively viewed. Essential factors like emotions, expectations, and higher-level motivation are not considered or explained. Accepting a behaviorist explanation could prevent further research from other perspectives that could uncover important factors.

For example, the psychodynamic approach (Freud) criticizes behaviorism as it does not consider the unconscious mind’s influence on behavior and instead focuses on externally observable behavior. Freud also rejects the idea that people are born a blank slate (tabula rasa) and states that people are born with instincts (e.g., eros and Thanatos).

Biological psychology states that all behavior has a physical/organic cause. They emphasize the role of nature over nurture. For example, chromosomes and hormones (testosterone) influence our behavior, too, in addition to the environment.

Behaviorism might be seen as underestimating the importance of inborn tendencies. It is clear from research on biological preparedness that the ease with which something is learned is partly due to its links with an organism’s potential survival.

Cognitive psychology states that mediational processes occur between stimulus and response, such as memory, thinking, problem-solving, etc.

Despite these criticisms, behaviorism has made significant contributions to psychology. These include insights into learning, language development, and moral and gender development, which have all been explained in terms of conditioning.

The contribution of behaviorism can be seen in some of its practical applications. Behavior therapy and behavior modification represent one of the major approaches to the treatment of abnormal behavior and are readily used in clinical psychology.

The behaviorist approach has been used in the treatment of phobias, and systematic desensitization.

Many textbooks depict behaviorism as dominating and defining psychology in the mid-20th century, before declining from the late 1950s with the “cognitive revolution.”

However, the empirical basis for claims about behaviorism’s prominence and decline has been limited. Wide-scope claims about behaviorism are often based on small, unrepresentative samples of historical data. This raises the question – to what extent was behaviorism actually dominant in American psychology?

To address this question, Braat et al. (2020) conducted a quantitative bibliometric analysis of 119,278 articles published in American psychology journals from 1920-1970.

They generated cocitation networks, mapping similarities between frequently cited authors, and co-occurrence networks of frequently used title terms, for each decade. This allowed them to examine the structure and development of psychology fields without relying on predefined behavioral/non-behavioral categories.

Key findings:

• In no decade did behaviorist authors belong to the most prominent citation clusters. Even a combined “behaviorist” cluster accounted for max. 28% of highly cited authors.
• The main focus was measuring personality/mental abilities – those clusters were consistently larger than behaviorist ones.
• Between 1920 and 1930, Watson was a prominent author, but behaviorism was a small (19%) slice of psychology. Larger clusters were mental testing and Gestalt psychology.
• From the 1930s, behaviorism split into two clusters, possibly reflecting “classical” vs. “neobehaviorist” approaches. However, the combined behaviorist cluster was still smaller than mental testing and Gestalt clusters.
• The influence of behaviorism did not dramatically decline after 1950. The behaviorist cluster was stable at 28% during the 1940s-60s, and its citation count quadrupled.
• Contrary to narratives, Skinner was not highly cited in the 1950s-60s – he did not dominate behaviorism after WWII.
• Analyses challenge assumptions that behaviorism was the single dominant force in mid-20th-century psychology. The story was more diverse.

However, behaviorist vocabulary became more prominent over time in title term analyses. This suggests behaviorists were influential in shaping psychological research agendas, if not fully dominating the field.

Overall, quantitative analyses provide a richer perspective on the development of behaviorism and 20th-century psychology. Claims that behaviorism “rose and fell” as psychology’s single dominant school appear too simplistic.

Psychology was more multifaceted, with behaviorism as one of several influential but not controlling approaches. The narrative requires reappraisal.

References

Bandura, A., & Walters, R. H. (1963). Social learning and personality development. New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston.

Braat, M., Engelen, J., van Gemert, T., & Verhaegh, S. (2020). The rise and fall of behaviorism: The narrative and the numbers. History of Psychology, 23(3), 252-280.

Carter, B. L., & Tiffany, S. T. (1999). Meta‐analysis of cue‐reactivity in addiction research. Addiction, 94(3), 327-340.

Chomsky, N. (1959). A review of BF Skinner’s Verbal Behavior. Language, 35(1), 26-58.

Holland, J. G. (1978). BEHAVIORISM: PART OF THE PROBLEM OR PART OF THE SOLUTION?  Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 11(1), 163-174.

Hull, C. L. (1943). Principles of behavior: An introduction to behavior theory. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.

Pavlov, I. P. (1897). The work of the digestive glands. London: Griffin.

Skinner, B. F. (1938). The behavior of organisms: An experimental analysis. New York: Appleton-Century.

Skinner, B. F. (1948). Walden two. New York: Macmillan.

Skinner, B. F. (1971). Beyond freedom and dignity. New York: Knopf.

Thorndike, E. L. (1905). The elements of psychology . New York: A. G. Seiler.

Watson, J. B. (1913). Psychology as the behaviorist views it. Psychological Review, 20, 158-178.

Watson, J. B. (1930). Behaviorism (revised edition). University of Chicago Press.

Watson, J. B., & Rayner, R. (1920). Conditioned emotional reactions. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 3, 1, pp. 1–14.