Neo-Behaviorism

Neo-Behaviorism

1. Among the psychological approaches to learning, behaviorism has been very influential in the educational institutions and still sustains its practice in language classrooms.

   • The main focus of behaviorist theory is "the analyses of human behavior in observable stimulus-response interaction and the association between them".
     • Researchers like Pavlov, Watson, Guthrie and Thorndike were convinced that environmentally conditioned responses underlay behavior and that it shpuld be observable behavior that receives the most attention. Watson was credited with being the founder of behaviorism.
       • The strict nature and limited scope of Watson that disregarded mental states and internal concepts was found to be highly speculative as it lacked emprirical support and was harshly criticized in terms of its straightforward focus on mere behavior and nothing else.
         • Discussing the former behavioristic views, Tolman (1935) himself listed two forms of behaviorism. According to his view, the first molecular or microscopic view of behaviorism was actually concerned with physiology and the second form of behaviorism that sought to create a molar or macroscopic view he labeled as "behavior-readinesses."
           • Tolman (1935, p. 376) also asserted that "Men can introspect. And when they introspect,they tell us hatit is not essential to their hypotheses that these issue into actual behavior." His assertion symbolizes the diversion of the neobehaviorist school from the former behaviorist accounts, because of the importance given to the cognition of individuals.
             • Another neo-behaviorist, Hull, investigated human behavior by considering the relationship and interaction between stimuli and responses as well. For him there were three groups of variables: the imput variables, the output variables and the intervening variables.
               • One of the leading neo-behaviorists was Thorndike. He was known for his laws of connection forming and laws of effect where he advised us to "exercise and reward desirable connections; prevent or punish undesirable connections." By these treatments, it was expected that the events that caused the organism to have pleasure would be strengthened whereas the experiences that caused discomfort would be diminished.
                 • Thorndike's view of preventions and punishment were not favored by Skinner. Insteadof punishment, Skinner emphasized the importance of reinforcement. The concept of reinforcement has had a great impact on educational settings.
                   • Like any other approach, neo-behaviorism is not without its flaws. Unless the students are allowed to pursue their own decisions on the concepts and structures to learn and the way to apply them in their lives (Brown, 1994), they cannot be expected to be well motivated to put their efforts int learning and may not be willing to practice recent input or notice language structures, as motivation is an inner drive that may well facilitate and encourage student learning.
                     • Each philosophy comes with its own perceptions of the world with regard to ontology and epistemology. Social changes and distinct views on the interpretation of empirical data result in differing and usually counter-argumentative views about the very same reality.