Wuundt And Skinner's Contribution To The Development Of Behaviorism

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Recommended: Origins of Behaviorism Outline

One of the initial factors that could have contributed to the development of behaviorism was the work of Wundt and other psychologists of this time period. The focus on introspection may have been a catalyst for another way to understand how people interact and function. As researchers began to realize that a lot about human behavior could be understood without time intensive introspection, they began to move toward a more behaviorist mentality (Hergenhahn & Henley, 2014). Objective psychology in Russia paralleled many of behaviorisms concepts, but although the work of Sechenov and Pavlov was similar, it was not as demarcated as Watson’s subsequent definition. Still, Pavlov set the stage for behaviorists to tap into his work which helped to support …show more content…

Classical conditioning only examines the association between the environment and whatever would cause a specific response (i.e. a reinforcer) (Fisher, Piazza, & Roane, 2014). Therefore, the classical method only changes the stimuli that govern responses that could already be obtained through another stimulus. Operant conditioning changes behavior by using some form of reinforcement given after the anticipated change in behavior, or response, occurs (Fisher et al., 2014). In this way, operant conditioning is not reliant on a certain stimuli, but can use a reinforcer to follow any response without needing some prior form of stimulus. Overall, the process is similar in both types of conditioning, however, the procedure used to obtain a change in behavior is noticeably

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