THE LEARNING THEORY
BEHAVIORISM:
BEHAVIORIST GORDON ALLPORT
AND
BURRHUS SKINNER
INTRODUCTION
The behavoristic
approach has exerted a strong influence on American Psychology. The basic ideas
of behaviorism are: human behavior is a product of the Stimulus-Response
interaction and that behavior is modifiable. It has triggered scientific
experiments and the use of statistical procedures. Most importantly, it has
turned the attention of psychology to solving real behavior related problems.
The behavorist believe behavior should be explained in terms of environmental
stimuli. It is not necessary to go into the postulating of inner mechanisms or
traits because it creates additional mysteries that need to be explained. Though
with the behavoristic approach its known that certain environmental conditions
tend to procedure certain types of behavior, and with this less tedious process.
(Stevenson n.p.g)
To get a better understanding of this theory I’ve selected
two behaviorists, Gordon Allport and B.F. Skinner; well known for their
approaches in the study of behaviorism.
GORDON ALLPORT
ALLPORT’S EARLY YEARS
Gordon Allport was born to Montezuma,
Indiana, in 1897, the youngest of four brothers. A shy boy, he was teased and
lived a fairly isolated childhood. (textbook 191) His father was a country
doctor, and this meant that his father’s patients were always in the house.
Everyone in his house worked hard. His early life seemed to be pleasant and
uneventful.
I have looked in many resources and I’ve come to the conclusion
that not too many people went into depth about the childhood of Allport. What
was known about his is Allport received his PH.D. in Psychology in 1922 from
Harvard, following in the foot steps of his brother Floyd, who became an
important social psychologists. (Allport 67) Though in all of the research I
did, this was always mentioned: When he was 22 he traveled to Vienna. He had
arranged to meet with Sigmund Freud. There was at first silence, though no
longer be able to take the silence, Gordon blurted out an observation he had
made on his way to meet Freud. He mentioned that he had seen a little boy on the
bus that was very upset at having to sit where a dirty old man had sat
previously. Gordon thought that this child had learned this from his mother, a
very neat and apparently a domineering type. Freud, instead of taking it as a
simple observation, took it to be an expression of some deep, unconscious
process in Gordon’s mind, and said “And was that little boy you? (Boeree 98)
This experience led him to his theory, it made his realize that depth psychology
sometimes digs too deep, in the same way that he had earlier realized that most
importantly “Behaviorism often doesn’t dig deeply enough. His career was spent
developing his theory, examining social issues as prejudice, and developing
personality tests.
ALLPORT’S THEORY
Allport was against
opportunistic functioning. His belief of this term was characterized as
reactive, past-oriented, and of course biological. He felt it was unimportant
when trying to understand most of human behavior. He believed most human
behavior, is motivated by functioning in a manner expressive of the self – which
he called propriate functioning. (Allport 37) Propriate functioning can be
characterized as proactive, future-oriented, and psychological.
Propriate
comes from the word proprium. Allport’s name, for essential concept, the self.
Because it put so much emphasis on the self, Allport defined it as with care. He
handled this task from two directions, phenomenologically and functionically.
Phenomenologically is the self as experienced. He suggested that that the self
is composed of aspects of your experiencing that you see as most essential, warm
and central.
His functional definition became a theory all by itself. The
self has seven functions that arise at certain times of one’s life:
Sense of body develops in first two year. We have a body and feel its
closeness, its warmth. It has boundaries that pain and injury, touch and
movement, make us aware of.
Self-identity develops in first two years also.
Points were we recognize ourselves as continuing, as having a past, present and
future. We see ourselves as individuals.
Self-esteem develops between two
and four years old. This is a time when we recognize that we have value, to
others and to ourselves.
Self-extension develops between four and six.
Certain things become to be thought of as warm, essentials to my existence. Some
people define themselves in terms of the people who are close to them.
Self-image also develops between four and six. This is the “looking-glass
self,” the me as others see me.
Rational coping is learned mostly in the
years from six till twelve. Child began the abilities to deal with problems
rationally and effectively. This is analogous to Erikson’s “industry. (Allport
37)
Propriate strives begins usually after the age of twelve. This is my
self as goals, ideal plans, , a sense of direction, a sense of purpose.
Now, as the proprium is developing in this way, we are also developing
personal disposition. A personal disposition is defined as “generalized
neuropsychic structure (peculiar to the individual), with the capacity, ability
and functionally equivalent to guide consistent forms of adaptive and stylistic
behavior. A personal disposition produces equivalences in function and meaning
between various perceptions, beliefs, feelings, and actions that are not
necessarily equivalent in the natural world, or anyone else’s mind. Another way
to put it is to say that dispositions are concrete, easily recognized, and
consistent in our behaviors. (Boree 98)
It is important to remember that
Allport believed that traits are essentially unique to each individual: One
person’s fear isn’t the same as another’s. For this reason, Allport strongly
pushed what he called idiographic methods – methods that focused on studying one
person at a time, such as interviews, observation, analysis and so on. These are
now referred to as qualitative methods.
Allport recognize that some traits
are more closely tied to the proprium (one’s self) than others. (Allport 67)
Central traits are the building blocks of your personality. Words like dumb
wild, shy, smart.
There are also secondary traits, ones that aren’t quite so
obvious, or so general or so consistent. Preferences, attitudes, situation
traits are all secondary.
Then there are cardinal traits. These are traits
that some people have which practically define their life. Someone who spends
his or her life seeking fame, or fortune of sex is such a person. Relatively few
people develop a cardinal trait. If they do, it tends to be late in life.
Allport believed if you have a well developed and a rich, adaptive set of
dispositions, you have attained psychological maturity, Allport’s term for
mental health. He lists seven characteristics:
1. Specific, enduring
Extensions of self, i.e involvement.
2. Dependable techique for Warm
relating to others
3. Emotional security and self –acceptance.
4. Habits
of Realitsitc perception
5. Problem – Centeredness, and the development of
problem solving skills
6. Self-objectification – insight into one’s own
behavior, the ability to laugh at oneself, etc.
7. A unifying Philosophy of
life, including a particular value orientation, differentiated religious
sentiment, and a personalized conscience.
Allport didn’t believe in
looking too much into a person’s past in order to understand his present.
(Allport 37) This belief is strongly evident in the concept of functional
autonomy: Your motives today are independent of their origins. For example, it
doesn’t matter where you were when you were born, what matters is where you are
today. Functional automomy comes in to two types: The first being perseverative
functional autonomy, referring essentially to habits - behavior that no longer
serve their original purpose but still continue. Propriate functional autonomy
is something a bit more self-direct than habits. The idea of proriate functional
autonomy lead to the development of a categorization of values and a test of
values:
1. The theoretical – a scientist, for example values truth.
2. The economic – a businessperson may value usefulness.
3. The
aesthetic – an artist naturally values beauty.
4. The social – a nurse may
have a strong love of people
5. The political – a politician may value
power.
6. The religious – a monk or nun probably values unity.
Most
of us have several of these values at more moderate levels, plus we may value on
or two of these quite negatively. (Boree 98)
IMPORTANCE OF HIS THEORY
As a behaviorist, Allport is one of those theorist who was so right
about so many things that his ideas have simply passed on into the spirit of
times. Further more Allport showed that a great deal can be learned about a
person by using the straightforward methods of self-reports, personal documents,
and the observation of expressive behavior. Allport was willing to use whatever
method he believed contributed to learn and understand human behavior. (Allport
37) His theory is one of the most humanistic theories and would influence many
others.
B.F.SKINNER
SKINNERS EARLY YEARS
Burrhus
Frederic Skinner was born March 20, 1904, in the small Pennsylvania town of
Susquehanna. His father was a lawyer, and his mother a strong and intelligent
housewife. His upbringing was old-fashioned and hard working. (Textbook 271)
Burrhus was an active, out-going boy who loved the outdoors and building things,
and actually enjoyed school. Unlike Allport in life he did have tragedies. His
brother died at the age of 16 of a cerebral aneurysm.
Burrhus received his
BA in English from Hamilton College in upstate New York. He didn’t fit in very
well, not enjoying social events in school. He wrote for school paper, including
articles critical of the school, the faculty, and even Phi Beta Kappa! To top it
off, he was an atheist – in a school that required daily chapel attendance. He
wanted to be a writer and did try sending off his writing. It didn’t work for
him, even after he graduated.
After some traveling, he decided to go back to
school; he went to Harvard. He got his masters in psychology in 1930 and his
doctorate in 1931, and stayed there to do research until 1936. (Boree 98) He met
his wife that same year when he moved to Minneapolis to teach at the University
of Minnesota. They had two daughters the youngest being famous for being in one
of Skinner’s inventions, the air crib. In 1948 he was invited to go to Harvard,
where he remained for the rest of his life. Even though he was not successful as
a writer of fiction and poetry, he became one of our best psychology writers.
SKINNER’S THEORY
Skinner’s entire system is based on Operant
Conditioning. The organism is in the process of “operating” on the environment,
which means it is bouncing around the world doing what it does. During this
“operating,,” the organism encounters a special kind of stimulus, called
reinforcing stimulus. (Skinner 67) Operant conditioning – the behavior followed
by a consequence, and the nature of the consequence modifies the organisms
tendency to repeat the behavior in the future. (Boree 98) A behavior followed by
a reinforcing stimulus results in an increased probability of that behavior
occurring in the future. Extinction – A behavior no longer followed by the
reinforcing stimulus results in a decreased probability of that behavior
occurring in the future.
Schedules of reinforcement : Skinner likes to
tell about how he “accidentally came across various discoveries. He did a lot of
experiments on lab animals especially rats.
Continous reinforcement is the
original scenario: In a rat study , every time that the rat does the behavior
(such as pedal-pushing), he get a rat goodie.
The fixed ratio schedule was
the first one Skinner discovered: There is a fixed ratio between behaviors and
reinforcers: 3 to 1, 5 to 1, 20 to 1, etc. This is a little like apiece of rate”
in the clothing manufacturing industry: You get paid so much for so many shirts.
The fixed interval schedule uses a timing device of some sort. Skinner
noticed one strange thing that happens is that rats to pace themselves. They
slow down the rate of their behavior right after the reinforcer, and speed up
when the time for it gets close.
Skinner also looked at variable schedules.
Variable interval means you keep changing the time period i.e. first 20 seconds,
then 5, then 35, then 10 and so on.
A question Skinner had to deal with
was how we get to more complex sorts of behaviors. He responded with the idea of
shaping, or “the method of successive approximations. (Skinner 67)
Basically
it involves first reinforcing a behavior only vaguely similar to the one desire.
Once that is established you look out for variations that come a little closer
to what you want, and so on. Skinner and his students have been quite successful
in teaching simple animals to do some quite extraordinary things. Shaping can
also account for the most complex of behaviors. You are gently shaped by your
environment to enjoy certain things, do well in school, and take a certain
things..
Averse stimuli is the opposite of a reinforcing stimulus, something
we might find unpleasant of painful. A behavior followed by an aversive stimulus
results in a decreased probability of the behavior occurring in the future.
(Boree 98) This both defines an aversive stimulus and describes the form of
conditioning know as punishment. If you remove an already active aversive
stimulus after a person does a certain behavior, you are doing negative
reinforcement behavior followed by the removal of an aversive stimulus results
in an increased probability of that behavior occurring in the future.
Skinner didn’t approve of the use of aversive stimuli – not because of
ethics, but because they don’t work well! That’s because whatever enforced the
bad behaviors haven’t been removed, as it would’ve in the case of extinction.
Behavior modification – often referred to as b-mod – is the therapy
technique based on Skinner’s work. It is very straight – forward: Extinguish an
undesirable behavior (by removing the reinforcer) and replace it with a
desirable behavior by reinforcement. (Bjork 97) It has been used on all sorts of
psychological problems; addictions, neuroses, shyness, autism , even
schizophrenia and works particularly well with children. (Skinner 67) There is
an offshoot of b mode called token economy. This is used primarily institutions
such as psychiatric hospitals, juvenile halls, and prisons Certain rules are
made explicit in the institutions and behaving yourself appropriately is
rewarded with tokens; poker chips, tickets, funny money and etc. There is a
drawback to token economy. When a inmate leave they return to an environment
that reinforces the kinds of behaviors that got them into the institution in the
first place. (Bjork 97)
IMPORTANCE OF SKINNERS THEORY
Skinner
believed that the study of behavior must rest on what organisms do and do not
do, and that is all one need pay attention to. Most importantly concentrated on
the observation and manipulation of behavior. A good theory and its evident
because explains, synthesizes large amounts of information, generates new
information, and can be used as a guide in solving practical problems. Skinner’s
theory gets high marks in all of these categories. The only reason Skinner was
criticized is because he was quick to generalize the human behavior with his
experiments in the lab with “lab animals”.
CONCLUSION
When
looking at these two behaviorist it is evident that these two had two completely
different approached to psychology, though the two did share a strong quality;
their uniqueness when explaining their theory.
Allport was the first to
describe the personality in terms of traits. . Allport theorized that traits
provided the structure, the uniqueness, and the motivation that characterize a
person’s personality In Allport’s theory, traits are inferred from behavior and
then are used to explain the behavior of the individual. Allport’s uniqueness
was, he was willing to use whatever method he believed contributed to an
understanding of human behavior. He showed that a great deal can be learned
about a person by using straight methods of self-reports, personal documents,
and the observation of expressive behavior. Allport’s major concern, was with
the dignity and uniqueness of each human being. Allport’s anything unhealthy,
children and unlike Skinner animals. He was interested in studying healthy
adults.
Skinner’s theory is complex, and very difficult. No personality
theory considered thus far is so intimately tied to experimental research a
Skinner (textbook 297). Skinner’s position falls into the behavioristic camp
because it stressed the study of overt behavior and not internal, mental or
physical event. His efforts focused on efforts to modify behavior involved in
changing reinforcement, and contingencies. Being far off from the beliefs of
Allport, Skinner believed that much if not all of what is learned by studying
non-human animals applies to humans an well, and well, unlike Allport many of
the attributes though to be uniquely human are essentially ignored in the
Skinnerian analysis.
As I end my conclusion please remember even though the
two theories talked about are completely different. The comparison of the two
are very important because, of their understanding, and the complexity of the
learning theory; behaviorism and the complexity of the theorist and their
theory.
WORKS CITED:
Allport, G. W. (1967)
Autobiography. In E.G. Boring G. Lindzey (Eds), A history of psychology in
autobiography (Vol 5, pp 1-25). Ney your:Appelton-Century- Crafts.
Allport
GW (1937) personality: A psychological Interpretation: New York Henry Hott
An Introduction to Theories of Personality 5th edition B.R. Hergen bahn and
Mathew H”. Oloson – Sihed (pp 271-301, 189-201).
Boree, George C Dr.
(1904-1990)B.F. Skinner Biography http://www.ship.edu/~cgboree/skinner.htm) pg
1-6
Boree, George C Dr. (1897-1967) Gordon Allport Biography
http://www.ship.edu/~cgboree/allport.htm) pg 1-6
Bjork D.W. (1997) Allport:
A Life in Washington D.C. American psychological association
Stevenson,
Harold W. Behaviorism and Instructional Technology “Online”
http:1129.7.160115/inst5931/behaviorism.html pg 1-6
Skinner, G. W. (1967)
Autobiography. In E.G. Boring G. Lindzey (Eds), A history of psychology in
autobiography (Vol 5, pp 387-413). New York:Appelton-Century- Crafts.
THE LEARNING THEORY BEHAVIORISM:
BEHAVIORIST
GORDON ALLPORT
AND BURRHUS F. SKINNER
Maranda Leggett
Theories of Personality
March 20, 2001
MWF 12:00 – 1: 00pm
Fayetteville State University
Ms. V. Allen, MA-Instructor