Behaviorism is what?

In many higher educational institutions, almost every faculty is given a course of lectures on psychology. Therefore, many students are interested in the direction of behaviorism and other branches of science. Such knowledge will be useful in practical life. Psychology gives an idea of how the individual's psyche works. This knowledge is important for every person, because they enable you to understand yourself and others well.

Behaviorism is the direction of psychology that studies the behavior and activity of an individual. But one of its founders, Skinner, called his child more of a philosophy. It was based on the work of Russian scientists in the field of reflexology and the ideas of Darwinism. The founder of the current John Watson wrote a special manifesto, in which he spoke of the meaninglessness of the concepts of consciousness and the subconscious. The direction became especially popular in the 20th century. To a certain extent, behaviorism is similar to psychoanalysis, but they are different. Supporters of behaviorism believe that all concepts of "consciousness", "subconsciousness" and the like are subjective enough. Therefore, observation can not be used, only those information obtained by objective methods are reliable.

Behaviorism is a direction based on reactions and stimuli. That is why his supporters love the works of the famous Russian physiologist Pavlov. Reaction is understood as activity, external and internal, primarily movements. They can be fixed. The stimulus is the cause of this or that behavior. It is on him depends the nature of the reaction.

Initially, it was believed that behaviorism is the simplest direction, and Watson's formula is ideal. But in the course of further experiments it was established that one stimulus can cause different reactions or many reactions. That's why the idea was put forward about the presence of an intermediate link between the stimulus and the reaction.

The development of behaviorism after Watson was continued by Skinner. His main task was to study the mechanism of behavior. He developed the idea of positive reinforcement. According to Skinner, a positive stimulus influences the development of a certain behavior. In the course of scientific experiments he confirmed his thoughts. But on the whole, education did not interest him, it was much more important for him to study the mechanisms of behavior.

According to Skinner, behaviorism is a branch of psychology that should give concrete answers to the questions posed. If this can not be achieved, then there is no answer. For him, the controversial moment was the existence of each person a creative beginning. He does not deny this, but he does not show any support.

In the course of his scientific work, Skinner came to the conclusion that a person is formed under the influence of society. He denied Freud's idea that everyone creates himself as a person.

But still, behaviourists made several mistakes. The first was that any action should be considered in conjunction with a particular person. The second error consisted in unwillingness to understand that the stimulus can cause a lot of different reactions. Even if it was produced under the same conditions.