Behaviorism was a form of psychology in the 1920’s which used objective, scientific analysis. It was the idea that mental events are triggered by external stimuli that lead to behaviors. An excellent example of behaviorism was shown in an Office clip during class. In this clip, Jim offered Dwight an Altoid whenever his computer rebooted. After doing this several times, Jim rebooted his computer without offering Dwight an Altoid. Even though Jim did not offer him one, Dwight automatically held out his hand.
My experience is directly related to behaviorism because my friend who took the class last year did a behaviorism experiment on me without me knowing. His plan was simple: whenever his phone made a sound he would offer me a piece of gum. I did not pick up on this at all. I just thought that my friend was being really nice and kept on offering me gum. In fact, I thought that my friend was so generous that he would not care if I took food from his room. So when he was at class, I would go into his dorm and take whatever snacks I wanted.
Now, the behaviorism has taken on a different form. Instead of me reacting to the sound of the phone, I reacted to my friend’s generosity. Specifically, I thought that he was so generous that I could take advantage of him. If he did not offer me gum, I would have been hesitant to go into his room and take snacks. But since he was so nice, I thought that he would not care if I took some food from him. But this begs the question: wouldn’t a normal person not take food from somebody who is nice to them? I think that I saw his generosity as an invitation to take and share whatever is his. I wasn’t taking food to anger him, but rather because I thought that it would do harm. If I thought that it was ok to take food, why wouldn’t I?
My friend’s experiment ultimately failed. His phone’s sound went off and I did not react at all. But, the experience still has an important lesson about behaviorism: people are more inclined to take from people that are generous to them. If my friend set some boundaries and did not offer me as much gum, I would have likely not felt welcomed to take food from his room.
My friend eventually told me that he performed the experiment on me and discussed how it backfired on him. Although it failed, we both agreed it was a funny and memorable experience.