The Russian physiologist Ivan Petrovich Pavlov is the precursor to behavioral science. He is best known for his work in classical conditioning or stimulus substitution. Pavlov’s experiment involved food, a dog, and a bell. His work inaugurated the era of S-R psychology. Pavlov placed meat powder (an unconditioned stimulus) on a dog’s tongue, which caused the dog to automatically salivate (the unconditioned response). The unconditioned responses are natural and not learned. On a series of subsequent trials, Pavlov sounded a bell at the same time he gave the meat powder to the dog. When the food was accompanied by the bell many times, Pavlov found that he could withhold the food, and the bell’s sound itself would cause the dog to salivate.
Published in Chapter:
Behaviorism and Developments in Instructional Design and Technology
Irene Chen (University of Houston Downtown, USA)
Copyright: © 2009
|Pages: 20
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-198-8.ch023
Abstract
The theory of behaviorism concentrates on the study of overt behaviors that can be observed and measured (Good & Brophy, 1990). In general, the behavior theorists view the mind as a “black box” in the sense that response to stimulus can be observed quantitatively, ignoring the possibility of thought processes occurring in the mind. Behaviorists believe that learning takes place as the result of a response that follows on a specific stimulus. By repeating the S-R (stimulus-response) cycle, the organism (may it be an animal or human) is conditioned into repeating the response whenever the same stimulus is present. The behavioral emphasis on breaking down complex tasks, such as learning to read, into subskills that are taught separately, has a powerful influence on instructional design. Behaviors can be modified, and learning is measured by observable change in behavior. The behavior theorists emphasize the need of objectivity, which leads to great accentuation of statistical and mathematical analysis.