The Behavioral Perspective

The keys to understanding development are observable behavior and outside stimuli in the environment. If we know the stimuli, we can predict the behavior. In this respect, the behavioral perspective reflects the view that nurture is more important to development than nature.

Universal Stages: Rejected

• people are assumed to be affected by the environmental stimuli to which they happen to be exposed
• developmental patterns are personal, reflecting a particular set of environmental stimuli; behavior is the result of continuing exposure to specific factors in the environment

3 Theories/Theorists

Watson

Studied Pavlov, formed conclusions, reported to APA

The "father" of behaviorism

Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I’ll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select—doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief, and yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities. (Watson, 1925)

Classical Conditioning

Occurs when an organism
learns to respond in a particular way to a neutral stimulus that normally does not evoke that
type of response.

Pavlov example

A dog is repeatedly exposed to the pairing of the sound of a bell and the presentation of meat, it may learn to react to the bell alone in the same way it reacts to the meat—by salivating and wagging its tail with excitement. Dogs don’t typically respond to bells in this way; the behavior is a result of conditioning, a form of learning in which the response associated with one stimulus (food) comes to be connected to another—in this
case, the bell.

Operant Conditioning

Form of learning in which a voluntary response is strengthened or weakened by its association with positive or negative consequences. It differs from classical conditioning in that the response being conditioned is voluntary and purposeful rather than automatic (such as salivating).

Operant conditioning: formed and championed by B.F. Skinner

Individuals learn to act deliberately on their environments in order to bring about desired consequences; people operate on their environments to bring about a desired state of affairs.

Reinforcement
is the process by which a stimulus is provided that
increases the probability that a preceding behavior will be repeated.

Punishment

Punishment is the introduction of
an unpleasant or a painful stimulus or the removal of a desirable stimulus, will decrease the probability that a preceding behavior will occur in the future.

Behavior that is reinforced, then, is more likely to be repeated in the future, while behavior that receives no reinforcement or is punished is likely to be discontinued, or extinguished.

Social-cognitive Theory

an approach that emphasizes learning by
observing the behavior of another person, called a model

Behavior is learned primarily through observation and not through trial and error, as it is with operant conditioning. We don’t need to experience the consequences of a behavior ourselves to learn it.

Social-cognitive learning proceeds in four steps. First, an observer must pay attention and perceive the most critical features of a model’s behavior. Second, the observer must successfully recall the behavior. Third, the observer must re-
produce the behavior accurately. Finally, the observer must be motivated to learn and carry out the behavior.