Pavlov And Skinner's Aviourist Theory: Responses And Behaviors

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All behaviours rest on learned responses to given stimuli. Within the behaviourist theory there are three theorist. I am going focus mainly on skinners beliefs, however I feel its important that I mention the other two theorists Pavlov and Watson. Firstly Pavlov looked at the relationships between conditional stimuli and unconditional responses. An example is a the salivation of a dog at the presence of food. Pavlov found that if unconditional stimuli 's in this case is the (food) was matched up with conditional stimuli 's (bell) it was possible to produce a conditional response. Example being the dog salivating in response to a bell, not food. Therefore enabling control over responses and behaviours.
Watson was influenced by Pavlov’s …show more content…

(Biography.com, 2014) Skinner believed that the best way to understand behaviours was through looking at the causes and consequences. He called this approach Operant Conditioning. (McLeod, 2014) Skinner identified three types of responses or operant that can follow responses. The first one being neutral operant 's, whereby the response from the environment will have no affect on the probability of the behaviour being repeated. Second type he says is reinforcer’s, whereby the response from the environment can affect the probability of the behaviour being repeated depending on the reinforcement being a positive or negative one, through this behaviours can be learned or unlearned. Third type Skinner mentioned was responses from the environment that decrease the likelihood of a behaviour being repeated, therefore punishment is weakening the …show more content…

For example, the service user has problems with mobility down her left side, so on a daily basis she would need assistance in brushing her hair. So in order for me to increase this behaviour I need to make sure I 'm giving her a positive re enforcement through a smile or verbal encouragement each time she is able to carry out the task. So therefore in the future she will be more likely to give the task a try as she knows she will get a reward. (i.e. smile/

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