Behaviorism or Black Box Psychology

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The idea behind the behaviorist branch is that they believe that psychology is studied through observable behaviors. The behaviorists were the first to focus on more objective research as opposed to the subjective research like the previous leaders in psychology such as Titchener and Freud (Lilienfeld, Lynn, Namy, Woolf). Behaviorism or black box psychology opened the eyes of the psychology community by showing them that they should not just rely on the reports of others, but having data they could replicate and prove allowing them to have a stronger scientific footing (Lilienfeld, Lynn, Namy, Woolf). The major behaviorists are Watson and Skinner. Pavlov also had a major impact on this particular branch of psychology. I will discuss a little about each of their major experiments and the contributions they made to the field of psychology; as well as how they can be applied to things in everyday life.

A physiologist known as Ivan Pavlov had a big impact on the field of psychology particularly, the behaviorist movement, he is known for coming up with the idea behind classical conditioning. Before his work in physiology he was a very religious man and had every intention of being a priest until he read a book that Darwin wrote which swayed him into a more scientific career (WGBH, 1998). What brought him to this theory known as classical conditioning was studying digestion and how salvation and the response of the stomach are related in animals, particularly dogs (WGBH, 1998). He wanted to see if an external stimulus would change the response process. So in the experiment that has become famous in psychology he would take the dog food and present it to the dog and noticed that the dog would salivate. Then he would sounds a tone wh...

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...ncil people with mental illnesses. This information that has been learned in the behaviorism branch of psychology impacts your daily lives more than we may realize until you sit down and think about it such as raising your children to training your pet.

References

Find the Right Therapist. (2012, October 10). GoodTherapyorg Therapy Blog Little Albert Experiment Comments. Retrieved April 20, 2014, from http://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/psychpedia/little-albert-experiment

Lilienfeld, Lynn, Namy and Woolf (2013) Psychology,

John B. Watson. (1999, May 1). Psychology History. Retrieved April 20, 2014, from http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/watson.htm

WGBH. (1998). B.F Skinner . Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/bhskin.html

WGBH. (1998). Ivan pavlov. Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/bhskin.html

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