The Limitations Of Introspection And Behaviorism

Behaviorism on learning and memory occupies an important position in the history of psychology. John B. Watson is the father of behaviorism while B.F. Skinner is the most famous behaviorist of the twentieth century. Watson’s methodological behaviorism means that it is only the behaviors of an individual that can be objectively observed. Skinner’s radical behaviorism emphasized that behaviors of human and animals are blindly influenced by environment. In this case, Watson and Skinner share similar views of behaviorism. For instance, they believe that the proper objectives of behavioral research include prediction and control (Staddon and Bueno, 1991). However, there are remarkable discrepancies in their views of human equality and freedom. Watson promoted the progressive process of human equality by maintaining concept of “tabula rasa”, whereas Skinner insisted that freedom is an illusion, so that he provided the adverse effect to the dictatorial institution. The fact is that the potential ambiguity produces a strong influence on people’s thinking and has a practical significance on society.

Verbal short term memories encode and represent information in a phonological form in immediate memory. This was highly supported by Baddeley and Hitch’s (1974) working memory model. Baddeley and Hitch introduce the “phonological (articulatory) loop”, a mechanism in the short term memory which helps in the retention of verbal information temporarily. (Baddeley & Hitch, 1974). As these mechanisms are heavily dependent on the phonological systems, they have brought about inefficiencies in memory encoding bringing about various effects which includes phonological similarity effect ( difficulty in recall due to similar sounding words), word length effect (recall to be more difficult with long words than short words), the unattended speech effect

Working memory's current understanding largely stems from the model in 1974 by Baddeley and Hitch, since then it has been recently advanced. The boss being the central executive, who controls and monitors all the information processing. The two other separate storage systems that support the central executive: phonological loop, who functions as the temporarily store for phonological information, and the visuospatial sketchpad where visual and spatial representations are temporarily stored and manipulated (Baddeley, 1996). The integrator of information from the subcomponents of working memory and long term memory is known as the episodic buffer, it is the recently proposed addition (Baddeley, 2000). Many people when they think of an individual

Behaviorism has been a topic of many controversies in the early stages of developing. This paper will present a synthesis of several articles discussing behaviorisms and its development through various schools of theories, in addition known researchers and conclusions. The first article that illustrates behaviorism is, “Behaviorism at 100” by Ledoux (2012), which details the last 50 years of the study of behaviorism. The next article is “Behaviorism” by Moore (2011), maps the beginning of behaviorism with B.F.Skinner and addressing functionalism and structuralism. The article named “Psychology as the behaviorist views it”, written by Watson (1913) put his emphasis the aspects of psychology and how behaviorist view introspection. Green (2009) article “Darwinian Theory functionalism and the First American psychological revolution”, is very adamant to have is readers to know that functionalism was the foundation that behaviorism was built. Clark (2004) article “The classical origins of Pavlov’s conditioning”, give insight into classical conditioning abroad and in the United States. The last article named “Little Albert’s alleged neurological impairment” written by Digdon , Powell and Harris (2014), focus on ethical concerns and that may have been overlooked. The synthesis paper will provide behaviorism and conclusions that can draw overall messages from the articles mentioned above.

Baddeley (2001) suggests a working memory system which consists of four components; a modality-free central executive, a phonological loop which holds information in speech based form, a visuo-spatial sketchpad and an episodic buffer which is the temporary storage system that holds and integrates information from the phonological loop, visuo-spatial sketchpad and long-term memory (Eysenck & Keane, 2005).

Another key aspect of the behaviourist approach is that they believe that behaviour should be studied rather than the mind. They believe that it should be objective and scientific rather than emotive.

Behaviorists and cognitive psychologists have debated for many years. It is from these two schools of thought that dueling informational ideas have been born. Originally, behaviorism was the leading school of thought being led by John B. Watson and B.F. Skinner. Later new ideas regarding the mind became more prominent. Edward C. Tolman was one of the more prominent figures of this field. Behaviorists looked for more evidence of behavior and rejected any ideas about the mind. An idea that was highly looked into by cognitive psychologists.

It is said that humanistic psychology was developed upon the limitations of behaviourism. The humanistic approach is often referred to as the “third force” in psychology coming after psychoanalysis and behaviourism; it is an alternative approach to psychology (Maslow, 1968). It offered a more wholesome approach to psychology at the time in comparison to behaviourism and psychoanalysis. This essay will compare and contrast behaviourism and humanistic psychology; it will focus on their contributions to psychological theory and their applications in the real world.

According to Baddley 2001 the issued model of working memory is consisting of three components. The executive controls system oversees all working memory activity, including selection of information, method of processing, meaning, and finally deciding whether to transfer it to long term memory or forget it. Two counterparts of this system are the auditory loop, where auditory information is processed, and the visual-spatial check pad, where visual information is processed. Sensory memories transferred into working memory will last for 15-20 seconds, with a capacity for 5-9 pieces or chunks of information. Information is maintained in working memory through maintenance or elaborative rehearsal. Maintenance refers to repetition, while elaboration

People are quick to make judgements about others without knowing what that person has been through. Regardless of how a person acts, he will be judged either in a positive or negative way. Behavior is something that characterizes us as humans. I believe that as humans we have the capability to change our behavior. I support the theories made by behaviorists. Nobody is born knowing, we all have to experience in order to learn. In other words, we have to go through the process of trial and error in order to understand the consequences of our actions. Consequences are not always bad; sometimes there are positive outcomes to a consequence. The word “consequence” simply implies that there will be a result or an outcome from your actions. People’s

Behaviorism has often been described as too predictable, for neglecting the role of internal states including memory, emotions, thoughts, and motivation in individuals’ behavior. Similarly, behaviorism postulates that all behaviors can be observed when in fact subjective processes such as thinking, and feeling are subjective measures. The method of introspection is also rejected by proponents of behaviorism despite its importance in understanding individuals subjective experience of phenomena. For instance, how individuals perceive the experience of having a headache. Furthermore, the role of biological influences on individuals’ behaviors is neglected

Although Watson was not the first to suggest an empirical and objective approach to psychological research he was the first to offer a coherent and organized program, and is often viewed as the catalyst for behaviorism, especially among American psychologists (Bewsbury, 2013). Perhaps the most famous behaviorist is B.F. Skinner (b.1904-d.1990). Skinner’s approach almost completely disregarded anything outside of observable behaviors, and his strict approach to looking at anything other than observable behaviors resulted in the development of the term radical behaviorism (Feist et al., 2013).

A significant piece of several psychological theories in the late nineteenth century was introspection, which is “the examination or observation of one's own mental and emotional processes” (Press, 2013). In retort to this theory behaviorism came about. Behaviorism is predominantly concerned with observable and measurable aspects of human behavior. In other words behaviorism does not look at the biological aspects but it suggests that all behaviors are learned habits and changes in response to the environment. It endeavors to explain how these particular habits are formed. Behaviorism claimed that the causes of behavior was not necessarily found in the complexities of the mind but could be observed in one’s immediate environment, from stimuli that produced, reinforced, and punished certain responses also known later on as conditioning. It wasn’t until the twentieth century that the scientist began to discover the actual systems to learning, thereby laying a foundation for behaviorism. A theorist by the name of Ivan Pavlov was a major contribution to the discovering of significant behavioral theories.

The term behaviorism referred to the school of psychology founded by John B. Watson based on the proposition that all things which organisms do — including acting, thinking and feeling—can and should be regarded as behaviors (Staddon, 2001) . And this behavior could be researched scientifically . According to Pavlov, "Respondent Conditioning” resulted from the association of two stimuli, such as causing dogs to salivate at the sound a tuning fork. Consequently, Skinner developed “Operant Conditioning” where the “Stimulus-Response” association was elicited through selective reinforcement (rewards or punishments) to shape behavior. In this regard, behaviorism assumed that a learner was a passive recipient and responding to environmental stimuli. When applying the tenets of Behaviorism to teaching, Skinner asserted that the learner started off as a blank slate, and then his behavior was shaped via positive or negative reinforcement. Behaviorist

My psychologist has produced a very accurate analysis of myself. It captured the thing that drives a great deal of my behavior. It influences my actions subconsciously and helps get me be the terrific person that I am today. My assessment shows how generous I am. I give freely of my time and my possessions, and no jobs are too big for me to help with sharing comes naturally for me. My assessment also shows my behavior reveals that I’m a loving individual. I always want the best for people and depart out of my way to do little special things for them by nature I am a giver. I choose behaviorism theory because I’m more intimate with this theory, it’s the most theory that I will have to deal with more when I began the job that I am