Learning, Knowledge and Human Development MOOC’s Updates

Stimulus-response, a basic unit of Behaviourism

Behaviourism is school of thought which emphasises scientific and objective methods of investigation. The approach is only concerned with observable stimulus-response behaviours, and states all behaviours are learned through interaction with the environment.

Our response changes towards things based on our past negative, positive or neutral stimuli in the environment.When Pavlov did an experiment on dogs, their response changed when they associated food with the bell (stimuli). Before coming of the food they started salivating. Thus, the dogs got conditioned that when bells (conditioned stimuli) rings they expect food and salivate (conditioned response) . Similarly when a child in school scores good grades and is rewarded by parents with gift (unconditioned stimulus) the child becomes very happy (conditioned response), it can be observed whenever the child get good marks he will expect gift (unconditioned stimuli) & will be happy (conditioned response). If the child does not get a gift he can become unhappy or sad. This shows how the child’s response changes with reinforcement of stimuli changes in the environment. So we can observe In many situations in our surroundings how the response because of different stimuli available in the environment changes our behaviour

So we can say our behaviour whether negative or positive is made of responses we have in our daily life when we interact with different stimuli in the environment. For example, if John is repairing wires at home and experiences sudden electric shock, he will associate that electric wires (conditioned stimuli) give shock so when next time he works with it, he will have fearful response to wires this because of the response of fear is associated with the stimulus of wires based on his past experiences. Thus, behaviour is based on stimulus-response and all behaviours are learned through interactions with the environment.

 

  • Mikita Puri