Research Paper on Behaviorism

Behaviorism's main focus is to provide insight to the behavioral process behind a person's actions.  The establishment of behaviorism took place in the 20th century and has since advanced tremendously and improved society. Several theorists, such as John Watson, B. F. Skinner, and Edward L. Thorndike, provided a basic foundation of behaviorism which led to a broader understanding of this approach to psychology. The importance of behaviorism is stressed in regards to the fact that it is still used today, often seen when training a pet or in the classroom. 

Operant conditioning is the idea that a certain behavior can be trained through a stimulus. The first time operant conditioning was seen was through the work of Edward L. Thorndike, but it was later revised and gained popularity by B. F. Skinner. Skinner thought that as a result of conditioning, behaviour would be changed. This was proved through the Skinner’s Box experiment where a mouse was placed in a box with nothing but a lever that dispensed food. The mouse accidentally pressed the lever and food was dispensed. Having food dispensed everytime the mouse pulled the lever was a continuous reinforcer, meaning the desired behaviour is reinforced every time that it occurs. This essentially led to the understanding that behaviour can be learned and adapted to, even if it was an accident. Overall, this goes to show that operant conditioning reinforces a certain behaviour and that it can be applied to real life situations. 

John B. Watson was thought to be the founder of behaviorism as he was important in the development of behavioral psychology.  Watson believed that behaviourism should be based on behaviour that can be observed visually. He conducted experiments that proved that behaviour can be learned and was a conditioned response to a stimulus and reinforcement, whether positive or negative. His most famous experiment was the “Little Albert” experiment. Experimenting on a 9 month old baby, Watson tried to see if classical conditioning can be endured upon a human being. Watson would make a frightening noise whenever Albert would reach for the rat. This eventually resulted in Albert being scared of the rat, proving Watson’s theory that behaviour can be learned, which substantially influenced society in many ways. The first is that many issues were taken into consideration after the experiment was over like full consent of the experiment and the harmful impacts of the experiment on the child’s basic development. The consideration of these issues led to the development of the Belmont Report. Although issues were created, the experiment allowed room for more theories and new ideas which would be used in today’s world.

One of the main uses of behaviorism today is to provide insight on how a behavior can be learned or adapted to. Classical and operant conditioning provide just this insight. Both conditioning methods are used in everyday life situations, but are not always recognized as so. 

One example of this would be training a pet using operant conditioning. When analyzing the process of how dogs are trained with new tricks, it is clear to see that this process is being used. During operant conditioning, a neutral stimulus is paired with an unconditioned stimulus which results in a conditioned response and stimulus. In the case of training a dog a new trick, the trick would be the conditioned response and the treat/reinforcer would be the conditioned stimulus.

Not only can conditioning be used for personal use, it is also used for professional use. According to research, “Conditioning and behavior modification are still widely used in therapy and behavioral training to help clients change problematic behaviors and develop new skills.” (Cherry, 2020). Many times, conditioning is used by specialists to treat maladaptive behavior or in general negative behaviour. This positively impacts society, as well as the community as a whole. 

Although behaviourism has in the past and continues to positively impact society, there have been setbacks. For instance, the “Little Albert” experiment went against several important laws regarding health and ethics in experiments. For one, Albert was never deconditioned to not being afraid of rats, so the fear stayed with him for the remainder of his life. This went on to cause great delay in Albert’s basic child development. There was also no guarantee that Albert’s parents gave full consent to the experiment. These two factors go against obvious ethics and health concerns, but the awareness eventually led to the development of the Belmont Report. The Belmont Report is important as it holds laws regarding ethics and health in experiments. Although the Baby Albert experiment caused social issues, the issues raised awareness of health and ethics and facilitated the understanding of the behavioural approach to psychology, which indefinitely led to the publication of the Belmont Report.