BEHAVIORISM
One of the greatest developments in the history of mankind is the industrial revolution of the 18th
century. It marked the advent of a completely new era of thinking and approach towards gaining
knowledge. A rational approach was adopted and the ancient speculative methods given by the Greeks were
rejected. The industrial revolution had a deep impact on the development of human thoughts; therefore the
discipline of psychology was also bound to be impacted.
The path of this influence on psychology is easily traceable. As industry developed and manual
labor was shifted to machine labor, there were a number of changes in society and human behavior. New
towns were established, close to the factories; housing shifted from huge farm houses to small houses; labor
working hours and habits changed; dependence on modes of living changed as well. One of the impacts of
the industrial revolution was that, as the production shifted from manual labor to factories, the production
increased rapidly. Therefore, new markets were sought and it became imperative to predict and control
human behavior, in order to sell more. Another aspect of this development was that the attention of
researchers now shifted towards these workers aiming at getting maximum productivity from the industrial
labor. This productivity was based on human behavior and the result was that, the need to study human
behavior arose. As mentioned earlier, man had become more rational in his approach and had disposed of
speculation as a means of gaining knowledge. This made him focus on concrete facts and adopt scientific
approach in his study. Psychologists started analyzing, predicting and controlling human behavior since it
was visible while consciousness was not. It gave birth to the school of thought now called the Behaviorist
School.

Edward Lee Thorndike
Edward Lee Thorndike was an American behaviorist philosopher/psychologist, who was born in
1874 and died in 1949. After completing his studies Thorndike moved to Harvard University, where
William James had set up his psychological laboratory. Thorndike had read James and was impressed with
his work on functions of consciousness. He set up his lab at Harvard, working with chicks but later
transferred to James’ house where he did his experiments on cats which are his most famous experiments.
He devised the “puzzle box” which he used for these experiments.
Based upon his experiments he formulated what he called “laws of learning,” or how learning takes
place. In other words, Thorndike made efforts to learn how the process of learning actually takes place.
Before we look at those laws, first let us have a look at the concept of learning that Thorndike proposed.
He said that learning takes place by stimulus-response connections rather than by association; according to
him learning takes place by two ways which he called laws of learning. The laws are as follows:

i. Law of effect
The law of effect states that all responses that followed by satisfaction are stamped into an
individual and he learns those responses. This means that any act that is performed by an
individual, when it is reinforced by a reward that brings satisfaction to the performer, the act
becomes learnt.
For example, if an animal such as a cat is rewarded with food if it performs a certain act, the act
shall be learnt by the cat. This is what Thorndike concluded through his experiments.

ii. Law of exercise
The law of exercise states that responses that are repeated are also stamped in and become learnt.
This law does non focus on the reinforcement through satisfaction but states that when theindividual keeps on performing a certain act, the act is learnt. In other words, the exercise that is
constantly performed by an individual is learnt by him or her.
The law of effect given by Thorndike is similar to Pavlov’s law of conditioning by reinforcement
and the second law, i.e. law of exercise is similar to James’s theory of habit formation due to repetition.
As mentioned earlier, Thorndike devised the puzzle box for his experiments. The puzzle box was a
box with a door operated through a lever in it. A string with a ring was attached with the lever, which
released the door of the box, when pulled. The box was big enough to accommodate a cat. Thorndike used
cats for his experiments. As the cat was trapped in the box, it tried hard to escape. The only escape possible
was through the door which opened by pulling the string attached to the lever. As the cat pulled the string
with its paw, the door of the box opened and it escaped. When the cat was put into the box a number of
times, it learnt to use the string to escape. Therefore, based on this observation, Thorndike came up with
his laws of learning.
Thorndike also emphasized on a concept important to learning, which he called the “Recency
effect.” He saw in his experiments on cats that the last act in the series of acts by the cats, which is
reinforced, is learnt quickly. For example if a cat is rewarded for the last act which it performs in a series of
acts, the last one shall be learnt by the cat. Therefore, as the name implies, the law relates to the most recent
act performed by the subject which is learnt by it.
Thorndike performed further experiments to substantiate his laws of learning. This further
experimentation and observation lead him to repeal the law of exercise, and modify the law of effect. He
then proposed the “law of belongingness” to explain animal learning.

iii. Law of belongingness
The law of belongingness states that only relevant responses that “belong” to the learning situation
are learnt. For example, the moving of paws by the cat in the puzzle box is learnt but not pricking
of ears.
Thorndike could be classified as a behaviorist because he explained learning as a psychological
function in behavioristic, observational terms. He did try to look into consciousness but restricted his
studies to the behavior of animals and used comparative psychology to explain human behavior and
learning.

Albert Weiss
Albert Weiss was an early behaviorist who was born in 1879 and died in 1931. He was born in
Germany but he came to America when he was very young. He studied and worked for the rest of his life in
America, therefore he is considered to be an American behaviorist.
The era of the behaviorists was the time when man had adopted a rational approach towards
gaining of knowledge and speculation was no more considered as a means for it. This was the time after the
industrial revolution which changed the outlook of mankind completely. Writing on psychology, Weiss
asserted that anything that cannot be studied with the methods of natural sciences should not be a part of
psychology. In other words, anything that is based on mere speculation and cannot be substantiated by
concrete evidences should not be a part of psychological study. In other words psychology should concern
itself only with observable concrete facts and not with elements, structure or functions of consciousness
because these variables are not directly observable. As the Functionalists and Structuralists before the
behaviorists had been trying to develop theories about the structure and functions of consciousness, Weiss
rejected their approach. To him their methods of explaining phenomena were based on speculative studies.
Weiss further stated that psychologists only pretend when they regard introspection as a method of
scientific data collection. This was the method adopted by the schools before the Behaviorists.
One of the important arguments of Weiss is that there are no mental forces apart from
physiological forces which are reducible to physical forces. In other words, all mental forces can be studied
using a physiological approach and not considering them to be extraordinary forces which cannot be
studied through ordinary scientific methods of inquiry.
Another contribution of Albert Weiss is that he also noted the impact of social forces on a person.
He said that every person’s behavior is impacted by social forces. This means that the social environment, in
which an individual lives, influences his or her behavior and thinking. Therefore, he regarded human beings
as a product of biological and social factors. He stated that humans are biological and social in nature and
psychology is a bio-social science which focuses on relating the biological processes of learning and human
behavior with the social environment that is responsible for them.

Edwin Holt
Edwin Holt was another early behaviorist who was born in 1873 and died in 1946. He was at two
of the top universities in America; Harvard and at Princeton. He agreed with the contemporary point of
view prevailing on the American continent that psychology should concern itself only with directly
observable facts and data. The speculative methods of learning and exploring were rejected by him like all
other behaviorists. Therefore, he also declared psychology be a scientific discipline which was based on
rationality. Only the facts that could be substantiated should be considered in psychology.
Holt further proposed that psychology should concern itself with behavior, therefore he is also
considered as a behaviorist. According to him, behavior is the result of two factors:

i. Learning
Learning takes place when an organism is exposed to internal or external stimulation, e.g.
internal stimulation may be hunger, thirst etc. while external stimulation may be heat, coldness
etc. Organism behaves in response to these stimuli.

ii. Canalization
Further, behavior is also the result of canalization which is what we learn in our childhood.
Childhood experiences influence and produce behavior and in any study of psychology we
must not ignore those childhood experiences.

Walter Hunter
The third early behaviorist was Walter Hunter, born in 1889 and died in 1953. He proclaimed that
he started with dealing in psychology of experience and shifted to psychology of behavior.
He proposed, agreeing with his contemporary psychologists, that psychology should concern itself
with observation of behavior of humans and should not concern itself with the problems of consciousness.
He said that Wundt was partly correct when he studied consciousness as the subject matter of psychology
because consciousness is merely a name used to describe concrete objects in the environment. In other
words, a person’s consciousness mostly comprises of objects in his environment, which is a view point
similar to the one given by Weiss. Environment plays a dominant role in determining a person’s behavior
and his habits. The prime example relevant here is the impact of the industrial revolution. The example
could be related to the behavior of the psychologists themselves. As the environment of mankind changed
from speculation to rationality and factualism, psychologists also shifted towards scientific outlook. The
need was to have the greatest productivity from the labor force, which was of course related to the study of
behavior. Therefore, psychologists shifted towards the study of behavior. The point remains, that the
environment and social circumstances have a profound impact on the behavior of the individuals which
psychology tends to identify and study.
Hunter chose experimental method as his method of investigation and he is credited with the
development of temporal maze for his experiments. Temporal maze was used to conduct experiments in
which an animal was allowed to find its way around the maze to the food. When the animal had become
familiar with the maze, it would take much less time to reach the food and thus Hunter drew his
conclusions based on these observations. He conducted experiments on delayed reaction time of animals
for which he is known for. He is also considered as a behaviorist because of his scientific outlook and his
emphasis on behavioral approach towards psychology.

J.B.Watson
J.B. Watson is regarded as the founder of the school of behaviorism. He was born in 1878 and died
in 1958. He began as a student of philosophy at the University of Chicago, but later turned to psychology.
He taught for a number of years at Johns Hopkins University at Baltimore USA, where he set up his animal
laboratories. Later he shifted to the corporate world and offered advice to industry relating to advertising
and marketing.
Watson taught that psychology should ignore consciousness and concentrate on concrete facts:
psychology. This was one of the founding principles of the behaviorists’ approach. He further said that
psychologists must discard all reference to consciousness and must only look at behavior of animals and
man. Because of his stress on behavior to the neglect of consciousness, he called himself a behaviorist. He
was the first one to proclaim himself as a behaviorist. His methodology revolutionized the subject of
psychology giving a new outlook to it. As consciousness was no more regarded as the concrete method of
gaining knowledge, therefore, psychology focused merely on factual evidences and observable phenomena
after the advent of this school. A measure of how seriously his appeal was taken by his professional
colleagues is that he was elected as the President of American Psychological Association.
In one of his books, entitled “Behavior,” he enumerated what behaviorism is all about in
psychology. As the functionalists and the structuralists had defined psychology as the study of
consciousness, Watson defined, as opposed to them, psychology as the science of behavior. Behavior of
animals and humans was in his view what needed to be studied for an understanding of psychology.
Furthermore, Watson asserted that psychologists should use only objective, experimental methods
and should not use introspection as a method. He said that the aim of the study of psychology should be to
provide prediction and control of behavior. This is the basic aim of behaviorism. Behaviorists tend to
develop methods and techniques to control and predict human behavior in order to get the most out of
them. Behaviorism emerged in times when the industrial revolution took place. At that moment in the
history of mankind, the focus was on increasing the productivity of workforce.
According to Watsonian behaviorism, behavior can be studied in terms of stimulus-response
patterns. This means, that a stimulus is received by organism and it responds. For example, when someone
touches a hot object, he immediately withdraws his hand from the object. In other words, the hotness of
the object serves as the stimulus while the withdrawing action of the individual is his or her response to the
stimulus. Watson therefore stated that there is nothing mysterious in this action and reaction and all of it
could be explained in simple physiological terms.
Watson denied the value of introspection as data for psychology but said that a “verbal report,”
may be obtained from the subject after the experiment. For example, if an individual is placed in a series of
experiments, he may then be asked about the feelings and the emotions that he faced during the
experiments. It is different from introspection in the sense that here the report is based on the
circumstances that have been artificially created for the experiment. Therefore, verbal report, in view of
Watson may be a source of information for psychologists, but he clearly denied the introspection as a
means.
One of the important contributions of Watson is that in his opinion, thinking is nothing but
“implicit behavior.” For example, when an individual manipulates images in his mind, thinking takes place.
The individual relates these images together forming an explanation for the phenomenon that he is trying to
study. Therefore thinking is also a kind of behavior. Watson agreed with the viewpoint of Ivan Pavlov
about learning and said that we learn according to the laws of conditioning as given by Pavlov.
Watson suggested that memory and images are nothing but sensory activities in the brain. This
again refers to the study of behaviorism as a physiological phenomenon rather than a mysterious one. He
said that the sensory activities of the brain can be classified as “molecular behavior.”
Watson further proclaimed that by controlling the environment of an organism we could control
and predict its behavior. This is known as environmentalism, that organism is affected by its environment.
It is similar to the idea of Tabula Rasa given by John Locke. According to Locke, the mind of a new born
baby is like a clean slate which is written upon by the surrounding environment. Watson’s contribution to
psychology was one of the major developments in the study of psychology.

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Born with personality is an accident but dying as a personality is an achievement.