Ivan Pavlov, John Watson And B. F Skinner Case Study

1506 Words4 Pages

since the 1800 's many questioned why we act and behave the way that we do. How do we learn? Why do we generalize actions and behavior as positive or negative? What determines failure and success? Psychologists like Ivan Pavlov, John Watson, and B.F Skinner performed various experiments to investigate these many questions and more.
Ivan Pavlov was a poor Russian psychologist. He originally had the notion to study the digestive system and determine if the digestive system was somehow linked to the nervous system. He wanted to know which foods produced which kind of saliva. To resolve this he used dogs. There was however a minor hitch, the saliva was stating too early. Whenever a psychology student would open the lab door to feed …show more content…

he was born in Susquehanna, a small railroad town in the hills of Pennsylvania just below Birmingham, New York. he attended Hamilton college and Moved back home to bcome a writer.he wrote a dozen short newspaper articles and a few models of sailing ships. Escaping to New York City for a few months,B.F Skinner worked as a bookstore clerk,when he happened upon books by Pavlov and Watson. He found them impressive and exciting and wanted to learn more. He continued to read of the prior psychologists and posed the question is behavior related to experimental conditions.(b.f foundation) Skinner believed that the best way to understand behavior is to look at the causes of an action and its consequences. He called this approach operant conditioning. Skinner 's theory of operant conditioning was based on the work of Thorndike (1905). Edward Thorndike studied learning in animals using a puzzle box to propose the theory known as the 'Law of Effect '. The famous "Cats in a puzzle box." When the cats chose a trial-and-error response that permitted them to escape the box and obtain satisfying food, those responses became "stamped in". Conclusion: Behavior is controlled by its consequences (Thorndike 's Law of Effect").Skinner introduced a new term into the Law of Effect - Reinforcement. Behavior which is reinforced tends to be repeated (i.e. strengthened); behavior which is not reinforced tends to …show more content…

This study examines the effects of type of praise and gender on young adult success. Forty eight students from a small private school were involved. These students were introduced to hidden item puzzles by the experimenter. Each participant was given one minute to work on a similar task. While completing this task a participant would be given either person praise or process praise. After receiving such praise each participant was then asked to solve a final set of six puzzles. This study will show the effect of the type of praise on a participant 's success and how gender role plays

Open Document