BehaviorismFor as long as recorded history, humans have always had some interest in what constitutes an individual; who they are and what aspects of their existence set them apart from others within their species. According to behaviorists, nothing else answers these questions based on the world you grew up in. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay “Behaviorism, focuses on the variables that we can observe, measure, manipulate; and avoid anything subjective, internal and unavailable - that is, mental (1998, C. George Boeree)." Behaviorism is a very old theory of personality. One of the oldest theories dates back to René Descartes He introduced the idea of ​​substance dualism and called "the person a machine dependent on external events of which the soul was the ghost in the machine (substance dualism)". Mental and physical things are completely separate. Modern behaviorism, however, modifies this theory by refusing to recognize the inner workings of the mind. Behaviorists believe that people are nothing more than "mediators between behavior and the environment. (Skinner, 1993) » Because the inner workings of the human mind are ignored, opponents of this theory present strong arguments against it. Behaviorism is incapable of explaining human language and memory. Although these criticisms indicate a failure of this theory. It is undeniable that behaviorism can teach the world a lot about human behavior. Behaviorism as we know it today was founded on the ideas of John B. Watson. Watson argued that behavior should be examined rather than describing how the mind works. He argued that it was possible to condition humans and animals. In his famous study, Watson conditioned a young child named Albert to fear a white rat. He did this by creating a loud noise every time Albert touched the rat. Frightened by the loud noise, the child associated the rat with this feeling and was afraid of the rat in the same way he feared the noise. Watson's work was supported by the most renowned behaviorist, BF Skinner. Skinner's entire system is based on operant conditioning. “The organism is operating on the environment (Skinner, 1993).” During its operation, the organism encounters a particular type of stimulus, called a reinforcing stimulus, or simply reinforcer. This particular stimulus has the effect of increasing the behavior that occurs immediately before the reinforcer. Operant conditioning is: “behavior is followed by a consequence, and the nature of the consequence modifies the organism's tendency to repeat the behavior in the future (Behaviorism, 1997).” Skinner conducted experiments to prove this by placing a rat in a cage called the Skinner Box. His cage would have a bar or pedal on a wall that, when pushed, triggers a small mechanism that releases a foot pad. The rat was then bouncing around the cage, doing everything rats do, when he accidentally presses the bar, a food pellet falls out. The operant is the behavior just before the reinforcer, which is the food pellet. In no time, the rat ran furiously towards the bar. “Behavior followed by a reinforcing stimulus results in an increased likelihood that that behavior will occur in the future (Stacy Breslau, 2003).” What if you no longer give the rat pellets? After a few attempts, the rat will stop pressing the bar. It isthis is called extinction of operant behavior. "Behavior that is no longer followed by the reinforcing stimulus results in a decreased likelihood that that behavior will occur again in the future. (Stacy Breslau, 2003)" Now, if you were to turn the pellet machine back on, so that If pressing the bar again would provide the rat with pellets, the bar-pushing behavior would "reappear" immediately, much faster than it took the rat to learn the behavior the first time. This is because the return of reinforcement takes place in the context of a history of reinforcement that dates back to the very first time the rat was reinforced for pushing on the bar. One question Skinner had to answer was how to achieve more complex types of behavior. He responded with the idea of ​​shaping, or the “method of successive approximations.” Basically, it first involves reinforcing a behavior that is vaguely similar to the desired one. Once that's established, you look for variations that come a little closer to what you want, and so on, until you get an animal exhibiting behavior that would never appear in ordinary life. Skinner and his students succeeded in teaching simple animals to do extraordinary things. Beyond fairly simple examples, shaping also takes into account the most complex behaviors. For example, you don't become a brain surgeon by falling into an operating room, cutting open someone's head, removing a tumor and receiving a reward. Instead, you are gently shaped by your environment to enjoy certain things, do well in school, take a certain class, see a movie, etc. This could be something your parents did to you carefully, but it's much more likely that it was something that was more or less unintentional. Another type of reinforcement is the aversive stimulus. It is the opposite of a reinforcing stimulus, something unpleasant or painful. “Behavior followed by an aversive stimulus results in a decreased likelihood that the behavior will recur in the future (Stacy Breslau, 2003).” This both defines an aversive stimulus and describes the form of conditioning known as punishment. If you shock a rat for doing something, it won't do what it was shocked for. If you spank Johnny for throwing his toys, he will throw his toys less and less (maybe). If you remove an already active aversive stimulus after a rat or Johnny performs a certain behavior, you are performing negative reinforcement. If you turn off the electricity when the rat is standing on its hind legs, it will stand much more upright. Notice how difficult it can be to distinguish some forms of negative reinforcement from positive reinforcement. "If I starve you, is the food I give you when you do what I want positive? Or is it the elimination of a negative, the aversive stimulus of hunger? (1998, C. George Boeree )" Skinner does not approve of the use of aversive stimuli because they do not work well. Earlier I said that maybe Johnny will stop throwing his toys? This is because what reinforced bad behavior has not been removed. This hidden reinforcer has just been hidden by an aversive stimulus. So, sometimes the child behaves well, but it still feels good to throw those toys away. What this all boils down to is a personality theory that says a person's environment determines their behavior. A man named Albert Bandura found this a little too simplistic for the phenomenon he was observing, adolescent aggression, and decided to add a little: "environment.