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Behaviourism

Introduction: On the topic of a learning theory, Behaviourism has been chosen. This is a study of an individual's behaviour and how they act and respond. Behaviourism maintains that the talk of mental events should be translated into talk about observable behaviour. Behaviourism parts company with dualistic traditions which hold that mind is a distinct substance from material bodies. There are different degrees of behaviourist conviction which are often described as hard and soft behaviourism, both are discussed below. Whereas Cognitivists study the mental processes underlying behaviour looking at their brain and nervous system, Behaviourists in contrast study individual's behaviour.

Theory: Behaviourists tend to study the relationship between the relevant stimuli and the response that it elicits and the rewards and the punishments that follow these responses, for example conditioning. In contrast to Cognitivism, Behaviourism does not take into consideration the mental processes which may be the result of the behaviour which is being observed. In the first half of the 20th century behaviourism flourished. Psychologist J. B. Watson championed Psychological or Scientific Behaviourism . The term behaviour for him referred to the way in which stimuli and responses interact. Hard behaviourism is an ontological position that immaterials do not exist. Watson wanted psychology to follow the hard sciences by only dealing with publicly observable features of human activity.

Soft Behaviourism is the view that mental events (whether an immaterial mind exists or not) cannot be characterised independently from overt physical behaviours. Behaviourist from this period also includes others such as Pavlov, Russell, Carnal and Skinner. For B.F.Skinner looked at psychological behaviourism by conducting experiments which linked behaviours with many of the terms commonly used to describe mental states.

Bibliography

Lec : Ms Poppy Pickard

Dennet, D.C. 1981: True believers In Scientific Explanation-Oxford University Press 1987

Skinner. B.F. et al 1984: Behavioural and Brain Sciences