What Is an Animal Behaviorist?

Behaviorism is one of the main schools of modern American psychology and one of the schools that have the greatest influence on Western psychology.

Behaviorism

(One of the main schools of modern American psychology)

Behaviorism is one of the main schools of modern American psychology and one of the schools that have the greatest influence on Western psychology.

The main point of behaviorism is that psychology should not study consciousness, but only behavior, which completely opposes consciousness. in

Formed in the early 20th century, popular in the United States and other Western countries in the 1950s and 1960s, behaviorism as a viewpoint advocates scientific research on political behavior, especially through the use of quantitative methods, aimed at creating a foundation entirely based on empirical data Political science. As a research method, it regards political behavior as the starting point of politics and the basic unit of political analysis, and advocates that politics should shift from the study of the nature of state systems, laws, and political rights to the study of political behavior. Oppose the historical and legal research methods of traditionalist politics. The main theories include Almond's structure-functionalism and decision theory.

Behaviorism originated in the United States in the early 20th century. Representatives are Watson and Skinner. This is a psychological revolution in the United States in response to the shortcomings of the Font school. It is contrary to traditional psychology, and advocates the viewpoint of researching human behavior. It argues that psychology should not only study the intangible thing like "ghost fire" in the human brain-consciousness, but should study it. The kind of objective things that are visible and tangible reflected from human consciousness, that is, human behavior. They believe that behavior is the combination of various body reactions that organisms use to adapt to environmental changes. These reactions are nothing more than muscle contraction and glandular secretion. Some of them are displayed outside the body, some are hidden inside the body, and their strength is large or small. They believe that the specific behavioral response depends on the specific stimulus intensity, so they use "S--R" (stimulus-response) as a formula to explain all human behavior.

John Watson

All in all, behaviorism is indeed a major school of contribution in modern psychology. It has existed and developed for more than half a century, from the 1920s to the 1950s, it has dominated the American psychology community. It makes psychology truly get rid of philosophy, becomes an objective experimental psychology, and pushes psychology to an important step in the development of mature science. Behaviorism has made unprecedented creative achievements and contributions in applied psychology. It pioneered learning psychology, educational psychology, behavior correction, and more. Of course, due to the limitations of the times, the SR theory of behaviorism is comprehensive and hinders the study of psychological processes. With the advancement of the times and the change of scientific thinking, when the three pillars supporting behaviorism (evolution, the social needs of mechanized production, and positivist trends) were abandoned by the times, it was also the day when behaviorism was facing a defeat in psychology. Only adaptable behaviorists such as social learning and social epistemologists have broken through the framework of SR theory. It can be seen that the development of psychological science follows a regular pattern. It develops with the times and is updated as the internal contradictions resolve. Even schools like the large and long-standing behaviorist school are no exception. The rise and fall of behaviorism warns people that as researchers in the psychological sciences, only by grasping the pulse of the times, facing the problems in current psychology, and constantly adjusting and updating their thinking business can they be creative, discover, and have Invented and moved forward.