Behavioral Psychology

Early work in the field of behavior was conducted by the Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov (1849–1936). Pavlov studied a form of
learning behavior called a conditioned reflex, in which an animal or human produced a reflex (unconscious) response to a stimulus and,
over time, was conditioned to produce the response to a different stimulus that the experimenter associated with the original stimulus.
The reflex Pavlov worked with was salivation in response to the presence of food. The salivation reflex could be elicited using a second
stimulus, such as a specific sound, that was presented in association with the initial food stimulus several times. Once the response to
the second stimulus was “learned,” the food stimulus could be omitted. Pavlov’s “classical conditioning” is only one form of learning
behavior studied by behaviorists.

Figure 1. John B. Watson is known as the father of behaviorism within psychology.

John B. Watson (1878–1958) was an influential American psychologist whose most famous work
occurred during the early 20th century at Johns Hopkins University. While Wundt and James were
concerned with understanding conscious experience, Watson thought that the study of consciousness
was flawed. Because he believed that objective analysis of the mind was impossible, Watson preferred
to focus directly on observable behavior and try to bring that behavior under control. Watson was a
major proponent of shifting the focus of psychology from the mind to behavior, and this approach of
observing and controlling behavior came to be known as behaviorism. A major object of study by
behaviorists was learned behavior and its interaction with inborn qualities of the organism. Behaviorism
commonly used animals in experiments under the assumption that what was learned using animal
models could, to some degree, be applied to human behavior. Indeed, Tolman (1938) stated, “I believe
that everything important in psychology (except … such matters as involve society and words) can be
investigated in essence through the continued experimental and theoretical analysis of the determiners of rat behavior at a choice-point
in a maze.”

Behaviorism dominated experimental psychology for several decades, and its influence can still be felt today (Thorne & Henley, 2005).
Behaviorism is largely responsible for establishing psychology as a scientific discipline through its objective methods and especially
experimentation. In addition, it is used in behavioral and cognitive-behavioral therapy. Behavior modification is commonly used in
classroom settings. Behaviorism has also led to research on environmental influences on human behavior.

B. F. Skinner (1904–1990) was an American psychologist. Like Watson, Skinner was a behaviorist, and he concentrated on how
behavior was affected by its consequences. Therefore, Skinner spoke of reinforcement and punishment as major factors in driving
behavior. As a part of his research, Skinner developed a chamber that allowed the careful study of the principles of modifying behavior
through reinforcement and punishment. This device, known as an operant conditioning chamber (or more familiarly, a Skinner box), has
remained a crucial resource for researchers studying behavior (Thorne & Henley, 2005).

Figure 2. (a) B. F. Skinner is famous for his research on operant conditioning. (b) Modified versions of the operant conditioning
chamber, or Skinner box, are still widely used in research settings today. (credit a: modification of work by “Silly rabbit”/Wikimedia
Commons)

The Skinner box is a chamber that isolates the subject from the external environment and has a behavior indicator such as a lever or a
button. When the animal pushes the button or lever, the box is able to deliver a positive reinforcement of the behavior (such as food) or
a punishment (such as a noise) or a token conditioner (such as a light) that is correlated with either the positive reinforcement or
punishment.

Skinner’s focus on positive and negative reinforcement of learned behaviors had a lasting influence in psychology that has waned
somewhat since the growth of research in cognitive psychology. Despite this, conditioned learning is still used in human behavioral
modification. Skinner’s two widely read and controversial popular science books about the value of operant conditioning for creating
happier lives remain as thought-provoking arguments for his approach (Greengrass, 2004).

During the early 20th century, American psychology was dominated by behaviorism and psychoanalysis. However, some psychologists
were uncomfortable with what they viewed as limited perspectives being so influential to the field. They objected to the pessimism and
determinism (all actions driven by the unconscious) of Freud. They also disliked the reductionism, or simplifying nature, of behaviorism.
Behaviorism is also deterministic at its core, because it sees human behavior as entirely determined by a combination of genetics and
environment. Some psychologists began to form their own ideas that emphasized personal control, intentionality, and a true
predisposition for “good” as important for our self-concept and our behavior. Thus, humanism emerged.

Introduction

Existentialism is a philosophy that emphasizes individual existence, freedom and choice. It is the view that humans define their own
meaning in life, and try to make rational decisions despite existing in an irrational universe. It focuses on the question of human
existence, and the feeling that there is no purpose or explanation at the core of existence. It holds that, as there is no God or any
other transcendent force, the only way to counter this nothingness (and hence to find meaning in life) is by embracing existence.

Thus, Existentialism believes that individuals are entirely free and must take personal responsibility for themselves (although with this
responsibility comes angst, a profound anguish or dread). It therefore emphasizes action, freedom and decision as fundamental, and
holds that the only way to rise above the essentially absurd condition of humanity (which is characterized by suffering and inevitable
death) is by exercising our personal freedom and choice (a complete rejection of Determinism).

Often, Existentialism as a movement is used to describe those who refuse to belong to any school of thought, repudiating of
the adequacy of any body of beliefs or systems, claiming them to be superficial, academic and remote from life. Although it has much in
common with Nihilism, Existentialism is more a reaction against traditional philosophies, such as Rationalism, Empiricism and Positivism,
that seek to discover an ultimate order and universal meaning in metaphysical principles or in the structure of the observed world. It
asserts that people actually make decisions based on what has meaning to them, rather than what is rational.

Existentialism originated with the 19th Century philosophers Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche, although neither used
the term in their work. In the 1940s and 1950s, French existentialists such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus (1913 - 1960), and Simone
de Beauvoir (1908 - 1986) wrote scholarly and fictional works that popularized existential themes, such as dread, boredom, alienation,
the absurd, freedom, commitment and nothingness.

Main Beliefs Back to Top

Unlike René Descartes, who believed in the primacy of consciousness, Existentialists assert that a human being is "thrown into" into a
concrete, inveterate universe that cannot be "thought away", and therefore existence ("being in the world") precedes consciousness, and
is the ultimate reality. Existence, then, is prior to essence (essence is the meaning that may be ascribed to life), contrary
to traditional philosophical views dating back to the ancient Greeks. As Sartre put it: "At first [Man] is nothing. Only afterward will he be
something, and he himself will have made what he will be."

Kierkegaard saw rationality as a mechanism humans use to counter their existential anxiety, their fear of being in the world. Sartre saw
rationality as a form of "bad faith", an attempt by the self to impose structure on a fundamentally irrational and random world of
phenomena ("the other"). This bad faith hinders us from finding meaning in freedom, and confines us within everyday experience.

Kierkegaard also stressed that individuals must choose their own way without the aid of universal, objective standards. Friedrich
Nietzsche further contended that the individual must decide which situations are to count as moral situations. Thus, most Existentialists
believe that personal experience and acting on one's own convictions are essential in arriving at the truth, and that the understanding of
a situation by someone involved in that situation is superior to that of a detached, objective observer (similar to the concept
of Subjectivism).

According to Camus, when an individual's longing for order collides with the real world's lack of order, the result is absurdity. Human
beings are therefore subjects in an indifferent, ambiguous and absurd universe, in which meaning is not provided by the natural order,
but rather can be created (however provisionally and unstable) by human actions and interpretations.

Existentialism can be atheistic, theological (or theistic) or agnostic. Some Existentialists, like Nietzsche, proclaimed that "God is dead"
and that the concept of God is obsolete. Others, like Kierkegaard, were intensely religious, even if they did not feel able to justify it. The
important factor for Existentialists is the freedom of choice to believe or not to believe.