por What is behaviorism?
He behaviorism It is one of the main currents of psychology in the 20th century, along with Psychoanalysis, Gestalt and Cognitivism, among others.
According to behaviorism, psychology should focus only on the study of objectively observable and measurable phenomena in the individual. That is, behavior: expression through the body and language.
Behaviorism affirms that feelings, motivations or consciousness are phenomena from which no properly scientific knowledge can be obtained, since they cannot be observed or subjected to experimentation.
Characteristics of behaviorism
1- Applies to human behavior the methods of the natural sciences.
2- Limits the field of study of psychology to observable behaviors and susceptible to being subjected to experimentation.
3- Does not categorically deny the existence of emotions, feelings, motivations and other phenomena of the inner world of individuals; it simply excludes them from scientific investigation.
4- For behaviorism, knowledge in psychology consists, first of all, in the identification of the objective factors that participate in the psychological activity of the individual; and second, in explaining how these factors affect behavior.
History of behaviorism
Broadly speaking, it can be divided into three stages:
The birth
It is considered that behaviorism was born in 1913, with the publication of the article Psychology as the behaviorist sees itsigned by the American psychologist John Watson.
In that text Watson exposed the principles of the new psychological philosophy: the radical rejection of the subjective, of the idea of the mind and mental processes, and of introspection. Watson’s goal was for psychology to be recognized as one of the natural sciences.
During this stage, behaviorism also received important contributions from the Russian physiologist Iván Pavlov and the American psychologist Edward Thorndike.
The development
By the 1930s, behaviorism had already seduced some of the great scientific minds of the time.
Then began the development of the great behavioral theories, the most important of which was the radical behaviorism of BF Skinner.
This American psychologist set out to take Watson’s positions to their ultimate consequences, which led him to affirm that consciousness and freedom are only illusions, since the behavior of human beings is based exclusively on responses to stimuli from the physical world.
Crisis
Since the mid-50s, behaviorism began to receive serious questions from two fronts: internal and external.
Internally, it was thought that behaviorism had not followed with sufficient rigor the objective methodology on which it claimed to be based, so that the results of its investigations were defective.
From the external front, behaviorism was perceived more and more as an intransigent philosophy, clinging to its own limits, unable to recognize its inadequacy to fully understand human psychology, of which feelings and mental processes constitute a certain reality.
Present
Among the contributions of behavioral psychologists, especially those of Skinner, they continue to be relevant to contemporary psychology.
The rest of the authors have greater value as part of the history of psychology than for the validity of their thought.
Main representatives of behaviorism
John B Watson (1878-1958)
Considered the founder of behaviorism. From his chair at John Hopkins University in Baltimore, Watson laid the foundations of behaviorist philosophy, which he called «antimentalist objectivism.»
This consisted of limiting the field of study of psychology to the quantitative and observable events of individuals, that is, behavior and physiological processes, which could be studied through laboratory experiments.
Burrhus Frederick Skinner (1904-1990)
He took Watson’s philosophy even further, stating that human behavior is explained only as a set of learned associations between stimuli and responses, without the involvement of any kind of mental or affective processes.
This extreme view is known as «radical behaviorism.»
Skinner also introduced into psychology the concepts of positive and negative reinforcement, still current. A positive reinforcement is an award (which can be material, but also a gesture of approval or praise) for a behavior that is to be promoted in the individual; negative reinforcement is the absence of a reward when unwanted behaviors are manifested.
Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (1849-1936)
He is one of the precursors of behaviorism. The Russian-born physiologist was one of the first to carry out a systematic series of experiments in order to understand how animals learn.
The result of these was the concept of conditioned reflex, for which he is remembered. A conditioned reflex is a reflex response to a certain stimulus, learned by the repeated coincidence of that stimulus with a positive or negative reinforcement.
For example, a dog that when hearing the sound of a bell begins to salivate, because after many repetitions it has learned that when the bell rings it is fed.
Edward Lee Thorndike (1874-1949)
Another important precursor of behaviorism. From his experiments with cats, Thorndike formulated the law of effect, which states that behaviors that have a satisfactory result are more likely to be repeated than those that do not.
He also formulated the law of exercise, according to which habits and learning that are not reinforced weaken and disappear, while those that are become part of the individual’s behavior.
behaviorism in education
When the principles of behaviorism are applied to pedagogy, the educational process acquires the following characteristics:
1.- Learning is focused on the teacher, who presents himself as a role model for the student and establishes the learning objectives.
2.- Reward and punishment are used to reinforce desired behaviors and discourage unwanted ones.
3- The memorization of contents is used as a learning technique.
4- The most important thing is that the student achieves the established learning objectives and demonstrates it through evaluations. Behaviorism takes little account of the internal process of the student during learning.
radical behaviorism
Radical behaviorism, as we have already seen, was a school of psychology created by Skinner. It starts from the premise that the mind and its processes are not objectifiable and, therefore, cannot be studied in a scientific way.
For this school, the visible correlate is the behavior that the human being carries out before the stimuli that are presented to him. In this sense, the behavior acquires a mechanistic character and the subject will respond in a certain way to the properties of the stimuli to which he is subjected.
This makes the human being a reactive and passive being before such stimuli. He believes that behavior is always due to external causes.
References
(s/f). Theories of learning. Interamerican University for Development (UNID). Taken from biblioteca.esucomex.cl.
VV. (2009). OFF. Concise Dictionary of Psychology. Mexico: Editorial The Modern Manual.
Ander-Egg, E. (2016). Dictionary of Psychology. Córdoba: Editorial Brujas
Cuadra Bueno, R. (2014). Behaviorism and the Mental: A History and Conceptual Framework. Taken from revistacultura.com.pe.
Kuper, A. Kuper, J. (2003). The Social Science Encyclopedia. New York: Routledge World Reference.
Torres, A. (s/f). Behaviorism: history, concepts and main authors. Taken from psicologiaymente.com.
Yela, M. (1996). The evolution of behaviorism. Taken from psychothema.com.