Behaviour, in regards to human mannerism, is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as the way in which someone conducts oneself, anything that an organism does involving action and response to stimulation; and the response of an individual, group, or species to its environment. There are two perspectives of how behaviour is acquired, the nativists believe that behaviour is innate from birth and the empiricists believes behaviour is learned and influenced by the individual's experience and environment. The perspective of nativists, is the individual responding to a stimulus, with instinctive reflexes, inherited in the genes. These reflexes from infancy compose of: the rooting reflex, a baby turning the head in search of the stimulus felt …show more content…
It is basically a response triggered by an action, with no thought process to it. Examples are: a baby produces saliva when there is food in the mouth; swallowing of food when in the throat; coughing to prevent choking when food has entered the windpipe and blinking when a puff of air irritates the eye. A more complex innate behaviour is instinct, such as nesting and spiders spinning webs. Nesting was previously thought to be an innate behaviour. Research suggests that nesting is not just an innate behaviour but a learned skill from experience. The findings show, various techniques were used for each nest, beginning from either left to right or right to left. Also, the more experience acquired, the less grass blades were unused. Spiders have the instinctive skill to spin a web for catching their prey; however, not all spiders use a web to catch their prey, some either chase or throw a sticky net on their …show more content…
Learned behaviour is adaptable and gained through experience, it falls in six categories: habituation, learning to ignore a stimuli without consequences; imprinting, a fixed attachment after birth; classical conditioning, learning to associate automatically a response obtained by an innate unconditioned stimuli with a new stimulus; latent learning, being exposed to new experiences for use in later stages of life; insight learning, learning how to reach a goal with a certain thought process behind it; trial and error learning, learning through trying and failing until succeeding. There are certain problems with viewing behaviour as innate or learned. If behaviour were to be solely innate, with inborn instincts and reflexes, then learning and adapting to the environment, or being responsive to new situations, would be impossible. Life would be monotone and primitive in such a case, with no progress. Basing behaviour as originatinating from learnt behaviour only, is inconceivable. Without innate survival, self-protective skills and reflexes, life would brief, self-injurious and without
In this essay, we have been asked to evaluate two psychological perspectives’ in relation to “typical behaviour”. The perspectives I have chosen is the behaviourist and biological approach, to be able analyse these approaches, I have decide to use the case study of the death of the two year old ‘James Bulger’ and with this, the relevant therapy’s used by each perspective.
Ever wonder how animals know so much? It’s simple. It’s all according to how they act and what they know. When an animal is born it has instincts. These instincts help the creature survive and cause them to behave certain ways. This is called Innate behaviors. Although, some things animals have been taught. Unlike Innate behaviors whereas it comes from the genes, other behaviors have to be learned. They are called Learned behaviors. Together, Innate and Learned behaviors can prove that animals are smarter then most people think.
In 1913 a new movement in psychology appeared, Behaviorism. “Introduced by John Broadus Watson when he published the classic article Psychology as the behaviorist views it.” Consequently, Behaviorism (also called the behaviorist approach) was the primary paradigm in psychology between 1920 to 1950 and is based on a number of underlying ‘rules’: Psychology should be seen as a science; Behaviorism is primarily concerned with observable behavior, as opposed to internal events, like thinking and emotion; People have no free will – a person’s environment determines their behavior; Behavior is the result of stimulus resulting in a response; and All behavior is learned from the environment. How we process these stimuli and learn from our surrounds
In philosophy, “epistemology is the study of knowledge” (Truncellito). The study of innateness falls under the idea of epistemology and focuses on the idea that we are all born already having knowledge, rather than being born having to learn everything in life. The theory of innateness is one that has been argued for centuries and it is argued to various extents of presence in the human mind.
The quote from the famous psychologist John B. Watson essentially sums up behaviourism. Behaviourism refers to the school of psychology founded by Watson, established on the fact that behaviours can be measured and observed (Watson, 1993). In behaviourism, there is a strong emphasis that the acquisition of learning, or permanent change in behaviour, is by external manifestation. Thus, any individual differences in behaviours observed was more likely due to experiences, and not by the working of genes. As the quote suggest, any individuals can be potentially trained to perform any tasks through the right conditioning. There are two major types of conditioning, classical and operant conditioning (Cacioppo & Freberg, 2012).
... are determined by the stimuli in the environment we are in. Behaviourists believe that all behaviour is learned and in turn can be unlearned by pinpointing the stimulus which is provoking the behaviour and changing the individuals learned response towards it.
In efforts to find truth, Descartes used only his logic to identify his existence. He also proved that there is some type of knowledge that we are born with. “Some of our ideas seem to be “born with me,” some “invented” by me, whereas others “come from without” (Descartes, 2008, p. 211). Which means Descartes believed that we enter this world with some innate ideas that overtime helps us to develop understanding of our sense (invented by me) and through our experiences (comes from without). Descartes was a dualist; he stated that there existed something outside of our bodies. Descartes suggested that at the “ghost in the machine” theory developed by Gilbert Ryle, which states that there is some mystical being, which we understand is the mind, that is primary to the machine (or the body). Which leads me to believe, innate ideas are active within our minds.
Throughout the passage of time, philosophers have written and discussed many topics in philosophy. Sometimes, these philosophers agree on ideas or sometimes they make their own assumptions. There are two philosophers who had different ideas concerning where innate ideas come from and how we get these types of ideas. Rene Descartes and John Locke were these two philosophers with the opposing argument on innate ideas. The place where Descartes discusses his views were in the Meditations on First Philosophy and Locke's argument is located in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. By using these sources I will be able to describe the difference between these two arguments on innate ideas.
Behaviourism is where a person learns through responding to stimuli so as to optimise their own situation. This means that humans have a need to learn so by adapting to a changing environment around to be able to survive. For instance a learner who has some sensory impairment will adapt their own learning styles to accommodate for this barrier by adapting method and using experience they are able to achieve the same learning outcomes as other learners.
Behaviorism is a learning theory or a developmental theory that measures observable behaviors that are produced by the learner’s response to stimuli. On one end of the spectrum behaviorism is known as an attitude. At the other end, it is known as a doctrine. According to the behavioral views of human development, behaviorists argued that to focus attention on unobservable constructs, such as emotions, thoughts, or the unconscious, was an unscientific approach.(Craig & Dunn, Ex.: 2010)
The Behaviourist and Psychodynamic perspective are based on experiences during childhood. John B. Watson arose with the Behaviourist perspective affirming that the aggressive behaviour is learnt by environment as well as an external approach trough observation. Referent to the above, the children as well as the animals imitate behaviour from adults and people, we are saying this by an experiment performed
Learning through operant conditioning allows a conditioned behaviour to increase or decrease in the presence of reinforcement or punishment. However, this process can be affected by instinctive behaviours that would disrupt the conditioned behaviour. According to a study conducted by Breland and Breland (1961) they tried to condition a raccoon to pick up coins and drop them into a container. The raccoon however spent time rubbing the coins together and rubbing the coin on the inside of the container before finally dropping it in and receiving its food reinforcement. Even after conditioning, the raccoon’s need to rub the coins together became worse as he spent more and more time just rubbing the coins. This is known as instinctive drift where the raccoon’s instinctive behaviours limited its ability to perform the conditioned response. Therefore the raccoon failed to learn due to its innate tendencies that acted as a biological constraint and operant conditioning failed in teaching the raccoon through reinforcement.
As the name implies, behaviorism focuses on people’s behaviors, which are directly observable, rather than on the mental systems underlying these behaviors (Narasimhan, 1998). Language is viewed as a kind of verbal behavior and it is proposed that children learn language through imitation, reinforcement, analogy, and structured input (Fromkin, Rodman & Hyams, 2003).
Although we are born with some instincts, others, more specific, ones can be developed through experience and training. In any situation, instincts can be good or bad in the outcome, but this is the foundation of how we learn: experience.
Behaviorism is the point of view where learning and behavior are described and explained in terms of stimulus-response relationships. Behaviorists agree that an individual’s behaviors is a result of their interaction with the environment. Feedback, praise and rewards are all ways people can respond to becoming conditioned. The focus is on observable events instead of events that happen in one’s head. The belief that learning has not happened unless there is an observable change in behavior. “The earliest and most Ardent of behaviourists was Watson (1931; Medcof and Roth, 1991; Hill 1997). His fundamental conclusion from many experimental observations of animal and childhood learning was that stimulus-response (S-R) connections are more likely to be established the more frequently or recently an S-R bond occurs. A child solving a number problem might have to make many unsuccessful trials before arriving at the correct solution” (Childs, 2004).