Behaviorism
In the twentieth century, empirical psychology is replaced by practical psychology. Americans are putting science on a materialistic basis. Instead of inner feelings and doubts, action is in the foreground in psychology. A new direction appears, behaviorism, which in translation into Russian means "behavior". Proponents of the new direction believed that the subject of study in psychology should be only those behavioral reactions that can be seen and evaluated. Science should only be objective. When a person's actions are available with the help of the senses to the external observation of a psychologist, the motivation of the investigated person becomes clear.
The theory of behaviorism says that people's behavior is dictated not by their thoughts, but by the usual mechanical influence of the external environment. It's very simple: the emerging stimulus generates a certain reaction. A reaction in behaviorism means such movements of a person that he performs while performing this or that action; under the stimulus - irritations coming from the outside world, accessible to the observer.
Since there is a natural connection between stimuli and reactions, behaviorism teaches that, having learned the principles of such a relationship, it is possible to obtain from a person and society the necessary behavior in various situations. In this case, there is no need at all to investigate internal mental experiences.
Behavior theory
Concepts such as "awareness" and "experience" of the new direction of psychology have lost all significance. The theory of behaviorism recognizes only a specific action and no less specific stimulus that is visible to everyone around. All internal emotions are considered subjective. One person is worried about a broken cup, the other thinks that the time has come to replace the dishes. Either way, both go out and buy a new cup. This is the main principle underlying the theory of behaviorism, the stimulus generates a reaction, everything else is temporary and superficial.
In addition, behaviorism believes that all stimuli should be documented, fixed by verbal objective means. The psychologist should not rely on self-observation in any case. The founder of the doctrine of behaviorism, John Watson, derived the formula: stimulus - response. Only a stimulus prompts a person to any action and determines his character. Conclusion: you need to do as many experiments as possible with data recording and further in-depth analysis of the information received.
Beseviorism, as a doctrine of behavior, also extends to the animal world. Therefore, behaviorists welcomed Pavlov's teachings and took advantage of his results.
The new direction of behaviorism gained popularity, as it was distinguished by its simplicity and ease of understanding. But, soon, it turned out that not everything is so simple. Some stimuli elicit more than one response at once. The teaching needed updating.
Directions of behaviorism
The crisis of behaviorism was resolved by introducing an additional variable into the classical formula. Now it began to be believed that not everything can be fixed by objective methods. The stimulus only works with the intermediate variable.
Behaviorism, like any teaching, has undergone modifications. This is how new trends appeared:
- Non-behaviorism;
- Social behaviorism.
Scanner was the founder of nonbehaviorism. The scientist believed that research without objective confirmation is unscientific and should not be carried out. The new behaviorism does not set the task of educating the individual, but directs efforts to "programming" the behavior of the individual in order to achieve the most effective result for the customer. The practice of the "carrot method" in research has confirmed the importance of a positive incentive, which produces the best results. Scanner, conducting research, repeatedly fell into trouble, but the scientist believed that if behaviorism cannot find an answer to any question, then such an answer does not exist in nature.
The mainstream of behaviorism socially studies human aggression. Adherents of social behaviorism believe that a person makes every effort to achieve a certain position in society. The new word behaviorism in this current is a mechanism of socialization, which provides not only for gaining experience on one's own mistakes, but also on other people's mistakes. On the basis of this mechanism, the foundations of aggressive and cooperative behavior have been formed. In this regard, the experience of behaviorism in psychology by the Canadian psychologist Albert Bandura is remarkable, who took three groups of children and presented them with the same feature film. It showed how a boy beats a rag doll. However, different endings were filmed for each group:
- A positive attitude towards the boy's actions;
- Punishing a boy for a “bad deed”;
- Complete indifference to the actions of the protagonist.
After watching the film, the children were brought to a room where the exact same doll was located. Children who saw that the doll was being punished for beating did not touch it. Babies from the other two groups displayed aggressive qualities. This proves, from the point of view of behaviorism, that a person is actively influenced by the society in which he is. As a result of the experience, Albert Bandura proposed to ban all scenes of violence in films and in the media.
Basic misconceptions of behaviorism
The main mistakes of the adherents of behaviorism are completely ignoring the personality:
- Misunderstanding that the study of any action is impossible without being tied to a specific person;
- Misunderstanding that under the same conditions, different personalities may have several reactions, and the choice of the optimal one always remains with the person.
As advocates of behaviorism in psychology argue, "respect" is built entirely on fear. Such a statement cannot be considered true.
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