Behaviorism Theory

Behaviorism theory

Learning theories have contextually taken a radical move on ensuring that all conditions within and without a human being have an influence on how someone comprehends information or ideologies during learning. The behaviorism theory is a proponent of Skinner (1904–90). Skinner as a psychologist depicts that the human environment and surrounding determines the persons reasoning and compression. As a leading American psychologist, and Harvard professor, he denotes that learning is in all matters influenced by the rewarding or punishment brought forth for the purpose of making the learner have a conditioned mind, which can be explored further with psychology dissertation help. All the rewards and punishment according to the behaviorism theory, are found within the environment that one hails from. The rewarding environment has a positive impact of encouraging and making the learner do as per the requirements in order to be rewarded (Lee, 2016). On the contrary the punishment as well should either have the force of influencing or motivating the learner and at the same time it can demotivate the individual. On the same note, the behaviorism theory tends to explain the origin of human behavior. It depicts that a behavior elicited by an individual is directly influenced by the environment in which one is living in. For instance, children who grow in a criminal prone area are most likely to possess crime related behaviors and the same note if the child thrives from an environment that is academic oriented then the learner is as well likely to be an academician.

The behaviorism theory unlike the cognitive theory does not base the argument on biological factors that determine behavior. The theory is sole agreement with the environmental stimuli that influences what a human being depicts as a behavior. The rewards given to an individual are a motivation factor that makes the individual to give the desired outcome in terms of behavior (Baum, 2017). With this scenario there is likeliness of a human behavior being redirected to specific environment to elicit what is needed. The chances of the redirected behavior being permanent are very high as the desired outcome is what is produced and the undesired behavior is also done away with. In most cases, punishment is perceived as a correctional measure. An environment that is enshrined to produce a certain desired behavior will strive to punish wrong doers as a physical mechanism to reinflame an existing wrong behavior to the desired good behavior. According to the Kants deontology theory, an action is perceived to be good if it elicits much joy. For this case the aim is to get the needed good behavior and whichever action taken the is considered good as long as the outcome is good. The environment in which one is in could be corrective in nature but if the reason behind the correctness is viewed then the act is encouraged. Provably, the aim of having the mechanism towards a specified behavior is to render an individual to conform to the desired traits of an environment.

The theory has an outstanding positive effect of being able to quickly shape a behavior. It is this outstanding advantage that can be used to effectively bring out or change a rogue behavior to desired valued one. The theory for instance has key interest in explaining how the environment brings out a human behavior. The shaping for this case takes two distinctive views in a learning set up. In a learning process the behavior of an individual must be desired to be positive (Clark, 2018). The two distinctive aspects are either to influence the primary behavior to be good or to influence an individual who has an otherwise bad behavior to be groomed to be good. The behavioral psychology, denotes the environment should already be framed towards a positive view or negative outcome for it to produce what is the norm.

On the same note the theory uses the conditioning elements of rewarding or punishing to get what it needs as an outcome. A family led by a disciplinarian is perceived to be able to produce disciplined children in terms of behavior. However, the punishing or the rewarding should be moderated and regulated, in that excessiveness of the conditioning is likely to denature the needed outcome. It can lead to rebellious children if not well managed. The environment stimuli must be regulated to ensure the outcome is positively desirable (Krapfl, 2016, pp 125). It is denoted that behavior is basically a response to environmental stimuli. Therefore, excessive supply of the stimuli is likely to degenerate into a negatively induced outcome.

Behaviorism theory’s key concept is the aspect of the behavior being influenced through the interaction or in the presence of the environment. Through the theory especially in a learning setup the learner is in a clear position to adapt to the environment. The adaptive environment is the determinant in the outcome of the learners’ behaviors. However, it must be considered that many learners come from diverse backgrounds. The backgrounds in this case are the environment that influences how the learner behaves. In a learning set up therefore, the learner has to be integrated into the desired outcome. The learner will have the opportunity through the behaviorism theory to adapt to the new environment and the environment has the role of shaping the learner’s behavior into the positive traits for learning (Krapfl, 2016 pp 127). In a typical learning institution, the teacher may decide to reward the best performing learners in order to influence the rest of the learners. Such a conditioning may also change the mindset and behavior of the rest of the learners as they will know that if they perform and behave well, they shall be rewarded.

Additionally, through the theory if there are well formulated objectives, they shall give the learner the mandate of focusing on the key aims and goals. The theory shines with a great strength of the ability to observe and measure behavior. Any behavior cannot be hidden from the observation scrutiny, with this, the behaviorism theory has the opportunity to evaluate and consider an outright behavior (Troutman, 2015). From the evaluation the change or support towards the displayed behavior has to be given the outright opportunity to take effect. It makes the theory effective for learning as it focuses on the positive behavior change. The aim is to change what is wrong to be good or to come up with what is purely good and desirable making it to be scientific in the methodology.

Considerably, the theory fails to consider the cognitive and biological aspects of human beings. Human beings have the biological underlying that determines how they behave and reason. In the behaviorism theory the biological set of a human being is not of consideration to determine how one behaves and carries out himself or herself. Hereditary is a condition that can make one to inherit traits of the parents. A wrong trait which has been inherited is likely to be permanent and irreversible (Troutman, 2015). In this regard the theory has to be considerate and give such individuals a listening ear for such conditions. The reasoning aspect can as well be biologically proven especially in the academic outcome of learners. It is observably clear that many children have followed their parents’ behaviors. If this is the case it is as well clear that children may be judged negatively as having a bad behavior. But if it is observed inwardly, it is a biologically inherited trait, which implies that the learner has no control over it neither the environment. In this regard, denoting environment to be the only determinant of behavior and reasoning in learning is retrogressive and inconsiderate.

The learner or individual through the behaviorism theory is likely to totally adapt in poor background. The conditioning in terms of punishment makes the learner or individual to adapt in a rogue environment that makes the person to be rebellious and resistant to change. The environment as a stimulus as well will bring out what it received. A poor environment shall with much ease make a person to have a bad behavior.

Conclusively, the behaviorism theory as denoted it employs the methodology of overserving to determine behavior. However, the behavior measured may not depict a clear and vivid aspect of the learner understanding. For instance, the leaners have the gruesome ability to adopt in poor environment the poor environment will negatively impact on the leaner. Despite this the learner could be having an outstanding understanding of issues and also able to reason in differently positive manner. On the contrary, the environment has a direct influence on people’s behavior its perceived that human beings learn by seeing. People are likely to behave in a manner to depict that they are formalizing with what is considered as the norm of the society or existing environment (Lee, 2016). The society as the environment helps in aiding all the outcome of a person’s behavior. It is proven that the behavior of a particular society or community is always seemingly the same to all the inhabitants. The use of conditioning to get a desired behavior, outshines all the undoing as it makes the aim of the theory to be literally to obtain positive traits of a behavior.

References

Baum, W.M., 2017. Understanding behaviorism: Behavior, culture, and evolution. John Wiley & Sons.

Clark, K.R., 2018. Learning theories: behaviorism.

Krapfl, J.E., 2016. Behaviorism and society. The Behavior Analyst, 39(1), pp.123-129.

Lee, V.L., 2016. Beyond behaviorism. Routledge.

Troutman, B., 2015. Integrating behaviorism and attachment theory in parent coaching. Springer.

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