| Psychological behaviorism | |
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Psychological behaviorism is a major theory within psychology which holds that behaviors are learned through positive and negative reinforcements. The theory recommends that psychological concepts (such as personality, learning and emotion) are to be explained in terms of observable behaviors that respond to simulus. Psychological behaviorism was first developed by John Watson (1912), who coined the term "behaviorism," and then B.F. Skinner (1974) who developed what is known as "radical behaviorism." Watson and Skinner rejected the idea that psychological data could be obtained through introspection or by an attempt to describe consciousness; all psychological data, in their view, was to be derived from the observation of outward behavior. Recently, Arthur W. Staats has proposed a "paradigmatic behaviorist theory" in which personality is defined in these terms Arthur W. Staats.[1] Staats, for example, argues that personality consists of a set of learned behavioral patterns, acquired through the interaction between an individual's biology, environment, cognition, and emotion.
[2]==Description==
Staats proposes that radical behaviorism is are insufficient, because in his view psychology needs to unify behavioral sciences to include knowledge about learning and other internal processes that result in the behaviors making up personality. According to this theory, personality consists of three behavioral repertoires:[1]
The infant begins life without the basic behavioral repertoires. They are acquired through complex learning, and as this occurs, the child becomes able to respond appropriately to various situations.[3]
Whereas at the beginning learning involves only basic conditioning, as repertories are acquired the child's learning improves, being aided by the repertoires that are already functional. The way a person experiences the world depends on his/her repertoires. The individual's environment to the present results in learning a basic behavioral repertoire (BBR). The individual's behavior is function of the life situation and the individual's BBR. The BBRs are both a dependent and an independent variable, as they result from learning and cause behavior, constituting the individual's personality. According to this theory, biological conditions of learning are essential. Biology provides the mechanisms for learning and performance of behavior. For example, a severely brain-damaged child will not learn BBRs in a normal manner.
According to Staats, the biological organism is the mechanism by which the environment produces learning that results in basic behavioral repertoires which constitute personality. In turn, these repertoires, once acquired, are modifying the brain's biology, through the creation of new neural connections. Organic conditions affect behavior through affecting learning, basic repertoires, and sensory processes. The effect of environment on behavior can be proximal, here-and-now, or distal, through memory and personality.[3] Thus, biology provides the mechanism, learning and environment provide the content of behavior and personality. Creative behavior is explained by novel combinations of behaviors elicited by new, complex environmental situations. The self is the individual's perception of his/her behavior, situation, and organism. Personality, situation, and the interaction between them are the three main forces explaining behavior. The world acts upon the person, but the person also acts both on the world, and on him/herself.
The methodology of psychological behavioral theory contains techniques of assessment and therapy specially designed for the three behavioral repertoires:
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