Behaviorism… School of thought

Behaviorism… School of thought

J.B Watson developed another school of thought is behaviorism. He did not believe that consciousness could ever be studied scientifically. He said that the right subject matter for psychology was behavior and behavior only (1913). Behavior could be studied in a rigorous, objective and experimental manner.

Watson not only changed the subject matter of psychology, he also changed an emphasis from instinct to learned behavior.

According to him, environment was all important and given the opportunity to raise children as he wished, he could make them into any kind of adults he chose. For him all human behavior was learned and an understanding of the learning process provided crucial facts to the secretive behavior.

Methods to Study of behavior

Watson inserted that psychology must be restrict itself to the subjective study of behavior. Only the most stringently objective method of investigation was acceptable in the behaviorists laboratory. To Watson these methods included

• ·        Observation with or without the use of instruments.
• ·        Testing Method
• ·        The Verbal Report Method
• ·        The conditioned reflex method

As a science of behavior, psychology only would deal with acts that could be described objectively.

B.F skinner followed Watson performed many experiments on rats, pigeons, and concentrated how behavior  are modified by events in an environment.

Fundamental Tasks

Watson treated three major topics Instincts, emotions and thoughts. Watson developed his psychology in accordance with the underlying beliefs that all areas of behavior would be considered in objective stimulus response term.

Prediction and control

Watson elaborated a stimulus response psychology, he sated the goal of psychology as the prediction and control of behavior,Watson did not use the term stimulus and response in as narrow a as the Russian psychologists.

For him a stimulus could be a general environmental situation or some internal condition of the organism.

A response was anything the organism did.

Types of Behavior

According to Watson there are four types of behavior

Explicit Learned Behavior: As talking, writing, playing baseball.

Implicit Learned Behavior: Like increase heart rate caused by the sight of road accident.

Explicit unlearned Behavior: As grasping, blinking and sneezing.

Implicit Unlearned Behavior: As glandular secretion and circulatory changes.

Criticism

• ·        Behaviorists ignore the consciousness and sub consciousness.
• ·  They limited psychology to study of the observable behavior of the organism
• ·        Behaviorism psychologists went to extreme with their ideas.