Ecological Validity In Psychological Research

The room was also equipped with a one-way window so the child could be observed without their acknowledgement. The experiment showed that the consequences in the films that the children observed in the ending, created a different outcome. The children who witnessed the film were the adult was rewarded was most likely to repeat or imitate the aggressive behavior toward the Bobo doll. In the situation of the other children who watched the adult being punished for their aggressive behavior, the children were less likely to recreate the aggressive behavior towards the Bobo doll. After the findings Bandura added to the experiment. The children who watched any of the three films were asked to recreate what the adult did in the film. Each imitation the child recreated correctly, they were rewarded with candy and stickers. Virtually all the children were capable of recreating all actions, aggressive or non-aggressive. The different variations of the films the children watched had no impact on them. In conclusion to Bandura’s experiment, you are capable of imitating any behavior, aggressive or non-aggressive, but you are more likely to imitate if there is expectation of any type of reward.

A question Skinner had to deal with was how we get to more complex sorts of behaviors. He responded with the idea of shaping, or “the method of successive approximations.” Basically, it involves first reinforcing a behavior only vaguely similar to the one desired. Once that is established, you look out for variations that come a little closer to what you want, and so on, until you have the animal performing a behavior that would never show up in ordinary life. Skinner and his students have been quite successful in teaching simple animals to do some quite extraordinary things.

B.F. Skinner, the man who set the gold standard for shaping in behavioral anyalisis, known for his animal experiments using boxes built his way into becoming America’s leading neo-behaviorist. Skinner entered into the experimental world almost unintentionally, starting out life to become a novelist then completely switching gears on a whim of curiosity. Skinner didn’t start with a plan, he just had a question, he wanted to understand the behavior of living things. Thus, forming his infamous boxes, not knowing where it would lead him, but wanting to see it something was going to come from it.

Behaviorism has been a topic of many controversies in the early stages of developing. This paper will present a synthesis of several articles discussing behaviorisms and its development through various schools of theories, in addition known researchers and conclusions. The first article that illustrates behaviorism is, “Behaviorism at 100” by Ledoux (2012), which details the last 50 years of the study of behaviorism. The next article is “Behaviorism” by Moore (2011), maps the beginning of behaviorism with B.F.Skinner and addressing functionalism and structuralism. The article named “Psychology as the behaviorist views it”, written by Watson (1913) put his emphasis the aspects of psychology and how behaviorist view introspection. Green (2009) article “Darwinian Theory functionalism and the First American psychological revolution”, is very adamant to have is readers to know that functionalism was the foundation that behaviorism was built. Clark (2004) article “The classical origins of Pavlov’s conditioning”, give insight into classical conditioning abroad and in the United States. The last article named “Little Albert’s alleged neurological impairment” written by Digdon , Powell and Harris (2014), focus on ethical concerns and that may have been overlooked. The synthesis paper will provide behaviorism and conclusions that can draw overall messages from the articles mentioned above.

The behaviourist school of thought sought to prove that behaviour could be predicted and controlled. Often using animals in their experiments, they studied how changes in environment can affect behaviour. It was their belief that learning begins with a clean slate and that behaviour is acquired by conditioning. They suggest that the learner’s response to stimuli can be reinforced and directed using positive or negative feedback.

Behaviourist’s such as Skinner (1957) and Watson (1920) supported the environmentalist approach, Skinner instilled certain behaviours into a pigeon through operant conditioning, and he used punishment and reinforcement. He then practiced this method on humans; his book, Verbal Behaviour, explained the acquisition of language. Watson established his ‘Little Albert Experiment’, he showed how phobias may be attained by classical conditioning (Davenport, 1992,

It was believed by John Watson that classical conditioning could explain all aspects of human psychology (McLeod, 2008). Human behavior is caused by a stimulus which is then followed by a response; the main idea of classical conditioning. Before Skinner’s discoveries and analysis on operant conditioning, classical conditioning was the most reasonable method in explaining animal behavior. Breaking free from social norms Skinner approached behavior by looking at the causes of an action and how consequences are stronger than responses. Animal behavior could not be

While Skinner was at Harvard, he invented what he called an operant conditioning apparatus, known as the Skinner Box. By using this device, Skinner could study an animal interacting with its environment. He started off by studying rodents in the experiments, examining how the rats discovered and used a lever in the box that dispensed food at different times. Skinner then started experimenting with pigeons, using the box. The pigeons pecked at a disc to gain access to food. By conducting these tests Skinner came to the decision that some form of reinforcement was crucial in learning new behaviors. While researching at Harvard, Skinner pronounced the results of his operant conditioning experiments in the Behavior of Organisms (1938).

A reduction in fear by observing a model’s behavior goes unpunished in a feared activity. I am often asked what I found overall in the bobo doll studies. Here is the answer. I observed that the group who saw the model punished for aggressiveness was least aggressive. The group who saw the model reinforced for aggressiveness was most aggressive. These groups were responding to vicarious reinforcement and vicarious punishment.

Secondly, The Behavioural Theory, based on Ivan Pavlov’s 1879 Classic Conditioning experiment and largely influenced by B.F. Skinner’s 1948 Operant Behaviourism Theory suggests that individual’s behaviour is

In 1961 Albert Bandura and two of his colleagues set out to find empirical evidence to support his Social Learning Theory, which is the "theory that we learn social behavior by observing and imitating and by being rewarded and punished.” (Myers 162) The “Transmission of Aggression Through Imitation of Aggressive Models,” is more famously known as the Bobo doll study. The Bobo doll study tested children's susceptibility to aggressive tendencies by exposing them to adult models who exhibited aggressive behaviors and observing how the child expressed frustration later on away from the adult model.

In his fiction novel, “Walden Two,” author and behavioral psychologist, B.F Skinner, introduces a radical solution to societal, communal, and modern life problems. Skinner describes a utopia, which based on its foundation of scientific ideologies, forms the perfect society. The utopian society that Skinner depicts is far happier and healthier than any other in the world due to its communists and socialist beliefs that are achieved through the idea that free will is merely an illusion. This experimental community is based on the principals of behaviorism, which is the claim that environmental factors influence human behavior. New behavior is therefore learned through classical and operant conditioning rather than inborn knowledge. It is through

(Blackman, 1991) puts the case forward that the study of behaviour should come under the ‘subject’ of biology rather than psychology on the grounds that behaviour occurs ‘naturally’ when consequences are applied. Skinner had said a similar thing himself in (1963) when he considered the choice of the placement of behaviour in the scheme of things. He said that if the mind was going to be the subject

According to Boeree, C, George (2006), B. F. Skinner’s “entire system is based on ‘operant conditioning’”. Behaviourism is determined by the environment and is “concerning with the effect of external events such as reward or punishment for behaviour” (Duschesne,

Skinner was a behaviorist who wanted to provide a method for understanding human behavior, thoughts, and emotions. Skinner believed that classical conditioning was to simplistic to be a complete explanation of the complex human behavior. Skinner believed the best way to understand any behavior is to look directly at the causes of an action and its consequences. He defined this approach as operant conditioning. Operant conditioning is defined as “ the idea that behavior is determined by its consequences, be they reinforcements or punishments, which make it more or less likely that the behavior will occur again” (B. F. Skinner, 2011). The behavioral model observes human behavior as a practical and useful response. This model acknowledges that every behavior has a purpose and has advanced from the earlier stages of a person's understanding. Skinner created a way to allow individuals the ability to avoid negative behaviors. His theory uses positive and negative reinforcements while covering affective punishments to make sure a student's bad behavior does not turn into a pattern. According to our textbook, “one defining characteristic of the behavioral model is that it views behavior from a functional perspective in terms that are both measurable and observable (Wheeler, 2014,p.17).”