Behaviorism

History of the behaviorism

The behaviorism developed in reaction with the approaches known as mentalists . Historically, it is John B. Watson which was the first to use the term “behaviorist” in a very short article considered today as proclamation of the behaviorism, " Psychology ace the behaviorist views it" (1913).

In the years 1940 and 1950, Burrhus F. Skinner studied the concept of operative Conditionnement and defined the operational Paradigme S of them. For this concept, it was based on the law of the effect of Thorndike, i.e. the behavior is function of its consequences. We owe him the concepts of Renforcement, of façonnement, of Apprentissage programmed and well of others. Operative conditioning basing itself on the law of the effect of Thorndike which can be summarized while saying: the behavior is function of its consequences. The principal thinkers of the radical behaviorism are John Watson (1878 - 1958), Burrhus F. Skinner (1904 - 1990), Clark Hull (1884 - 1952), Edward Tolman (1886 - 1959).

Base theory behaviorist

The theory behaviorist makes observable behavior the object even of the Psychologie and in which the environment is the key component of the determination and the explanation of the human Conduite S. The majority of the theories of the Apprentissage recognize three great variables in the process: the environment which stimulates, the organization which is stimulated and the behavior or the answer of the organization in consequence of stimulation. The traditional diagram is thus:

S \ rightarrow I \ rightarrow R

S = stimulus coming from the environment (of the stimuli)

R = the behavior or answer of the individual in consequence of stimulation

I = the individual

Without to deny reality that constitutes the individual (I) and all that occurs there, the behaviorists (traditional) do not occupy themselves any directly, because what interests them, it is to specify, without reference to the nonobservable and hypothetical internal variables, the conditions and the processes by which the environment (S) control the behavior (R). So that the diagram according to which they work met between brackets the individual (I) that they regard as a “ block box ”. In particular, they leave of with dimensions all the relative questions with the Conscience.

From where the diagram:

$S \rightarrow R$

regarded as the linear diagram traditional behaviorist.

This diagram, being able to be comparable with the diagram of the traditional Conditioning Pavlov IEN, was modified by B.F. Skinner, because the Pavlovian Conditionnement explains only the trainings related to stimulis known as unconditional i.e. stimulis causing unconditional answers related to the Phylogénèse of the species.

Thus, the second traditional diagram is that of the operative Conditionnement. This diagram introduces two new variables: environment and effects on the organization which can be positive or negative.

From where the diagram:

$S \ rightarrow R \ rightarrow C$

(the whole being modulated by the context)

This diagram is not linear any more because these is not a stimulus which starts an answer, these are a stimulus which evokes it. The answer or behavior being selected by the effects on the organization and the environment, consequences which are specific to each organization, therefore the study and the classification of the stimuli and the answers can be carried out only a posteriori .

The operative Conditionnement explains the behaviors learned at the time of the Ontogénèse of the organization. The basic difference between traditional and operative conditioning is that operative conditioning presupposes an active being in its environment.

Principles of answering conditioning

According to Carol Tavris and Carole Wade, authors of the collegial book Introduction to psychology - the great prospects , the elementary principles are in the training college of the answers acquired by answering conditioning. Tavris and Wade add that these elementary principles “are the same ones for all the species, whether it is the ground worm or l'Homo sapiens”. Moreover, authors of the collegial book Introduction to psychology - the great prospects add that among the most important principles, it there with the extinction, spontaneous recovery, the generalization and the discrimination of the stimulus as well as the conditioning of a higher nature.

The extinction

The conditional answers can last only during one certain time. If, following a conditioning, one on several occasions presents the conditional stimulus without making it follow unconditional stimulus, the conditional answer ends up growing blurred. Approximately, that leads us to say that the extinction illustrates a reduction then the disappearance of a learned answer; in answering conditioning, the extinction occurs when the conditional stimulus ceases being put in partnership with the unconditional stimulus.

Exemple:

Marc received a balloon in full figure (unconditional stimulus) at his first day at the nursery, and he thus learned how to fear (conditional answer) the child (conditional stimulus) who launched it. Marc will gradually come from there not to fear his playmate more if, by seeing it, it does not associate it any more with unconditional (the balloon). The reaction of fear (conditional answer) will then have been extinct.

Spontaneous recovery

The reappearance of the conditional answer after the installation of a procedure of successful extinction is a spontaneous recovery. Approximately, we can affirm, in certain cases, that a practice will be able to make a new appearance after its apparent extinction.

Exemple:

For example, if Marc were to go away from the nursery a few days, it is possible that to his return it reacts again by an answer of fear by seeing his playmate. This is why one needs usually several meetings of extinction to remove a conditional answer.

The generalization of the stimulus

When a stimulus became a conditional stimulus, involving a given conditional answer, it is observed that stimuli of the same type are likely to start them also the same conditional answer; we give to this process the name of generalization of the stimulus. In other words, a person applying the principle of the generalization of the stimulus deploys a specific behavior on stimuli which have a very close similarity with a very specific stimulus.

Exemple:

For example, Marc will be able to deploy the same conditional answer of fear in the presence of other children who resemble physically his playmate. The proverb “Once bitten, twice shy” described well the process of generalization of the stimulus.

Discrimination of the stimulus

Contrary to the principle of generalization of a stimulus which consists in deploying a specific behavior on stimuli which have a very close similarity with a specific stimulus which is with the source of a behavior, the discrimination of the stimulus, which is the reversed image of the generalization of a stimulus, consists in reacting in a different way to stimuli resembling by certain aspects the conditional stimulus. The discrimination of the stimulus occurs when stimuli which are connected with the conditional stimulus are not associated with the unconditional stimulus at the origin of the conditional answer.

Exemple:

Thus, if Marc learns how not to deploy the conditional answer for fear in the presence of the child who launched the balloon in full face to him, it is that he learned how to discriminate the stimulus.

Currently

Today, if holding them of the radical behaviorism defended by Skinner are less and less numerous, the adaptation of the paradigms of the traditional of Pavlov and instrumental Conditionnement of Skinner to the cognitive components of the behavior allowed authors like Ellis, Seligman, Wolpe or Beck to develop the behavioral-cognitive approach in Psychothérapie.

Currently, the data to which this current gave birth are used in particular in the therapies behavioral (or cognitivo-behavioral), to which they continue to bring fundamental data. This approach made it possible contemporary psychology to deal with problems of adaptation, the such turbid anxious and the depression.

Critics of the behaviorism

Critical of the theory behaviorist

As of its beginnings, the anti-psychic bias, and thus anti constructivist of psychology behaviorist were criticized. Jean Piaget showed that one could not summarize the Intelligence with phenomena of training and imitation on the model of the animal ethology without taking account of the way in which knowledge is built at a subject and a group. However by definition, knowledge not being an observable phenomenon, the behaviorism did not begin in the problems of the epistemology.

The " box-noire" in addition, is seen by the psychoanalysts like an argument Rhétorique to evacuate the question of the Inconscient and that of the Sujet. The Adaptation to the narrow direction is postulated like the only engine, alpha and the Omega, of all the human conduits. In addition, for the theory behaviorist, can be object of science only what is observable by an individual external without reference to the psychic contents of a thinking subject, in obvious contradiction with the analytical prospect. Criticisms of the approach behaviorist thus used the Métaphore of the Iceberg: according to them, the behaviorists are interested only in the emerged part (the observable behavior, i.e., the Symptôme) forsaking the immersed part (the Psychisme). The theory freudienne rests indeed on the fact that the symptom is only the expression of the unconscious part of the mental life (and in particular of Conflit S interns on the subject, as in the hysterical Conversion) what, in oneself, with the theoretical position behaviorist is not incompatible who does not emit simply a Hypothèse on the contents of psychism. On the other hand, the divergences between these two approaches can appear crucial being the Thérapeutique: a behaviorist Psychothérapie of inspiration will seek to make disappear the symptom without being concerned with their significance, while the psychoanalytical Cure will aim at a modification of the psychic processes being expressed in clinical symptomatology.

The Cognitivisme is current in psychology which was born in reaction with the behaviorism. The set of themes of the language played a big role by channeling criticism on the design behaviorist of the language like a whole of “practices” learned by observation and conditioning. On the contrary, the cognitive linguistics defended by Noam Chomsky is based on the assumption of a mental Grammaire consisted of rules which one can décrir formally and who would be contained in the phylogenetic heritage of each human being. Criticism chomskyenne rests in particular on the Argument of the poverty of the stimulus which considers that such a universal Grammaire is essential to the children to acquire such a linguistic competence whereas they are far from to be confronted with all the possible grammatical structures. More generally, the cognitive Psychologie is based on the idea that the Pensée is decomposable in mental processes distinct which it is advisable to model like relatively autonomous entities. The characteristics of these mental processes are then indirectly accessible by means of experiments in which the behavior remains principal the experimental Variable.

Critical of epistemology behaviorist

The party taken anti mentalist of the behaviorist has also an epistemological claim since while refusing to call upon internal elements with the mental life and thus indémontrables with the eyes of an external observer, the theory behaviorist wants to be more scientific because founded on the Objectivité of the phenomena which they seeks to explain. The criticism which one can then make is due to the nature of the explanations suggested within this framework. Indeed, of the phenomena like the Depression or the Anxiété can be defined indeed by a certain number of symptoms but to reduce them to that can seem unsatisfactory.

Nevertheless the behaviorists do not deny that internal structures with the mental life can only exist they are indémontrables, and moreover even if they exist they undergo same the laws as the observable behaviors. For example, the thought is a behavior which is also dependant on its consequences, the action is not born from the thought, the thought is action.

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