Origins and Development of Behavioral Psychology

Origins and Development of Behavioral Psychology

By most conventional measures, the antecedents of modern psychology can be traced to the earliest of inquiring minds. Man seems always to have been fascinated by his behavior and human nature. The same kinds of questions now asked about the nature of man were asked centuries ago. The critical difference between modern psychology and its intellectual predecessors is not so much the kinds of questions asked as the methods used to seek the answers. Until the last quarter of the nineteenth century, man attempted to study himself by speculation, intuition, and generalization from his own experiences. The significant change or breakthrough occurred when man tried to answer his questions about human nature by using the tools and methods of science, which had already been demonstrated successful in answering questions in the natural sciences. When man tried to use carefully controlled observation and experimentation to study human nature, then and only then did psychology begin to attain some indepen­dence from its philosophical antecedents. In order to break away from philosophy, psychology had to develop a more precise and objective way of dealing with its problems than its predecessors had used. Much of the history of psychology after its break with philosophy involves, as we shall see, the continuing refinement of its tools, techniques, and methods of study in order to achieve increased precision and objectivity in both its answers and questions (Ledoux, 2012). Behaviorism, therefore, took on a psychological approach that fortified both the scientific and objective investigation methods. A central theoretical component to Behaviorism is the theory of learning that purports to explain human and animal behavior through conditioning in terms of external physical stimuli, responses and reinforcement (Moore, 2011). This paper shall, therefore, seek to provide an overview of the behaviorism origin, its conceptual foundation as well as highlighting the critical theories, discoveries, and experiments, while also providing an analysis of how Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) developed from behavioral theory.

Origins and Conceptual Foundations of Behaviorism

Between 1880 and 1895, dramatic and sweeping changes took place in psychology, particularly in the United States. Thus, by the early part of the twentieth century, psychology had succeeded in gaining its indepen­dence from philosophy, developing laboratories in which to use the meth­ods of science, establishing its scientific organization, and giving itself a formal definition as a science—the science of behavior.  Years before the twentieth century, psychology studies field was just about the study of cognition only.  In these early years, there were numerous speculations proposed concerning human learning and behavior. The dualism perspective was introduced by Rene Descartes, whose attempts at mechanistic explana­tions of the body and mind were among the first steps in the direction of greater objectivity. More important in the history of objectivism is Auguste Comte (1798-1857), founder of the movement called positivism, which empha­sized positive knowledge. According to Comte, the only valid knowledge is that which is social and objectively observable. These criteria rule out introspection, which depends on an individual consciousness that cannot be objectively observed (Jafari, 2014). Comte vigorously protested against mentalism and subjective methodology. By the beginning of the twentieth century, objectivism, mechanism, and materialism had grown sharp. Their influence was so pervasive that they led inexorably to a new kind of psychology, one without “conscious­ness” or “mind” or “soul,”; one that focused on only what could be seen and heard and touched.  The science of behavior—man as a ma­chine—was the inescapable result.

Meanwhile, functionalism also contributed to the development of behaviorism in terms of its conceptual framework. The proponents of this school of thought proposed that any mental state was not dependent on the internal constitution, but instead, it should rely on the function as well as the role that it plays within the cognitive system that it comprises (Green, 2009). Subsequently, functionalism was following structuralism, and the school changed then from only concentrating on the mental structures to focusing on how consciousness is connected to human behaviors.

In the mid-twentieth century, psychological behaviorism increased to a noticeable level. Pavlov Russian physiologist discovered classical conditioning. Thus, he greatly influenced psychology’s shift to greater objectivity in subject matter and methodology.

John Watson is another great psychologist and influential behaviorist in the psychological field who seized upon the Pavlov approach because it provided him with an objective method of analyzing behavior, that is, reducing behavior to its most elementary units, the stimulus-response (S – R) bonds. All behavior, he argued, could be reduced to these elements, providing a method for laboratory investigation of man’s complex behavior (Watson, 1994). Thus, Watson continues in the atomistic and mechanistic tradition established by the British empiricists and used by Wundt. In his view, psychologists must study man in the same way physical scientists study the universe by breaking it down into the component elements or atoms. Watson clarified the connection between human behavior and the stimuli; this was revolutionary in connecting everything from discourse to emotive reactions through a pattern of response together with stimulus. In this regard, Little Albert experiment and research by Watson and Rayner showed that classical conditioning could be used in creating a physical reaction such as a phobia.

Likewise, B.F. Skinner (1904-1990) was the most influential behavioral psychologist, particularly in defining radical behaviorism, a philosophy that posits that all behavior can be explained as the result of learned associations between a stimulus and a response, reinforced or extinguished through reward and/or punishment (Day, 2016). Through this process, an association is formed between the behavior and the consequences of that behavior. Skinner used rats in his experiments. If a rat pressed the blue button, the rat gets food as a reward, and it received an electric shock when it presses the red button. The main aim of Skinner’s research was to investigate how people can modify their conduct dependent on the outcomes. The Experimental Analysis Behavior established given B.F Skinner logic of radical behaviorism to characterize the essential standards of what is presently called Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA).

Applied Behavior Analysis and Behavioral Therapy

The applied behavior analysis (ABA) is one of the programs which aim at individual behavior and tries to modify it over time with the use of behavioral principles. Applied behavior analysis (ABA) has been utilized to assist people with obtaining a wide range of abilities, for example, self-help skills, language skills, and playing skills. Furthermore, according to the Applied Behavioral Strategies (2016) research, these behavioral principles may assist in decreasing the maladaptive practices, for example, self-stimulatory behaviors, hostility, in addition to self-injury.

Several studies that have been peer-reviewed demonstrated positive outcomes for utilizing Applied behavior analysis (ABA). Such investigations have exhibited that a number of kids with autism show substantial improvements in getting the hang of, thinking, correspondence and flexibility when they take part in excellent Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) programs.

These approaches are often instrumental in changing maladaptive or harmful behaviors in both children and adults. Nevertheless, it also has some weaknesses. Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) are expenses related together with the treatment. Specialists spend roughly twenty to forty hours in a week only working with customers. Another challenge of this methodology is that it treats patients as if they were robots. This behavior of being robot-like can deliver the ideal outcomes in a therapeutic setting; however, will the patient be fit to apply it in all the settings?

Conclusion

Behaviorism, like all the other systematic positions, has a very long past, as it has been discussed in this paper. Watson gave voice to the changing climate of the times in American psychology, revolted against its mentalistic background, and formally established a completely objective science of behavior. This vigorous Watsonian revolt marked the beginning of the stable positivistic era in American psychology, which seems to have grown even more potent with each passing year. There have followed, immediately and up to the present day, highly enthusiastic formulations of many different forms of behaviorism, and the general American acceptance of the spirit of operationism.

Although behaviorism as a formal school is dead, the neo-behavioristic spirit still flourishes, albeit as a general point of view or attitude rather than as a formal school, for behaviorism has evolved into the American tradition in experimental psychology. To the extent that American experimental psychology is today objective, mechanistic, em­pirical, reductionistic, and (to some degree) environmentalistic, the spirit of Watsonian behaviorism lives on.  Watson cemented behavioral psychology by noting the fact that introspection, which was earlier used, was not a perfect measure to analyze behavioral psychology. With Pavlov, more precise, objective measures and terminology were introduced into the study of association or learning. Also, Pavlov demonstrated that higher mental processes could be adequately studied in physi­ological terms and with the use of animal subjects. Thus, he greatly influenced psychology’s shift to greater objectivity in subject matter and methodology. The effects of this shift are seen most strikingly in the development of behaviorism, in which the conditioned reflex forms Watson seized upon and made it the central core of his program. Skinner extended on Watson’s method of behaviorism by theorizing that processes within the organism—mainly, private events, such as thoughts and feelings—are also part of the science of behavior and suggests that environmental variables control these internal events just as they control observable behaviors (Moore, 2011). Thanks to behaviorism and through applied behavior analysis, people are now able to change their maladaptive behaviors. Similarly, applied behavior analysis has been the hallmark in championing for behavior aversion among autism disorder patients who usually engage in injurious behaviors.

By traversing through the early school of thoughts of behaviorism,  its critical theories, discoveries, and experiments, and by also providing an analysis of how applied Behavior analysis developed from behavioral theory, one might view behaviorism either as a savior or enslaver of man (and it is challenging to take a neutral position)—there is, however, no denying the extent of its influence on contemporary psychology.

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