Behaviorism: Key People and Concepts

by Lorraine Ledger

Behaviorism is a school of psychology founded in the early 20th Century that applies natural science methodology to study the ways in which behavior relates to the presence of environmental stimuli. According to behaviorists, overt behavioral change is the only evidence that learning has taken place.

Not really a human-centered instructional approach, Behaviorism is somewhat limited in its use to simple fact-based and procedural training. However, when its definition is loosened to include the role of cognition in human responses, Behaviorism provides a suitable framework for expanding its use into areas of education and psychotherapy. For meeting broad school district or organizational goals, Behaviorism also offers a straightforward framework for lesson planning and assessment in curriculum development because it lends itself naturally to the use of standardized tests.

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Origins and Foundation

Many researchers and theorists have contributed to our current body of knowledge of Behaviorism, but the work of three key researchers can be credited for all further development in the discipline:

Ivan P. Pavlov, John B. Watson, and B.F. Skinner

Skinner furthered the behaviorism of Pavlov and Watson (i.e., classical conditioning), adding complexity to the stimulus-response conditioning experimentation structure to include such things as personalized reinforcement schedules, taking into consideration how the subject operated on his environment (i.e., operant conditioning). Skinner’s expanded behaviorism achieved great popularity in the United States and is, to a great extent, the theoretical basis for evidence-based curriculum and assessment systems popular throughout the world today.

Ideas originating with Pavlov and Watson’s work is known as Pavlovian or classical conditioning, and Skinner gave us the term operant conditioning. Important contributors to this learning theory include Edward Thorndike, Ivan P. Pavlov, John B. Watson,  C. Hull, B.F. Skinner, and Joseph Wolpe who first identified the problem of post traumatic stress disorder and attempted to treat it (Van Elzakke et.al., 2014).

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Edward L. Thorndike (1874 – 1949)

Pavlov and Watson, as discussed below, tend to get all the glory for discovering behaviorism and Skinner for developing it, but in the practical discussion of applying behaviorism to real-life human instructional design, we must begin with American educator and researcher Edward Thorndike.  He was one of the earliest researchers to do laboratory studies on animals, and he also pioneered in applying psychological knowledge to problems in education.  At Columbia Teacher’s College, Thorndike wrote authoritative textbooks and is responsible for developmental of educational psychology in areas like intelligence tests, verbal learning, and higher order learning measurement (Mitchell, 1990).  

It could be argued that without Thorndike’s simple cause-and-effect explanation of learning and early experiments on trial-and-error learning in cats making escapes from his “puzzle boxes”, behaviorism as a science might not have been developed at all. 

According to McLeod (2018), Skinner’s entire practice is built on Thorndike’s 1898 systematic learning theory of the principle of reinforcement, known as the “Law of effect” which stated that any behavior that is followed by pleasant consequences is likely to be repeated, and any behavior followed by unpleasant consequences is likely to be stopped. His theory of trial-and-error learning states that learning proceeds through neural connections between stimulus and response, a stimulus and response being connected when a response to a stimulus leads to a state of satisfaction or pleasure (Wolman, 1973).

As early as 1922 Thorndike was publishing studies on the efficacy of reinforcement for teaching abstract subject-matter like algebra (Thorndike, & Upton, 1922).  For a fuller review of Thorndike’s academic contributions to the study of educational and experimental psychology, visit the APA’s page of links to articles authored by him.

(American Psychological Association. https://psycnet.apa.org/search/results?term=Thorndike,%20Edward%20L.&latSearchType=a )

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Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (1849 – 1936)

Ivan P. Pavlov, who was associated academically with the Petersburg Medico-Surgical Academy in St. Petersburg, Russia, in the late 19th Century, was a pioneer contributor to medicine, physiology, neurology, and psychology. His early career centered on pharmacology and the physiology of digestion, a field that earned him a Nobel Prize in 1904. Around this time Pavlov discovered a new regularity of brain activity associated with digestion, the conditioned reflex. He dedicated the next 35 years to studying his new “doctrine of the higher nervous activity” (Wolman, 1973).

The stimulus-response connection, known as Pavlovian or classical conditioning, was accidentally discovered by Ivan Pavlov while doing research on animal digestion around 1902.  He noticed that the dogs in his study salivated whenever they expected food. 

He conducted strictly controlled research using empirical evidence to prove that the dogs could be taught to associate food with a variety of different stimuli in the environment, stimuli he strictly controlled and used to “condition” and “shape” the dogs’ responses.  John B. Watson, further developed Pavlov’s ideas into the science known as Behaviorism.  Some of Pavlov’s noteworthy published works in English are Conditioned Reflexes (1927), Lectures on Conditioned Reflexes (1928), and Conditioned Reflexes and Psychiatry (1941). 

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John Broadus Watson (1878 – 1958)

An American Psychologist from South Carolina, John B. Watson was the founder of Behaviorism. Watson advocated strongly for a purely behavioral view of psychology, rejecting other contemporary views that emphasized introspection and emotions.

Beginning his studies in the early 1900’s, Watson created a system of psychology that considers overt quantifiable  behavior of an organism in its muscles, glands, and tissues as the only valid means of documenting learning.  He applied Pavlov’s work on conditioning to study more complex learning and, even, emotions.

In the 1920’s Watson wrote extensively on child rearing theories, writings that became very popular and highly influential in turning American psychological study away from mental content and more strictly toward behavior (Wolman, 1990).

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Burrhus Frederic Skinner (1904 – 1990)

According to McLeod (2018), B.F. Skinner’s views were slightly less extreme than Watson’s and were “rooted in a view that classical conditioning was far too simplistic to be a complete explanation of complex human behavior. He believed that the best way to understand behavior is to look at the causes of an action and its consequences. He called this approach operant conditioning” (McLeod, 2018 ).  

Skinner emphasized that established (learned) associations among stimuli, responses (behaviors), and reinforcement, can be further manipulated by the instructor or researcher to stop or modify prior learned behaviors. This is accomplished through planned substitution of stimuli and use of reinforcement schedules to inch the subject closer and closer to a new behavioral goal.

Both Thorndike and Skinner focused on the role of rewards and punishment in reinforcing overt behavioral responses. Edward Thorndike, through his “Law of effect,” proved that rewarding behavior increased the likelihood it would be repeated. While Thorndike suggested a direct causal effect between stimuli and likelihood of behavior being repeated, it was Skinner who gave us theories about reinforcement and punishment.

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Areas of Application

Schools and Education

Applied to the teaching-learning process, behaviorism is a very complicated and time-consuming method of teaching unless reserved primarily for straightforward tasks like memorizing the order of a procedure or remembering simple facts. 

However, when structuring learning modules around specific behavioral objectives (learning outcomes), the overt nature of the evidential responses provides a readily available and quantifiable built-in measurement structure that can be easily analyzed and assessed. Structurally, behaviorism makes administrative tasks like program budget planning easier. 

Beyond use for teaching simple facts or sets of procedural skills, Behaviorism can do little more in a formal educational setting than shape behavior toward achievement of learning objectives. One dangerous practice based on behaviorism–known as “teaching to the test”–has crept into American school instruction out of an over-emphasis on boosting standardized test scores. In recent years, public school instruction, in particular, has tended to focus on conditioning student behavior rather than authentic learning. 

When teachers are pressured by their Principals who, before them, have been pressured by District and State administrators to show measurable student improvement on standardized tests, teachers often stop the teaching process and, instead, concentrate on conditioning a behavioral change.  In this situation, teachers, principals, and students all find themselves in the “Skinner Box”.

People and Society

A more useful area of application for behaviorism is found outside formal educational settings.  When its definition is loosened to include the role of cognition in human responses, for instance, behaviorism, especially operant conditioning, provides methodologies for expanding its use into helping people live better, fuller lives. From controlling violent behavior to overcoming phobias and addictions, Behaviorism has proven useful.

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy

Psychology and behavior therapy use classical and operant conditioning knowledge and apply the same principles to various disorders including: criminal behavior, phobias, anxiety disorders, eating disorders.  Two branches of psychiatry that are most popular for this are Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Behavioral Therapy (doesn’t enlist the subject’s will in the process). I found this doctor’s website, where he clearly explains the difference: http://www.drkot.com/whatare.html.  Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, generally, tries to identify and change negative thinking patterns and pushes for positive behavioral changes.

Psychotherapy

Operant conditioning has proven helpful in the area of counseling and psychotherapy where individuals seek-out professional assistance to cope with various anxieties and unwanted habits.

Behaviorism can be used to help people unlearn unwanted behaviors or desensitize them to stimuli they associate with unpleasant emotions.  For instance, someone who is afraid of dogs could be desensitized to this fear through exposure to the stimuli in a controlled and safe environment while receiving positive reinforcement for tolerating the presence of dogs for longer and longer intervals.  The goal is extinction of the fear response by replacing the conditioned fear stimulus associated with it.

Joseph Wolpe created his own psychotherapy methods, working with military to solve Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in soldiers. You can read about Joseph Wolpe’s psychotherapy work on the APA website here: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2000-08148-007 

Behavior Modification

Behavior shaping is a practice of operant conditioning, often focusing on extinction techniques, that helps a learner inch closer and closer to a desired response through regular reinforcement that gradually narrows the behavioral response from a broad compliance to a more and more specific one. Also called Behavior Modification, this application of behaviorism might encompass anything from substance abuse abatement to stopping criminal violence. Behaviorism has been helpful used in conjunction with medical intervention for people with eating disorders too (Van Elzakke et.al., 2014).

The CDC website offers parenting tips where they discuss Behavioral Therapy as an option to treat ADHD. It is suggested that children younger than 12 be referred to a behavior therapist before prescribing and administering drugs. Furthermore, the recommendations say “Only therapy that focuses on training parents is recommended for young children with ADHD because young children are not mature enough to change their own behavior without their parents’ help.”

Addiction and Habits

Behaviorism is also useful in conditioning drug addicts, sex addicts, and violent criminals to cease certain harmful behaviors or to condition better self-control.  Clark L. Hull (1884-1952) was a researcher who developed Drive Reduction Theory in 1943, which concentrated on biological/physiological need as motivation for all behavior. 

He based his theory on the idea that people learn secondary drives through conditioning (as opposed to primary drives like hunger). His ideas were complex and his theory too detailed for most people to endorse it, but his theory did bring up some new issues: motivation, impulses, needs and drives, which led to other related theories being developed, the most significant being Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs upon which Piaget built his 4 stages of human cognitive development.

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References

Graham, G. (2019). Behaviorism. In Edward N. Zalta (ed.)., The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring).

Keramida, M. (2015, May 28). Behaviorism in instructional design for elearning: when and how to use it. eLearning Industry.

McLeod, S.A. (2018, Jan 14). Edward Thorndike. Simply psychology: Psychology. http://www.simplypsychology.org/edward-thorndike.html

McLeod, S.A. (2018, Jan 21). Skinner – operant conditioning. Simply Psychology: Psychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html

Mitchell, J. (1990). The Random House Encyclopedia, (3rd edition). New York: Random House.

Skinner, B. F. (1938). The Behaviour of Organisms: An Experimental Analysis. New York: Appleton-Century. 

Skinner, B. F. (1976). About Behaviorism. New York: Vintage Books.

Thorndike, E. L. (1898). Animal intelligence: An experimental study of the associative processes in animals. Psychological Monographs: General and Applied, 2(4), i-109.

Thorndike, E. L., & Columbia University, Institute of Educational Research, Division of Psychology. (1932). The Fundamentals of Learning. Teachers College Bureau of Publications.

Thorndike, E. L., & Upton, C. B. (1922). An experiment in learning an abstract subject. Journal of Educational Psychology, 13(6), 321–329.

Watson, J. B. (1913). Psychology as the behaviorist views it. Psychological Review, 20, 158–177.

Watson, J. B. (1924). Behaviorism. New York: People’s Institute Publishing Company.

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