Behaviorism As far back as history can go, humans have always had some interest in what constitutes an individual; who they are and what aspects of their existence have distinguished them from others within their species. As behaviorists see it, the answer to these questions is nothing other than the world you grew up in. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay "Behaviorism", focuses on the variables that we can observe, measure, manipulate and avoid all that is subjective, internal and unavailable, for example mental (1998, C. George Boeree)." Behaviorism is a theory very ancient theory of personality. One of the oldest theories dates back to René Descartes. He introduced the idea of ​​substance dualism and defined "the person as a machine dependent on external events whose soul was the ghost in the machine (substance dualism)" This means that mental and physical things are completely separate. Modern behaviorism, however, modifies this theory by refusing to recognize any internal workings of the mind. Behaviorists believe that people are nothing more than "mediators between behavior and environment (Skinner, 1993).” Since the internal workings or human mind are ignored, opponents of the theory strongly oppose it. Behaviorism cannot explain human language and memory. Although these criticisms indicate a failure in this theory. There is no denying that behaviorism can teach the world a lot about human behavior. Behaviorism as it is known today was founded on the ideas of John B. Watson. Watson argued that behavior should be examined, rather than describing how the mind works. He argued that it was possible to condition humans and animals. In his famous study, Watson conditioned a child named Albert to fear a white mouse. He did this by creating a loud noise every time Albert touched the mouse. Frightened by the loud noise, the child associated the mouse with this sensation and feared the mouse in the same way he feared the noise. Watson's work was supported by the better-known behaviorist BF Skinner. Skinner's entire system is based on operant conditioning. “The organism is operating on the environment (Skinner, 1993).” During functioning, the organism encounters a special type of stimulus, called a reinforcing stimulus or simply reinforcer. This special stimulus has the effect of intensifying the behavior that occurs immediately before the reinforcement. Operant conditioning is: “behavior is followed by a consequence, and the nature of the consequence modifies the organism's tendency to repeat the behavior in the future (Behaviorism, 1997).” Skinner conducted experiments to prove this by placing a mouse in a cage called the Skinner Box. His cage would have a bar or pedal on a wall that, when pressed, causes a small mechanism to release a ball. The rat would then bounce around the cage, doing whatever rats do, when it accidentally presses the bar, a pellet of food falls out. The operant is the behavior just before the reinforcer, which is the food pellet. Before you know it, the mouse storms off to the bar. “Behavior followed by a reinforcing stimulus results in a greater likelihood that that behavior will be repeated in the future (Stacy Breslau, 2003).” What if you no longer feed the rat pellets? After a few attempts, the rat will stop pressing the bar. This is called extinction of operant behavior. "Behavior no longer followed by the reinforcing stimulus translates into a decrease in the probability thatthat behavior will be repeated in the future. (Stacy Breslau, 2003)" Now, if you were to turn the pellet machine back on, so that pressing the bar again provides In the rat with the pellets, the behavior of pushing the bar will "come back" to life, much more quickly than employed by the rat to learn the behavior the first time. Because the return of the reinforcement occurs in the context of a history of reinforcement that dates back to the very first time the rat was reinforced for pushing on the bar the way we arrive at more complex types of behavior. He responded with the idea of ​​shaping, or the “method of successive approximations.” In essence, it is about reinforcing a behavior that is only vaguely similar to the desired one that is, you look for variations that come a little closer to what you want, and so on, until you get an animal that performs a behavior that would never occur in ordinary life. Skinner and his students were very successful in teaching simple animals to do extraordinary things. Beyond fairly simple examples, modeling also explains more complex behaviors. For example, you don't become a brain surgeon by walking into an operating room, cutting off someone's head, removing a tumor, and receiving a reward. Instead, you are gently shaped by your environment to enjoy certain things, do well in school, take a certain class, see a movie, and so on. It may be something your parents carefully did to you, but more likely it is something more or less involuntary. Another type of reinforcement is the aversive stimulus. It is the opposite of a reinforcing stimulus, something unpleasant or painful. “Behavior followed by an aversive stimulus results in a decreased likelihood that the behavior will be repeated in the future (Stacy Breslau, 2003).” This defines an aversive stimulus and describes the form of conditioning known as punishment. If you shock a mouse for doing something, it will never do what it was shocked for. If you spank Johnny for throwing his toys, he will throw his toys less and less (maybe). If you remove an already active aversive stimulus after a mouse or Johnny performs a certain behavior, you are performing negative reinforcement. If you turn off the electricity when the mouse is standing on its hind legs, it will stand much longer. Note how difficult it can be to distinguish some forms of negative reinforcement from positive reinforcement. "If I starve you, is the food I give you when you do what I want positive? Or is it the removal of a negative, aversive stimulus of hunger? (1998, C. George Boeree)" Skinner does not approve of the use of aversive stimuli, because they don't work well. Did I mention earlier that maybe Johnny will stop throwing his toys? This is because whatever was reinforcing the bad behavior was not removed. This hidden reinforcement was just hidden with an aversive stimulus. So, sometimes the child behaves well, but it still feels good to throw those toys. This all boils down to a theory of personality that says the environment causes behavior. A man named Albert Bandura found this a little too simplistic for the phenomenon he was observing, aggression in adolescents, and decided to add to it, "the environment causes behavior, but the behavior also causes the environment (Bandura , 2000)". He called this concept reciprocal determinism. Then he took it a step further. Bandura began to view personality as an interaction between three things: the environment, behavior, and the person's psychological processes. Adding imagery and language to the mix allows Bandura to theorize much more effectively than some.