1. Stimulus-Response Conditioning through reinforcement
Behaviorism
Stimulus-Response
Conditioning through reinforcement
Barbara Boyd-Parker, Dana Giles, Andrea Jenkins-Mann, and Tracee Williams

2. Behaviorism
Any psychology that sees its mission as the explanation of behavior and stimuli and responses as its basic data (Kimble, 2000).
Science aims at understanding publicly observable happenings in the world and the only such observable events and responses and the situation in which they occur.
Barbara Boyd-Parker, Dana Giles, Andrea Jenkins-Mann, and Tracee Williams

3. Behaviorism in an Academic Setting
In an academic context, behaviorists
substitute verbal behavior (e.g. responding appropriately to a question) for physical
behavior. The behaviorist would interpret, for example, a student’s correct answer to a question as a sign of successful conditioning, and then continue to reinforce correct responses behaviorally by assigning good grades. Often, the form of conditioning used to achieve desirable verbal behavior is a lecture-based pedagogy (Boghossian, 2006).
Barbara Boyd-Parker, Dana Giles, Andrea Jenkins-Mann, and Tracee Williams

4. Behaviorism views the student as an unreflective responder
Behaviorism views the student as an unreflective responder. In a behaviorist
paradigm, the student is engaged in the educational process only in that she displays
the appropriate verbal behavior (e.g. checking the correct box on a multiple choice test) (Boghossian, 2006).
Barbara Boyd-Parker, Dana Giles, Andrea Jenkins-Mann, and Tracee Williams

5. Forerunners of Behaviorism
John B. Watson, an American psychologist.
Watson claimed that psychology was not concerned with the mind or with human consciousness
Watson's work was based on the experiments of Ivan Pavlov
Barbara Boyd-Parker, Dana Giles, Andrea Jenkins-Mann, and Tracee Williams

6. Forerunners of Behaviorism
Ivan Pavlov studied animals' responses to conditioning
Pavlov's best-known experiment, he rang a bell as he fed some dogs several meals
Each time the dogs heard the bell they knew that a meal was coming, and they would begin to salivate. Pavlov then rang the bell without bringing food, but the dogs still salivated. They had been "conditioned" to salivate at the sound of a bell. Pavlov believed, as Watson was later to emphasize, that humans react to stimuli in the same way
Barbara Boyd-Parker, Dana Giles, Andrea Jenkins-Mann, and Tracee Williams

7. Behaviorism Today
Behaviorism is associated today with the name of B.F. Skinner
made his reputation by testing Watson's theories in the laboratory
Skinner's studies led him to reject Watson's almost exclusive emphasis on reflexes and conditioning (Cohen, 1987).
People respond to their environment, he argued, but they also operate on the environment to produce certain consequences
Barbara Boyd-Parker, Dana Giles, Andrea Jenkins-Mann, and Tracee Williams

8. Operant Conditioning
Skinner developed the theory of "operant conditioning," the idea that we behave the way we do because this kind of behavior has had certain consequences in the past
Skinner denied that the mind or feelings play any part in determining behavior. Instead, our experience of reinforcements determines our behavior (Cohen, 1987).
For example, if your girlfriend gives you a kiss when you give her flowers, you will be likely to give her flowers when you want a kiss. You will be acting in expectation of a certain reward
Barbara Boyd-Parker, Dana Giles, Andrea Jenkins-Mann, and Tracee Williams

9. Presuppositions of Behaviorism
Behaviorism is naturalistic
Behaviorism teaches that man is nothing more than a machine that responds to conditioning.
Behaviorism teaches that we are not responsible for our actions
Behaviorism is manipulative (DeMar, 2007)
Barbara Boyd-Parker, Dana Giles, Andrea Jenkins-Mann, and Tracee Williams

10. References
Kimble, G Behaviorism and Unity in Psychology. Current Directions in Psychological Science. 9(6).
Boghossian, P Behaviorism, Constructivism, and Socratic Pedagogy. Educational Philosophy and Theory. 38(6).
Cohen, D "Behaviorism," in The Oxford Companion to the Mind, Richard L. Gregory, ed. (New York: Oxford
University Press.
DeMar, G. (2007). Behaviorism. The Forerunner. Retrieved on April 1, 2008 from
Behaviorism is not an ideology set in stone
Barbara Boyd-Parker, Dana Giles, Andrea Jenkins-Mann, and Tracee Williams