Behaviorism Case Study

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Chapter nine is mainly about behaviorism. Behaviorism is the theoretical perspective in which learning and behavior are described and explained in terms of stimulus- response relationship. There are two things that could be observed and objectively measured, these two things are environmental stimulus and learner’s behaviors or response. Stimulus is a specific object or event that influences an individual’s learning or behavior. A response is a specific behavior that an individual exhibits. Behaviorist believe that people are born with a blank slate with no inherited tendency to behave on way or another. Over the years the environment slowly molds or conditions the slate so that it is no longer blank. Conditioning is the commonly used term by behaviorist for learning that typically involves specific environmental events leading to the acquisition of specific responses (Ellis, 2013, pg.265). …show more content…

Behaviorist define learning as a behavioral change. Learning involves forming associations among stimuli and responses. People are more likely to learn and exhibit behaviors that bring about certain kinds of consequences. A student who found an association between their behavior, which would be the response and the attention from peers or teachers which would be the stimulus. Learning is more likely to take place when the stimuli and response happens in a close time period. When two events occur at the same time either two stimuli or a stimuli and response there is contiguity. An example of this would be if a teacher would scowls at you as they are passing back a test that has a low grade your body tenses up, the next time the teacher scowls your body tenses this would be the contiguity (Ellis, 2013,

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