Christine Bennett

9/13/14

Cognitive Psychology 256

Professor Josh Wede

Blog Post #1

Do you ever think about why humans act the way they do? How are people motivated? Do we act out on the goodness of our character or have we been inadvertently conditioned? Have our past experiences of actions and consequence determined our behavior today? These are questions psychologists have been pondering since the beginning of psychology and still are today. Over a hundred years ago a man by the name of John Watson helped push cognitive psychology towards the study of behavior and away from introspection, starting a new approach called Behaviorism (Goldstein, 2011, p. 9). Watson conducted numerous experiments using his theory of Classical Conditioning, whereby he paired one stimulus (like a bell) with a neutral stimulus (like a toy) to create changes in the participants responses (went from liking the toy to disliking it associating it with a loud bell sound) (Goldstein, 2011, pg10). A well-known behaviorist experiment was introduced by B.F. Skinner called Operant Conditioning; this was a theory of behavior reinforcement, by rewarding behavior (like with food) with a desired task (pushing a bar) would increase the behavior and the opposite if a negative reinforcement was given (a shock) would lead to decreases in such behavior (Goldstein, 2011, p. 10)—with rats at least! These experiments and theories can still be applied today in our everyday lives. Take for instance a class of misbehaving children, how does a teacher “train” or “condition” them into ideal students? Are there holes in these theories? Can we simply shape people to behave correctly with simple rewards and consequences? I have found that when working with young children in large groups certain operant conditioning does work on a short term basis. If we are to very narrowly look at the way people operate we may come to find that every action is based on a perceived reaction or result.

While traveling to Asia to teach English to first graders I had imagined I’d walk into a classroom with students eager to learn, students who would be motivated and focused by their own initiative and desire to learn a foreign language—I couldn’t have been more wrong! I found that the student’s primary objective was to have fun, not focus and learn something difficult. When facing this challenge as a new teacher I was forced to use some traditional conditioning methods.

Looking back, one of the first things I did was a perfect example of operant conditioning (Goldstein, 2011). I made a visible chart with everyone’s names where I could add or take away points, the points generated to equal a variety of prizes (the more points the better the prize) points could be cashed in at the end of every week. This enticed children to the point where even walking over to the chart and reaching my hand to take away a point would turn their behavior instantly. However there was a few students who were unable to curb their behavior enough to meet the requirements of the reward system. As time went on throughout the school year, those misbehaving students were enticed less and less by the reward chart.

Next, without knowing I used techniques from Watson’s classical conditioning (Goldstein, 2011), I took a neutral stimulus like clapping and added the request for silence upon the clapping rhythm and over time was able to have the children respond to clapping with their silence. This training took longer for them to respond to as pairing the sound of clapping with the request of silence was new and did not necessarily earn them any rewards. Although the clapping rhythm was one that stuck throughout the entire year.

In conclusion, we can see that the fundamentals of behaviorism can work on a superficial level. Desired results are often acquired through simple rewards and consequences. However more complex dynamics of personality and environment may influence a person’s actions. Conditioning is a good resource if you need quick results of behavior however they may not last long term and they may not penetrate people deeply enough to provide them with certain motivators needed in other tasks. The students of my class who were already ok students may have benefited from an additional reward system to encourage them to act in a way they weren’t opposed to. However, students who had varying backgrounds, who struggled in school or weren’t enticed by prizes would fall through the cracks using these behaviorist methods. Certain actions and rewards might motivate people however not in everything and not for everyone.

References

Goldstein, Bruce E. (2011) Cognitive Psychology. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.