Reading5-1-1




	ESE502 : The Class : Behavior Management : Reading5-1-1

Behaviorism: A Dominant Paradigm

During the past century, we worked to understand human beings and human behavior using behaviorism. Wundt, working to understand human nature by studying the things that could be observed and measured began the first scientific study in a lab. Subsequently, Watson worked with Little Albert, generalizing fear of fluffy white objects with clear success. Thorndike developed several laws regarding learning, including a widely repeated Law of Effect. Pavlov developed classical conditioning and Skinner studied pigeons and rats, moving the theory of behaviorism toward operant conditioning.

Philosophers helped to fuel the paradigm. Rousseau spoke of children as though they were blank slates at birth, ready for family and society to write in a personality and prepare them at will, for the desired outcome. Thoreau, in his book, Walden, suggested that the perfect child could be produced if surrounded by an idyllic existence. Educators utilized the tools and ideas, making little distinction between training and educating. The 1960’s and 70’s were filled with behavioral objectives, behavior contracts, and behavior modification.

This emphasis became predominant, and research about classrooms, teaching, child development and social sciences were based on the ideas. Now, with genome studies, we are beginning to move away from such an exclusive way of studying human beings, and our discipline model is less focused on training and conditioning. Still, many of the discipline strategies, and almost all the research for the past five decades utilize the vocabulary and constructs. For this reason, it is critical to review the vocabulary and recognize the predominant concepts.

Take a few minutes and try defining the following terms:

aversive stimuli

backward chaining

behavior contracting

behavior modification

classical conditioning

extinction

generalizing

ignoring

intervention

modeling

negative reinforcement

operant conditioning

overcorrection

positive reinforcement

prompts

punishment

You should now:

Go on to Assignment 1
or
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E-mail J'Anne Ellsworth at Janne.Ellsworth@nau.edu