Developmental Psychology

1.12 Behavioral Theory Some behaviorists will focus on the observable behaviors of an individual rather than the mental processes that occur. Behaviorist, John B. Watson, was influential in the field of psychology. He assumed that for psychology to be considered a true science, research and experiments need to be conducted since experiences cannot be executed on intangible objects and that the focus needs to be moved to observable concrete actions. When this occurred, the subfield of psychology was born, and its name; behaviorism. 1.13 Classical Conditioning Classical conditioning is one of the facets of behaviorism. This was proposed by physiologist by the name of Ivan Pavlov. His main research focused on digestion, specifically the digestion of dogs. His research was based on assumptions that when dogs are hungry, or they are exposed to food, they will salivate. Pavlov’s research even showed that the dogs he was studying would salivate before they were even offered food. The dogs would eventually associate Pavlov with food and would salivate when they saw Pavlov. Let’s look at some of the components of classical conditioning: • Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS): Food • Unconditioned Response (UCR): Salivation • Conditioned Stimulus (CS): Bell • Conditioned Response (CR): Salvation Remember that: • UCR: Usually is a natural reflex • Pavlov’s Bell: Originally a neutral stimulus (Had no significance) • UCR becomes a CR when pairing the UCR with a new stimulus Another thing that is important to know about classical conditioning is that it pairs new reflexes with previously neutral stimuli. Classical conditioning has proven to be useful, but it is limited because only impulsive actions are able to be used. Reflective actions are not an ideal way to teach, but if the responses can be naturally trained, then the responses can undergo extinction.

©2018

Achieve

Page 16

of 128