behaviorists
Skinner's intellectual heirs
Behaviorists are psychologists or researchers who study behavior rather than internal mental states, focusing on observable actions and their relationship to environmental stimuli.
The approach dominated American psychology in the mid-20th century through figures like B.F.
Skinner.
More loosely, behaviorists are people who believe actions matter more than intentions or feelings: The behaviorists on the team wanted measurable outcomes, not attitude surveys.
Act of obtaining something
- reinforcementAdding support or encouragement
- punishmentPenalty for an offense
- extinctionComplete vanishing of a species
- generalizationDeriving principles from examples
discrimination · shaping · modeling · habit formation · trial and error · contiguity · transfer · retention
Learning via reinforcement
- Skinner boxBehavioral research enclosure
- shapingGiving something its form
- contingenciesPossible future events
- response ratesProportion who answer
Learned stimulus-response association
- operant conditioningLearning via reinforcement
- PavlovianAutomatically triggered by association
- stimulus-responseInput-output behavioral pattern
- reinforcementAdding support or encouragement
extinction · habituation · conditioned response · desensitization · generalization · discrimination · token economy · counterconditioning
Attentive watching or remark
- measurementDetermining size or amount
- experimentationSystematic testing of ideas
- controlled experimentsTests isolating single variables
- replicationAct of duplicating precisely
animal models · baseline · variables · quantification · recording · empirical evidence · reliability
Rewards exchanged for privileges
- classroom managementMaintaining order while teaching
- biofeedbackTraining via physiological monitoring
- animal trainingTeaching creatures desired behaviors
- aversion therapyTreatment pairing unwanted behavior with discomfort
acquisition
Act of obtaining something
- reinforcementAdding support or encouragement
- punishmentPenalty for an offense
- extinctionComplete vanishing of a species
generalization · discrimination · shaping · modeling · habit formation · trial and error · contiguity · transfer · retention · Watson
operant conditioning
Learning via reinforcement
- Skinner boxBehavioral research enclosure
- shapingGiving something its form
- contingenciesPossible future events
response rates · positive reinforcement · negative reinforcement
classical conditioning
Learned stimulus-response association
- operant conditioningLearning via reinforcement
- PavlovianAutomatically triggered by association
- stimulus-responseInput-output behavioral pattern
reinforcement · extinction · habituation · conditioned response · desensitization · generalization · discrimination · token economy · counterconditioning · chaining
observation
Attentive watching or remark
- measurementDetermining size or amount
- experimentationSystematic testing of ideas
- controlled experimentsTests isolating single variables
replication · animal models · baseline · variables · quantification · recording · empirical evidence · reliability
token economy
Rewards exchanged for privileges
- classroom managementMaintaining order while teaching
- biofeedbackTraining via physiological monitoring
- animal trainingTeaching creatures desired behaviors
- Psychology SchoolsFreudians, psychoanalysts, humanists, functionalists, structuralists
- mind theoriesmaterialists, dualists, functionalists, illusionists
- Pedagogistsprogressivists, constructivists, traditionalists, essentialists, reconstructionists
behavioristspsychoanalysts
Therapists exploring unconscious drives
Freudians · mentalists · Sigmund Freud · Carl Jung · phenomenologists
behavioristsmentalists
Performers claiming mental powers
Noam Chomsky · nativists · rationalists · phenomenologists · sociobiologists
- animal behavioristsScientists studying fauna conduct