Let's talk about behaviorism. We begin in late 19th century Russia where scientist Ivan Pavlov lived with his dogs. Whenever Pavlov would bring the dogs their food, they would salivate.
One day he walked into the room without food and was shocked to see that the dogs were still drooling in anticipation. What Pavlov had accidentally discovered was the concept of classical conditioning. He didn't have to do anything to make those dogs drool when they saw food, but Pavlov wondered if he did something to make the dogs think they were getting food, could he make them drool whenever he wanted to? And that's just what he did.
Pavlov first identified the stimulus, the thing that caused the dog's response or behavior. In this case, the stimulus was the food because it caused the dogs to salivate. Then, he paired the stimulus with a separate incident, the sound of a bell.
Every time Pavlov brought the dogs food, he rang a bell. Once the dogs got used to the sound of the bell at feeding time, Pavlov tried ringing the bell without giving the dogs any food. And voila, the dogs started drooling anyway. Pavlov had successfully trained the dogs to react to the new stimulus, the ringing of the bell, the same way that they reacted to food. Classical conditioning is a learning process that inspired behaviorism.
By taking an unconditioned stimulus, the food that naturally caused the dogs to salivate, and combining them with something entirely neutral, the bell, he was able to remove the first stimulus and make something that was formerly neutral elicit the conditioned response. But we'll talk about that later. John B. Watson, an American psychologist, was intrigued by Pavlov's studies. He, along with many other behavioralists in the 20th century, believed that psychology should be a science, that is, based on facts and observable measurements.
He believed that human development could only be based on what one could see. Watson was famous for saying he could take any child and turn him into anyone he wanted, just by changing the child's environment. A musician, a lawyer, a businessman, a doctor, even a thief or a beggar.
John Watson was most famous for his work with an 11-month-old infant named Little Albert. Although his methods would be highly unethical today, Watson made great strides in the field of behavioralism and classical conditioning. For example, Watson conditioned little Albert to have a fear of rats, using a very similar method to the one used by Pavlov. Every time little Albert was presented with a white rat, Watson made loud noises and startled the child and made him cry.
After a while, all Watson had to do was bring the rat near little Albert and the baby would scream and cry. In this experiment, the loud noises were considered the unconditioned stimulus. Little Albert didn't need to learn to be afraid of loud noises.
just like the dogs in Pavlov's experiment didn't need to be taught to drool at the sight of food. These things provoke certain responses naturally. Therefore, little Albert crying serves as the unconditioned response. Crying or screaming is a baby's natural response to loud noises.
Likewise, drooling is a natural response for dogs that smell good food. Once little Albert began to associate the neutral rat with the negative loud noise, the rat became the conditioned stimulus. that is, the previously neutral object that now elicits a response. In Pavlov's experiment, this was the bell that eventually made the dogs drool. And that makes little Albert's fear of the rats the conditioned response.
Even though he wasn't afraid of rats at first, he eventually learned by associating rats with loud noises that upset him. B.F. Skinner, an American scientist born in 1904, took classical conditioning just one step further. Skinner is often called the father of operant conditioning. and he was most famous for conducting experiments with animals in his Skinner box.
Like Watson, Skinner believed that psychology should be studied through a more objective lens, and that required hard evidence, observation, and experimentation. Operant conditioning is similar to classical conditioning, but by no means are the two the same. You see, operant conditioning involves changing one's behavior by use of reinforcement or punishment, which is given after a desired response.
The behaviors that change in operant conditioning are voluntary. The behaviors operate on the environment to produce an outcome. It focuses on motivation, which is when someone or something has a strong reason to do something.
Classical conditioning changes only the timing of the voluntary response. Created using Powtoon