SCHOOLS OF PSYCHOLOGY-BEHAVIORISM

 

Welcome Seekers🔍...

In our previous post, we learned about the schools of psychology and got an intensive view on Functional psychology. In this post, we are going to know about  "BEHAVIORISM" one of the schools of psychology. Prior to entering the topic of Behaviourism, let's have a quick view on schools of psychology.

            Psychology can be defined as the study of mind and behaviour. It has branched into many subfields such as clinical psychology, child, adult, social psychologies, etc..There are many approaches or schools of thought on the subject of psychology. There are mainly five important schools of psychology. They are

• Structuralism
• Functionalism
• Behaviorism
• Humanism
• Psychoanalysis

BEHAVIORISM:

              Behaviorism suggests that all behaviour can be explained by environmental causes rather than internal forces. This theory of learning states that all behaviours are learned through the interaction with the environment. The process of learning through interactions is called conditioning. Behaviourism is nothing but a simple response to the environmental stimuli. It is concerned with observable stimulus-response and can be studied only by systematic and observable manner.

               John B Watson (1878 -1958 ) was an American psychologist who became an ardent proponent of behaviorism. During his graduation at University of Chicago he became interested in Animal Research and founded and animal laboratory. He greatly intensified the study of behaviour by experiments. In his article of 'Psychology and the Behaviourist', he explained about behaviorism and that article was published in the psychological review (1913).

He wrote three books which are based on his view of behaviourism— An introduction to comparative psychology (1914), Psychology for the stand-point of a Behaviorist (1919), and Behaviorism (1925). He stated that psychology was a science of behaviour and the concepts like mind, conscious and image have no place. He discarded the mentalistic concepts such as consciousness and mind, etc. For Watson, behavioral acts are to be described objectively 'in terms of stimulus and response, in terms of habit information, habit integration and the like'. It can be said that Watson's behavioristic view  as Methodological behaviorism. He proposed the some methods for the behavioral research,

• Observation, with and without instrumental control
• The conditioning reflex method
• The verbal report method 
• Testing method

Through the use of conditioning response, Watson proved how the objective, analytic methods of animal laboratory could be applied to human beings. He stated the use of infants and children as subjects for psychological in investigation in his book 'The psychological care of infant and child (1929)'. He suggested that the behaviouristic psychology had much to offer to such professionals as advertising, law, industry and education.

B. F. Skinner  was an American psychologist known for his great influence on Behaviorial Psychology. He referred his own philosophy on behaviorism as 'radical behaviorism'. According to Skinner, the consequences of a response determine the probability of repeating it. This is called as operant conditioning.

In operant conditioning, the behaviour which is reinforced (i.e) rewarded, will likely to be repeated and the behaviour which is punished, will occur less often. Skinner's view where slightly extreme than that of Watson. His notable works are 'The behaviour of organisms (1938)', 'Science and Human behaviour (1983)', 'Verbal behaviour (1957)', 'Cumulative record (1959)', 'Beyond freedom and dignity (1971)' and 'About behaviorism (1974)'.

CONTRIBUTION OF BEHAVIORISM TO EDUCATION:

• Behaviorism has given new methods and techniques of understanding children behaviour.
• It has contributed to the understanding of the emotions of the child.
• Behaviorism has given new methodology of teaching known as "programmed learning" that has been successfully employed in several countries.
• It states that all behaviour is learnt in the process of interaction with the environment.
• It emphasizes the significance of environment and its impact on human growth.
• It has led to the development of new approaches, methods and techniques of dealing with Mal adjustment in children.
• It has brought psychology out from the controversy of mentalistic approach to the human behaviour.
• It has greatly contributed to the psychology of learning and indicated the importance of motivation.

Stay tuned with us ..........to get more related posts.........

#seekwhatever.

FOLLOW & SUBSCRIBE US....

Scroll down⬇️