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Conditioning, Behaviorism, Self-Actualization

Early psychology produced an area of study called "conditioning." It is the process wherein an animal recognizes a given behavior produces a desired result: food, water, freedom, etc. The animal then begins to produce that behavior regularly because the result is still desired. Part of conditioning includes the tenet that desire for the result can be stopped, or "extinguished." The result initially produces a behavior, but then over time the behavior begins to produce the result desired. The behavior thus programmed can be autonomic, such as salivation (as Pavlov found) or conscious (as Skinner studied and experimented with).

Behaviorism was a more recent branch of psychology, begun by John B. Watson out of his belief that "consciousness" or the "unconscious" were merely modern terms for the soul. He wanted to put psychology on the same plane as the other sciences by limiting it to observable phenomena, which in the case of humans is how behavior. Watson proposed that human behavior should be studied in the same way animal behavior was studied: in laboratory conditions by objective scientists. Clark L. Hull and B. F. Skinner, working about thirty years after Watson, added to his theories, popularizing and refining them to what exists as behaviorism today.

Behaviorism now is basically in two forms, Behavior genetics, also known as nature, and behavior therapy, also known as nurture. The latter was best popularized by B. F. Skinner. Joseph Wolpe and Arnold Lazarus contributed to the theories of "desensitization" of fears or "extinction" of behaviors. Kenneth Spence added the clarification that the strength of the potential for learning is determined by the strength of the drive involved. If the animal (or human) finds a certain behavior leads to satisfaction of hunger or desire for sex, that behavior will be more quickly and solidly implanted than a behavior that produces a friend.

This discovery is ironically similar to...

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Conditioning, Behaviorism, Self-Actualization. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 07:23, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1701098.html