Module 7 Behaviorism: Pavlov, Thorndike, Watson,

Skinner

Take the Challenge!

In this module , challenge yourself to attain the following learning outcomes:

 Explain the basic principles of behaviorism;

 Make a simple plan applying the primary laws of learning;
 Determine how to use the rewards in the learning process more effectively

Introduction :

The theory of behaviorism focuses on the study of observable and measurable behavior. It emphasizes
that behaviorthat is mostly learned through conditioning and reinforcement (rewards and punishment).
It does not give much attention to the mind and the possibility of thought processes occurring in the
mind. Contributions in the development of the behaviorist theory largely came from Pavlov, Watson,
Thorndike and Skinner.

Advance Organizer

Behaviorism

Classical Conditioning Operant

Pavlov/Watson Connectionism
Thorndike Conditioning

Reinforcement
Primary Laws

Law of Effect Shaping of Behavior

Law of Exercise

Law of Readiness
 ENGAGE

1. Think of a teacher that is most unforgettable to you in elementary or in high school.

2. Are there things that when you encounter at present ( see, hear, touch, smell ) make you go back to
the past and recall this teacher? What are these things?

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3. What kinds of rewards and punishments did she /he apply in your class?For what student behaviors
were the rewards and punishment for?

Student Behavior Reward/ Puynishment

EXPLORE

1. What makes this teacher unforgfettable for you?

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Why do your answers in no.1 make you recall this teacher? Describe the connection these things have
on your past teacher.
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2. Where the rewards and punishment given effective? Please elaborate.

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EXPLAIN
Behaviorism:

Ivan Pavlov. Ivan Pavlov, a Russian physiologist, is well known for his work is classical
conditioning. Pavlov’s most renowned experiment involved meat, a dog and a bell. Initially, Pavlov was
measuring the dog’s salivation in order to study digestion. This is when he stumbled upon classical
conditioning.

Pavlov’s Experiment. Before conditioning, ringing the bell (neutral stimulus) caused no response
from the dog. Placing food (unconditional stimulus) in front of the dog initiated salivation
(unconditioned response). During conditioning, the bell was rung a few seconds before the dog was
presented with food. After conditioning, the ringing of the bell (conditioned stimulus) alone produced
salivation (conditioned response). This is classical conditioning. See illustration below:

Stage 1- Before Conditioning

Bell
NO Response
(Neutral Stimulous)

Stage 2- During Conditioning

Bell
(Neutral STimulus

Paired with

Meat (unconditioned Salivation(unconditioned

stimulus) response)

Stage 3- After Conditioning

Salivation(unconditioned
Bell (conditioned Stimulus)
response)

Classical Conditioning
 Somehow you were conditioned to associate particular objects with your teacher. So at present,
when you encounter the objects, you are also reminded of your teacher. This is an example of classical
conditioning.

Pavlov also had the following findings:

Generalization Stimulus. Once the dog has learned to salivate at the sound of the bell, it will salivate
at other similar sounds.

Extinction. If you stop pairing the bell with food, salivation will eventually cease in response to the
bell.

Spontaneous Recovery. Extinguished responses can be “recovered” after an elapsed time, but will
soon extinguish again if the dog is not presented with food.

Discrimination. The dog could learn to discriminate between similar bells (stimuli) and discern which
bell would result in the presentation of food and which would not.

Higher-Order Conditioning. Once the dog has been conditioned to associate the bell with food,
another unconditioned stimulus, such as a light maybe flashed at the same time that the bill is rung.
Eventually, the dog will salivate at the flash of the light without the sound of the bell.

Edward L. Thorndike. Edward Thorndike’s Connectionism theory gave us the original S-R framework of
behavioral psychology. More than a hundred years ago he wrote a text book entitled, Educational
Psychology. He was the first one to use this term. He explained that learning is the result of associations
forming between stimuli (S) and responses (R). Such association or “habits” become strengthened or
weakened by the nature and frequency of the S-R pairings. The model for S-R theory was trial and error
learning in which certain responses came to be repeated more than others because of rewards. The
main principle of connectionism (like all behavioral theory) was that learning could be adequately
explained without considering any unobservable internal states.

Thorndike’s theory on connectionism, states that learning has takes place when a strong
connection or bond between stimulus and response is formed. He came up with three primary laws:

Law of Effect. The law of effect states that a connection between a stimulus and response is
strengthened when the consequence is positive (reward) and the connection between stimulus and the
response is weakened when the consequence is negative. Thorndike later on, revised the “law” when he
found that negative rewards (punishment) do not necessarily weaken bonds, and that some seemingly
pleasurable consequences do not necessarily motivate performance.

Law of Exercise. This tells us that the more an S-R (stimulus- response) bond is practiced the
stronger it will become. “Practice makes perfect” seem to be associated with this. However, like the law
of effect, the law of exe rise also had to be revised when Thorndike found that practice without
feedback does not necessarily enhance performance.

Law of Readiness. This states that the more readiness the learner has to respond to the stimulus,
the stronger will be the bond between them. When a person is ready to respond to a stimulus and is not
made to respond, it becomes annoying to the person. For example, if the teacher says, “Okay we will
now watch the movie (stimulus) you’ve been waiting for.” And suddenly the power goes off. The
students will feel frustrated because they were ready to respond to the stimulus but was prevented
from doing so. Likewise, if the person is not at all ready to respond to a stimuli and is asked to respond,
that also becomes annoying. For instance, the teacher calls a student to stand up and recite, and then
the teacher asks the question and expects the student to respond right away when he is still not ready.
This will be annoying to the student. That is why teachers should remember to say the question first,
and wait for a few seconds before calling on anyone to answer.

Principles Derived from Thorndike’s Connectionism:

1. Learning requires both practice and rewards (laws of effect/exercise).

 2. A series of S-R connections can be chained together if they belong to the same action sequence
(law of readiness).
3. Transfer of learning occurs because of previously encounter situations.
4. Intelligence is a function of the number of connections learned.

Watson John. John B. Watson was the first American psychologist to work with Pavlov’s ideas. He too
was initially involved in animal studies, then later became involved in human behavior research.

He considered that human are born with a few reflexes and the emotional reactions of love and rage.
All other behavior is learned through stimulus-response association through conditioning. He believed in
the power of conditioning so much that he said that if he is given a dozen healthy infants he can make
into anything you want them to be, basically through making stimulus-response connections through
conditioning.

Experiment on Albert. Watson applied classical conditioning in his experiment concerning

Albert, a young child and a white rat. In the beginning, Albert was not afraid of the rat; but Watson
made a sudden loud noise each time Albert touched the rat. Because Albert was frightened by the loud
noise, he soon became conditioned to fear and avoid the rat. Later, the child’s response was generalized
to other small animals. Now he was also afraid of small animals. Watson then “extinguished” or made
the child “unlearn” fear by showing the rat without the loud noise.

Surely, Watson’s researched methods would be questioned today; nevertheless, his work did
clearly show the role of conditioning in the development of emotional responses to certain stimuli. This
may help us understand the fear, phobias and prejudices that people develop.

Burrhus Frederick Skinner. Like Pavlov, Watson and Thorndike, Skinner believed in the stimulus-
response pattern of conditioned behavior. His theory zeroed in only on changes in observable behavior,
excluding any likelihood of any processes taking place in the mind. Skinner’s 1948 book, Walden Two, is
about utopian society based on operant conditioning. He also wrote, Science and Human Behavior,
(1953) in which he pointed out how the principles of operant conditioning function in social institutions
such as government, law, religion, economics and education.

Skinner’s work differs from that of the three behaviorists before him in that studied operant
behavior (voluntary behaviors used in operating on the environment). Thus, his theory came to be
known as Operant Conditioning.

Operant Conditioning is based upon the notion that learning is a result of change in overt
behavior. Changes in behavior are result of an individual’s response to events (stimuli) that occur in the
environment. A response produces a consequence such as defining a word, hitting a ball, or solving a
math problem. When a particular Stimulus-Response (S-R) pattern is reinforced (rewarded), the
individual is conditioned to respond.

Reinforcement is the key element in Skinner’s S-R theory. A reinforcer is anything than
strengthens the desired response. There is a positive reinforcer and a negative reinforcer.

A positive reinforcer is any stimulus that is given or added to increase response. An example of
positive reinforcement is when a teacher promises extra time in the play area to children who behave
well during the lesson. Another Is a mother who promises a new cell phone for her son who gets good
grades. Still, other examples include verbal phrases, star stamps and stickers.

A negative reinforcer is any stimulus that results in the increased frequency of a response when
it is withdrawn or removed. A negative reinforcer is not a punishment, in fact it is a reward. For
instance, a teacher announces that a student who gets an average grade of 1.5 for the two grading
periods will no longer take the final examination. The negative reinforcer is “removing” the final exam,
which we realize is a form of reward for working hard and getting an average grade of 1.5.

A negative reinforcer is different from a punishment because a punishment is a consequence

intended to result in reduced responses. An example would be a student who always comes late is not
allowed to join a group work that has already began (punishment) and, therefore, loses points for that
activity. The punishment was done to reduce the response of repeatedly coming to class late.

Skinner also looked into extinction or non-reinforcement;

Responses that are not reinforced are not likely to be repeated. For example, ignoring a student’s
misbehavior may extinguish that behavior.

Shaping of Behavior. An animal on a cage may take a very long time to figure out that pressing a lever
willproduce food. To accomplish such behavior , successive approximations of the behavior are
rewarded until the animal learns the association between the lever and the food reward. To begin
shaping , animal may be rewarded for simply turning in the direction of a lever, then for moving toward
the lever. , the brushing against the lever and finally for pressing the lever.

Behavioral Chaining comes about when a series of steps are needed to be learned. The animal would
mastereach step in sequencw until the entire sequence is learned. This can be applied to a child being
taught to tie a shoe lace . The child canbe given reinforcement (rewards) until the entire process of
tying the shoelace is learned.

Reinforcement Schedules. Once the desired behavioral response is accomplished , reinforcement does
not haveto be 100%; in fact, it can be maintained more successfully through what Skinner referred to as
partial reinforcement schedules. Partial reinforcement schedules and ratio scedules.

Fixed Interval Schedules. The target response is reinforcded after a fixed amount of time has passed
since the last reinforement. Example, the bird in a cage is given food (reinforcer) every 10 minutes,
regardless of how mny times it presses the bar.

Variable Interval Schedules. This is similar to fixed interval schedules but the amount of time that
must ;pass between reinforcdment varies. Example, the bird may receive food (reinforcer) different
intervals, not every ten minutes.

Fixed Ratio Schedules. A fixed number of correct responses must occur before reinforcement may
recur. Example, the bird will be given food (reinforcer) everytime it presses the bbar 5 times.

Variable Ratio Schedules. The number of correct repetitions of the correct response for reinforecement
varies. Example, the bird is given food (reinforcer) after it presses the bar 3 times, then after 10 times,
then after 4 times. So the bird will not be able to predict how many times it needs to press the bar
before it gets food again.

Variable interval and especially, variable ratio schedules produce steadier and more persistent rates of
response because the learners cannot predict when the reinforcement wit come although they know
that they will eventually succeed. An example of this is why people continue to buy lotto tickets even
when an almost negligeble percentage of people actually win. While is it true that very rarely there is a
big winner, but once in a while somebody hits the jackpot (reinforcement). People cannot predict when
the jackpot can be gotten (variable interval) so they continue to buy tickets (repitition response).

Implication of Operant conditioning. These implications are given for programmed instruction.

1. Practice should take the form of question (stimulus) - answer (response) frames which expose the
student to the subject in gradual steps.

2. Require that the learner makes a response for every frame and receives immediate feedback.

3. Try to arrange the difficulty of the questions so the response is always correct and hence, a positive
reinforecement.

4. Ensure that good performan in the lesson is paired with secondary enforecers such as verbal praise,
prizes, and good grades.

Principles Derived from Skinner’s Operant Conditioning:

1. Behavior that is positively reinforced will reoccur; intermettent reinforcement is particularly effective.
2. Information should be presented in small amounts so that responses can be reinforced (“shaping”).

3. Reinforcement will generalize across similar stimuli (“stimulus generalization”) producing

conditioning.

Looking back at the activity beginning, try to look into the rewards and punishments that your former
teacher used in class. Connect them with Skinner’s Operant Conditioning. Can you now see why your
teacher used them?

EXTEND WITH SYNAPSE STRENGHTENERS

1. Read more about classic al and operant conditioning. Find out about their similarities and
differfences. Prepare a concept map or graphic organizer to highlight these similarities and differences.

EXTEND BY APPLYING

Observation

A.Choose a place where you can observe adult-child interactions- such in the mall, in church, at the
playground , etc. Spend one hour observing such adult-child interactions. Focus your attention on the
stimulus response consequence patterns you observe.

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B. Describe the consequences you observe. ( It is better to write the details on the spot or as soon as you
finish the observation).

C. Answer these questions:

1. What kind of stimuli for children’s and adult behavior did you observe?

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