Radical Behaviorism

Behaviorism was introduced by Watson (1913) and supported the view that psychology need to deal with the objective data of behavior. According to Tolman (1948), behavior is guided by purpose, which is called as “purposive behavior”.

Skinner (1974) believed that behavior is can be fully understood regarding environmental cues and results. According to him, the mind is just like a black box and nothing is known about what happens inside and therefore, knowing inside is not needed to understand how behaviours are affected by environmental or external issues. Skinner (1974) defined learner as a more or less permanent change in behaviour, which can be detected by observation over a period of time. Regarding two classes of behaviour namely as respondent behaviour and operant behaviour, respondent behaviour is elicited involuntarily in relation to a stimulus such as dogs’ salivating to food whereas operant behaviour is emitted by an organism such as circus animals performing tricks.

Moreover, behaviour occurs more if it is rewarded or reinforced yet a response occurs less if its consequence is aversive. Positive reinforcement is about strengthening the response such as dog trainers reinforce behaviour with dog treats. In addition, Premack principle is a type of positive reinforcement to strengthen the low-frequency behaviours such as parents saying “You can watch tv after you finish your homework”. However, negative reinforcement strengthens a response by means of the removal of an aversive stimulus such as buzzer sound until the driver fasten the seat belt since it turns off the sound. Punishment reduced the rate of the response in order to stop the behaviour yet its effectiveness is short-lived. However, a long history of punishment might cause physical or psychological harm and it is called as learned helplessness, which refers to the passive acceptance of the events beyond one’s control. Reinforcement removal is related to taking away reinforcement when behaviour occurs, extinction happens when existing contingencies of reinforcement are taken away which causes reduction in the frequency of the response and response cost is about the removal of reinforcement contingent upon behaviour. Finally, timeout refers to removing the learner for a limited time.

In terms of teaching new behaviours, shaping is about the reinforcement of successive approximations to goal behaviour, which includes positive reinforcement and used mainly for simple behaviours while chaining is used for complex behaviours and it aims to establish complex behaviours made up of discrete behaviours known to the learners.

In order to plan a program of behaviour change, first step is to set behavioural goals by determining what behaviour is to be changed and what the change is, and then next step is to determine appropriate reinforcers such as giving stickers or stars to young children. After that, third step is to select procedures for changing behaviour since what procedure should be used depends on what behaviour change is desired. The next step is to implement procedures and record results that highlights the importance of observation and finally, the last step is to evaluate progress and revise as necessary.

Additionally, behaviour modification methods are also taught to individuals to make them change their own behaviour and this is known as self-control such as losing weight, quitting smoking etc.