Behaviorism studies observable behavior, believing that all human activities are forms of behavior. It heavily focuses on conditioning to manipulate an organism’s behavior. While some have integrated its concepts, others argue it incompletely explains maladaptive behavior and eliminates free will.
Behaviorism is a branch of psychology that focuses on the study of observable behavior, with the belief that all human activities, from feeling an emotion to performing a physical task, are forms of behavior. Behaviorists are interested in what they can observe, quantify, and manipulate by observing the impact of environmental cues on the organisms they study. These researchers work with a wide variety of animals, including humans, to learn more about why they do what they do.
The father of this field is John B. Watson, who coined the term in 1913, stating that he wanted to direct psychology’s attention to the study of behavior rather than to the nebulous exploration of the mind. Many other scientists and researchers have taken up the discipline and expanded upon it, with one notable behaviorist being BF Skinner, a researcher working in the mid to late 20th century.
According to behaviorists, everything is a form of behavior that occurs in response to stimuli in the environment. This includes things like critical thinking and problem solving, completing physical tasks, and experiencing emotions. While behaviorists acknowledge that cognitive processes occur and may be involved in behavior, they emphasize that these processes occur in response to stimuli, making the result of those processes a form of behavior.
Behaviorism focuses heavily on the use of conditioning, the idea that stimuli can be used to teach organisms to repeat or avoid behavior. In fact, conditioning can be used to manipulate an organism’s behavior to create a desired outcome. For example, people use conditioning in animal training to teach animals to do things like gallop on a rider’s command, sit when signaled to do so, or attack when ordered to do so by a handler.
With this system, many things can be quantified, manipulated and explored to learn more about the behavior of organisms, from ants to elephants. Some other fields have integrated some of the discipline’s concepts, such as the idea of operant conditioning to promote a desired behavior, and some behaviorists pursue more or less radical forms of behaviorism in their work.
Some opposition has been lodged against this camp. For example, some theologians argue that it would appear to reject the existence of a God or higher power by eliminating free will and treating humans essentially like machines. Other people in the field of psychology have also argued that behaviorism incompletely explains maladaptive behavior or problems that appear to be psychological, rather than behavioral, in origin.
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