Figures in the history of Behaviourism |
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Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (1849-1936): Russian physiologist (Nobel prize for work on digestion, 1904). Pioneer of the theory of "classical conditioning". |
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Burrhus Frederic Skinner (1904-90): Best known of all behaviourists, and explorer of operant conditioning: the process whereby the probability of behaviour being repeated is increased if it is reinforced. Positive reinforcement (in sloppy language — reward) is more effective in learning than negative reinforcement (punishment). Developed early "teaching machines", and even described a behaviourist utopia in Walden Two (1961). Various attempts were made to create Walden Two in practice. They all failed. Skinner did say some useful things, among them: "Education is what survives when what has been learned
has been forgotten." |
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Edward Lee Thorndike (1874-1949) US animal and later educational psychologist, developed the theory of trial and error learning through experiments with animals having to escape from puzzle boxes. His law of effect describes the establishment of learned responses through "trial and success". The law of exercise describes how learning improves with practice. As an educational psychologist he published a paper in 1901 with Woodworth, undermining the idea of the (necessary) transferability of learning. |
...and in the context of the history of behaviorism as a whole |
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John Broadus Watson (1878-1958): Apostle of Behaviourism, building on Pavlov's ideas to maintain that the reflex was the basic unit of behaviour. He famously claimed:
He later qualified this view. The quotation is of course reminiscent of the claimed Jesuit maxim: "give me a child until he is seven, and I will give you the man" (Loyola, 1557), but as my partner points out, what is the Jesuits' record on pre-school education? Typical male view, she says!
Nevertheless it is interesting to note the final phrase: at a time when racism was routine, Watson treated it as irrelevant. The extreme environmentalism of the early behaviourists was politically liberal, or even radical. |
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ATHERTON J S (2005) Learning and Teaching: [On-line] UK: Available: Accessed:
Original material © James Atherton: last up-dated 15 August, 2005