The Origins And Evolution Of Behaviorism And Cognitive Theory (Essay Sample)

The Origins and Evolution of Behaviorism and Cognitive Theory
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Institution
The Origins and Evolution of Behaviorism and Cognitive Theory
Introduction
Behaviorism is focused on the psychological school thought that targets on explaining and proving that stimulus could be anticipated. Comprehension of behaviorism theory is determined through assessment of its source and how the community and people are influenced by the theory. In contrast, mental processes are described through the implementation of cognitive theory. According to the cognitive theorists, both the intrinsic and extrinsic factors influence the human mind (Baum, 2005). Behaviorism and Cognitive theory are almost utterly opposed, and within their primary forms, it seems impossible for them to harmonically collaborate. Despite the first theorists having great differences, the theories were combined later in the form of Cognitive Behavioral Theory (Baus, 2015). The scholars made it possible for the theories to be combined by explaining that the process of learning and brain coordination are best comprehended by analyzing the mental processes. This article will explain and discuss the origin and advancement of cognitive and behaviorism theory, highlight psychological theories relationship, and their current applications. The process of overlooking the boundaries in these psychological theories and combining them contributed to several useful counseling theories.
The Origin and Evolution of Behaviorism Theory
Behaviorism theory has provided a significant influence on the advancement of American psychology. The theory produced renowned personalities of psychology such as Watson and Skinner. Additionally, it is widely implemented in most subjects that included education, business, and our daily lives (Parker & McKinney, 2012). Behaviorism theory originated the same period as Sigmund Freud work, Psychoanalytic Theory father. During the initial stages, behaviorism theory received a lot of criticism. However, behaviorism theory gained its ground in the 1950s, and it was widely practiced since it concentrated on explaining behavior to the marginalization of unconscious processes (Staddon, 2014).
Ivan Pavlov: presented the classical condition process. He trained a dog to salivate any moment the bell ringed in 1890. He achieved the training when he rang the bell when offering the dog with food, the frequency of presenting food (Pierce & Cheney, 2013). Finally, the bell ring sound was adequate to initiate dog salivation. Pavlov explained that as excitation, whereby the reciprocal brain is involved in generalization and acquisition. Pavlov also explained the process of inhibition and extinction implementing similar experiments.
John B. Watson: in 1920, also known as the father of American behaviorism stated that behaviorism was the science of observable character. The psychological perspective of evaluating behaviorism by Watson was based on science. Watson rejected the idea of the unconscious and internal mental state of an individual stating that cannot be observed and thus, cannot be proved. Watson behaviorism revolved in behavior that during the human or animal study could be pinpointed, observed, recorded, and measured to a real value (Malone, 2014). Watson proceeded with Pavlov experiments of conditioning except the fact that he conditioned humans, "Little Albert" experiment. He experimented on the boy by instilling fear in him when he saw a white rat. Initially, the boy responded indifferent to the animal, but Watson started by a striking a pipe with a hammer when the rat appeared. This caused the boy be startled and starts to cry; eventually, he began to cry even without the noise whenever the white rat appeared.
Edward Thorndike: is widely recognized for his profound contribution to behaviorism theory by developing operant conditioning. The operant condition was based on learning from the consequences of our actions. In 1898, Edward Thorndike started his study by observing a cat and analyzed the laws of learning. In a box, a cat was placed and was encouraged to break free to get a piece of fish placed outside the box. The cat would find its way out by pressing a hidden level, and this increased and was quicker with every attempt (Oslo, 2015). Through his experiments, Thorndike presented the “Law of effect” that stated that when the results are appealing the action is likely to be repeated but when the results are bad, the action is stopped.
Burrhus Frederic (B. F.) Skinner: the operant conditioning that Skinner is famously recognized with was built on Edward Thorndike ideas. Skinner was not the first psychologists to study learning with consequences. Skinner deduced the human behavior by experimenting with rats in a maze. Skinner believed that to understand human behavior. Both the cause and effects of the action need to be studied and understood (Mason, 2013). Skinner referred to that process as Operant Conditioning.
The Origins and Evolution of Cognitive Theory
Cognitive theory is unique in history since it explores the depth of the mind by observing the mental processes (Carey & gelman, 2014). Proponents such as Edward Tolman, B.F. Skinner, and Wolfgang Kohler introduced the practice more in America. Cognitive theory is directly opposite to behaviorism theory.
Jean Piaget: was interested in determining why the children gave incorrect answers to questions that demanded logical thinking despite the assumptions that they are incompetent thinkers as compared to adults. Piaget theory concentrated on children rather than all learners where it focused on development (Modgil, Modgil, & Brown, 2013). The theory explained the mechanism and process involved in the development of infant to a child then human intelligence. According to Pigment, cognitive development was a progressive process that led to a reorganization of human knowledge depending on the biological maturation and interaction with the environment.
Norbert Wiener: published the Cybernetics in 1948 where he compared the operation of human beings as that of working computers depending on the input and output (Hall, Love, & Uesugi, 2015). Despite Wiener being a mathematician, his results represented a significant contribution towards the field of psychology.
Edward Tolman: introduced a theory recognized as purposeful behaviorism in 1948. He invented a term referred as "cognitive map" that described an internal map that permitted creatures and people to learn and control their environments (Zentall, 2013).
Lev Vygotsky: established social development theory in 1934 where every cognition level is influenced by social and personal level. Vygotsky states that the central role of developing cognition is social level and the community has a fundamental contribution to make towards its formulation (Newman & Holzman, 2013). Vygotsky stated that social learning precedes development.
Current Application of Behaviorism Theory
The present implementation of behaviorism theory is to modify the behavior. The behavior is changed through strategies such as rewards and punishment. The positive behavior is remunerated and encouraged while negative behavior is disciplined and modified (Pierce & Cheney, 2013). Targeting and modifying behaviors can be assimilated in areas such as drug rehabilitation centers and weight losses.
Additionally, the water parks are absorbing the behavior by training and conditioning marine mammals. The theory applied in this instance is the operant conditioning that has attributed to massive success in the treatment of marine mammals in sea parks that exist in the country (Oslo, 2015). The trained and conditioned marine mammals are a significant advantage towards attracting people to the parks.
Cognitive Applications of Cognitive Theory
Cognitive theory has proven to be a fundamental remedy when it comes to treating mental ...