Behaviorism and Pavlov's Observation

Overview of Behaviorism and Pavlov's Observation

• Behaviorists focus on observable behavior rather than mental events.
• B.F. Skinner suggested that statements about mental experiences can be translated into descriptions of behavior.
• The behaviorist perspective aligns with legal systems that emphasize factual descriptions of witnessed events.
• Behaviorists reject the notion that thoughts and beliefs cause behavior and argue that external events in the environment are the true causes of behavior.
• Jacques Loeb applied behaviorism to animal behavior, suggesting that their movements are driven by external factors rather than will or purpose.
• Behaviorists aim to explain behavior, including learning, through stimulus-response associations.
• Pavlov observed that a dog would secrete digestive juices upon seeing the lab worker who fed the dogs, which he called a conditioned reflex.
• Pavlov's work on classical conditioning explored the relationship between stimuli and learned responses.
• Animals have automatic connections called unconditioned reflexes between a stimulus and a response.
• New reflexes can be acquired by transferring a response from one stimulus to another, such as salivating to a sound that predicts food.
• In classical conditioning, a neutral stimulus is paired with an unconditioned stimulus to elicit a conditioned response.
• The conditioned response can differ from the unconditioned response.