Explain each one of these questions according to the brief below. What is behavioural perspective, who was the founder, main concepts, view of psychology and humans
Like the psychoanalytic perspective, the behavioural perspective is
descended from an early school of psychology. However, it differs greatly
from Freud’s views. Behaviourists believe that our behaviour is shaped by
our environment. This includes aspects of our present environment as
well as past habits we have learned since birth. They believe a baby is
born as a tabula rasa or blank slate and that personality develops
depending on the child’s experiences, which are ‘written’ on the slate.
Thus, behaviourists feel that human nature is shaped by environment.
Early work on how environment shapes behaviour was done by Ivan
Pavlov (1849–1936). Pavlov was a Russian physiologist
whose work with dogs showed that animals (and people) can learn by
associating different events. Pavlov rang a bell every time he fed the dogs
so that, over time, the dogs began to associate the sound of the bell with
their food. Thus they learned to salivate at the sound of the bell, even if
they were not given food each time. This is known as (respondent)
classical conditioning and it is based on reflexes that are already present
in an organism.People also learn from the consequences of their actions. Edward
Thorndike (1874–1949) developed the law of effect, which said that if
behaviour had satisfying consequences, it would most likely be repeated
(and behaviour with less satisfying consequences would be less likely to
recur).
John Watson (1878–1958) and B.F. Skinner (1904–1990) were the
leaders of the school of behaviourism. Watson was especially opposed to
the ideas of the structuralists, functionalists and Freud, saying that there
was no point in studying the mind and mental processes as these could
not be observed.
Skinner was a radical behaviourist, who did a great deal of research
mostly using rats and pigeons. Like Watson, Skinner felt it was not helpful
to talk about unseen (and unknowable) mental structures and processes.
For example, rather than think about how angry a person was, he would
try to identify the circumstances that preceded the anger and the events
that followed it.
Skinner’s research identified how behaviour can be changed through
operant conditioning in which a behaviour leads to a response from the
environment and the nature of this response influences whether or not
the behaviour is repeated. Thus in operant conditioning, the
environment provides (or does not provide) reinforcement. For example,
when a teacher draws a happy face in a child’s schoolbook, they will
probably be pleased and work hard to get another one. A reinforcer is
anything that increases the likelihood of the behaviour occurring again.
A descendant of behaviourism is the social learning theory of Albert
Bandura.
Behavioural perspective is a psychological perspective that focuses on how our behavior is shaped by our environment. The founder of this perspective was Ivan Pavlov, a Russian physiologist known for his work on classical conditioning. The main concepts of the behavioural perspective include the idea that humans are born as blank slates (tabula rasa) and that our personality develops based on our experiences. This perspective believes that human nature is shaped by the environment and that behavior can be learned through association and consequences.
From the point of view of psychology, the behavioural perspective focuses on observable behaviors rather than internal mental processes. It emphasizes the importance of studying how the environment influences behavior and how behavior can be changed through conditioning.
In terms of the view of humans, behaviourists such as John Watson and B.F. Skinner believed that studying mental processes was not meaningful as they could not be directly observed. They emphasized the importance of studying observable behavior and how it is influenced by the environment. Skinner's research on operant conditioning showed how behavior can be changed through reinforcement, where a behavior leads to a response from the environment that influences whether the behavior is repeated. Overall, the behavioural perspective views humans as being shaped by their environment and their behaviors can be understood and changed through conditioning processes.