In direct opposition to the prevalent beliefs of the psychologists who held that consciousness is the subject matter of psychology, behaviorists asserted that behavior of the human being should be the subject matter.1 To behaviorists, the focus on the inner life of human beings detracts from the importance of the revealing aspects of behavior.2 Therefore, behaviorists restrict themselves only to things that can be observed in order to establish patterns of behavior.3 Very often, the close observation of what the subject does in a variety of situations can produce revealing information not only about the diversity of behavior, but also consciousness.4 Ultimately, the knowledge of human behavior is significant because the externalization of the human being's consciousness has an effect on the rest of humanity. Consciousness, by itself, without the consequent behavior, does not have any bearings on society.5
The fundamental notion of Skinner's operant behaviorism is that all human beings are affected by the consequences of their own behavior. Thus, the behavior of human beings is continually influenced by the consequences of the previous acts that trigger changes to the outer environment.6 Therefore, the main focus of behaviorism is to study the interaction between the behavior and the environment--how the behavior is altered in response to environmental changes.7
In Skinner's model for learning, learning does not occur without the existence of the conditions of reinforcement. For example, in a classroom, when a teacher wants to increase a student's participation in the classroom, he capitalizes on an occasion when the student asks a question by lavishing praise on the student's question. Furthermore, he comments that such questions enhance the quality of the discussion for the entire class. Consequently, there is an increase in questions in the class.8
Another means by which human behavior can be altered is by a m...