Last spring my family got a new labradoodle puppy a few weeks before I moved home from Penn State for the summer. I could not wait to get home and meet the little guy. By the time I got home, Riley, our new puppy, could already do simple things like answer to his name and sit. Now it feels like every time I come home from school, Riley knows more “tricks” and I have more new commands to learn. The behavioral perspective of psychology is much like training a new puppy.
Like we discussed in class, behavioral psychology is all about condition, reinforcement, and punishment; all things necessary for training a new puppy. When trying to train a puppy to do certain things you use reinforcement repeatedly. When the puppy goes to the bathroom outside, he gets a treat. When the puppy sits when you ask him to: treat. When the puppy lays down when instructed to: treat. When the puppy rolls over: treat. And so on and so forth.
It is the same repetition with punishment for negative actions. When the puppy mistakes the carpet for the bathroom, you reprimand him. When the puppy jumps up on someone; reprimanded. When the puppy barks: reprimanded. When the puppy bites: reprimanded. And so on and so forth.
Eventually the puppy associates things like going to the bathroom outside and listening to commands with rewards like treats and they will soon become a habit for him. He will also associate things like going to the bathroom in the house, jumping, biting, and more with being reprimanded. He will much rather the rewards and the love, than being in trouble. So he will make habit of the good and break the habit of the bad all through conditioning, reinforcement and punishment.
Kelly, we also do something similar with my dog that relates to behaviorism, and it’s actually amusing how he reacts. We used to give him treats when we were trying to train him, and would say, “Want a cookie?” and give him a treat as a reward. So, every time he got back from going to the bathroom outside rather than on the carpet, he would come inside and get a “cookie.” On the other hand, we would punish him when he went to the bathroom on the carpet. If my dog hears the words, “What did you do?” he would immediately know he was in trouble. I think it’s cool how dogs can understand our words, tone, and facial expressions, and know whether they are being rewarded or punished, and that behaviorism is evident in animals as well as people.
Hi Kelly, I also jut got a new puppy and had the opportunity to observe behaviorism happening in real time. It is truly amazing how you can manipulate an animal in to doing exactly what you want whenever you want it, just by offering him a treat or threatening him with a punishment. While it benefits us greatly, I often wonder if it has an adverse affects on the animal. I’d be interested in looking into how exactly the dogs brain reacts when you give him a command or punish him. Also, it is interesting to note how animals respond to behaviorism much easier than do humans. Could it be that the animals are not as intelligent as us so that are just more inclined to obey their superior? Or does the reward and punishment method actually affect their brains in a different way compared to ours? No matter how it works out, I am still thankful that this method of psychology was invented, because controlling a german shepherd puppy would be very hard without a handful of treats.