ABC in the City
English for Specific Purposes
Behaviorism
What is Behaviorism?
Behaviorism is concerned with behavior as a science. Psychology has nothing to do with what you can’t see (in the mind) only what you can observe. Behaviorists only use terms that can be measured empirically when discussing the psychology of behavior (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2019).
What Were They Thinking?
What am I thinking?
During a time when there was a backlash against the inner processes of consciousness via the introspection movement, began in Germany, America was headed towards a pragmatic and functional view of behavior (learning). It focused on the direct measurement of action on behavior (do-observe-measure). Because of the inherent complexity of the mind, this manifested in the testing of reward and punishment on learning as pioneered by Edward Thorndike in the 1920s. The backlash against introspection was so intense that behaviorists, like John Watson, fought against the notion that there could be the development of a theory of mental operations (Anderson, 2015, p. 6).
What was happening inside the mind was irrelevant. Behaviorism only cared about the actions that you could see, not the underlying reasons for those actions. This was evident when Watson wrote, “The Behaviorist began his own formulation of the problem of psychology by sweeping aside all medieval conceptions. He dropped from his scientific vocabulary all subjective terms such as sensation, perception, image, desire, purpose and even thinking and emotion as they were subjectively defined." (Watson, 1930, pp. 5-6).
What About Skinner?
Of course, one cannot discuss Behaviorism without mentioning its paternity, namely B.F. Skinner. With this radical experimentation at the heart of Behaviorism, in the 1930s Skinner elucidated his borderline contempt for the self when he wrote.....
“It is in the nature of an experimental analysis of human behavior that it should strip away the functions previously assigned to a free or autonomous person and transfer them one by one to the controlling environment.”
(Skinner, 1971, p. 198)
Ultimately, the reinforcement of behavior simply by means of punishment or reward is simplistic to its core and behaviorism quickly lost favor in psychological circles.
REWARDS
control
Learning and Behaviorism
If we are not interested in what is happening in the mind, what are we interested in? We are interested in the environment, that can be manipulated by careful experimentation, based on stimulus-response observations and measurement. We can offer rewards and punishments to elicit desired behavior or curb unwanted behavior (“Behaviorism”, 2019).
Photo by Michal Pechardo on Unsplash
Throw the Baby out with the Bath Water?
Benefits of Behaviorism
Challenges of Behaviorism
I think there is a benefit in considering the experimental nature of Behaviorism. If it cannot be measured, it is not considered in the Behaviorist tradition (Anderson, 2015, p.6). If we consider measurement associated with environmental supports (information, instrumentation, motivation) and the person’s behavioral repertory (knowledge, capacity, motives) (Gilbert, 1978, p. 87), it is worthwhile to apply a behaviorist (experimental) perspective.
I think a negative aspect of Behaviorism is its sole adherence to experimentation. They rejected important ideas that reside outside of the visible eye of the behaviorist, “The Behaviorist began his own formulation of the problem of psychology by sweeping aside all medieval conceptions. He dropped from his scientific vocabulary all subjective terms such as sensation, perception, image, desire, purpose and even thinking and emotion as they were subjectively defined.” (Watson, 1930, pp. 5-6)
References
Anderson, J. R. (2015). Cognitive Psychology and Its Implications. New York, NY: Worth Publishers.
Gilbert, T.F. (1978). Human Competence. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Skinner, B. F. (1971). Beyond Freedom and Dignity, New York, NY: Knopf.
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2019, March 19). Behaviorism. Retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/behaviorism/#WhatBeha
Watson, J. (1930). Behaviorism. New York, NY: W.W. Norton.