Vol. 8(6), pp.

164-171, October 2020

DOI: 10.14662/IJELC2020.125 International Journal of
Copy© right 2020
Author(s) retain the copyright of this article English Literature and
ISSN: 2360-7831 Culture
[Link]
Review

Review on Behaviorist Approach and the

Construction of Knowledge
Wubante Mekonnen
Debre Markos University, Ethiopia, P.O.B 269, January 2020

Accepted 6 October 2020

The theory of behaviorism focuses on the study of observable and measurable behavior. It emphasizes
that behavior is mostly learned through conditioning and reinforcement (reward and punishment). It
does not give much attention to the mind and the possibility of thought processes occurring in the
mind. Contributions in the development of the behaviorist theory largely came from Pavlov, Skinner,
Watson, and Thorndike. This article tries to review those big 4 behaviorists in brief. It also includes the
basic tenets, further arguments and issues on various aspects.

Key Words: Behaviorist approach, Conditioning, Application, Knowledge

Cite This Article As: Wubante, M (2020). Review on Behaviorist Approach and the Construction of Knowledge.
Inter. J. Eng. Lit. Cult. 8(6):164-171

Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936) – Classical Conditioning

A Russian psychologist, Ivan Pavlov, is well known for his work in classical conditioning or stimulus substitution.
Pavlov’s classical conditioning focusing on voluntary behaviors. For example, Pavlov’s notable experiment involving
classical conditioning called ringing a bell in order to cause dogs to salivate.
Prior to his experiment, Pavlov noticed that dogs salivated whenever they saw food which is an involuntary response
on their part. To see if he could associate the involuntary response with a certain prompt, he added a bell as a neutral
response. For a period of time, he rang a bell whenever he fed dogs, and eventually, they would salivate whenever they
heard the bell, even if no food was present.
Therefore Pavlov was able to prove that an involuntary behavior could be associated with a certain stimulus. This
discussion is illustrated in the following pictures.

(Picture 1: Animal behavior in learning. [Link]

 Wubante 165

Picture 2

Picture 3

Note: Unconditioned stimulus is the stimulus that causes an organism to display a certain reaction without learning
having been occurred yet. In an ordinary experiment, food is an unconditioned stimulus because it causes the dog to
secrete juice before learning occurs. Unconditioned response is the reaction that the organism displays to this stimulus.
The juice secreted by the dog to the food is unconditioned response. On the other hand, conditioned response
appears when the dog gives reaction to a stimulus to which it should not react normally.
166 Inter. J. Eng. Lit. Cult.

Picture 4

Behaviorism expresses shaping behavior. In classical conditioning, shaping a dog’s behavior is possible through
reinforcement. Reinforcement means giving unconditioned stimulus again in classical conditioning. In the experiment
carried out by Pavlov, the food given to the dog is reinforced and the dog continues to secrete as long as it is given food.
In relation to this, when the food is not given for a certain period of time, extinction occurs and the dog stops to give the
response of secretion after a time. If the dog is expected to continue to give the response of secretion, it is necessary to
do reinforcement and to go on giving food.

Classical conditioning can be used for shaping many behaviors of human and animals. Since it is about natural and
inborn behaviors, it is an effective technique to shape animals’ behaviors. Likewise, it can also be used to shape the
behaviors of children who are thought to continue naturalist to a great extent. Classical conditioning is true for humans
especially about feelings since people’s feelings are inborn and natural to a great extent. For example; fear is one of the
feelings used by the organism to protect it. When an organism comes across a danger about continuing its life, it feels
fearful. Fear is inborn, but it is shaped by classical conditioning that why and how fear is felt. Fears in daily life and also
love and like are all results of classical conditioning. A child matches doctor and painful experiences during a doctor
treatment and starts to be afraid of doctors. Likewise, people like other people with whom they enjoy themselves.

B. F. Skinner: Operant Conditioning

Burrhus Frederick Skinner (1904-1990) is one of the most important and effective people in the history of psychology.
Skinner's theory of operant conditioning was based on the work of Thorndike (1905). Edward Thorndike studied learning
in animals using a puzzle box to propose the theory known as the 'Law of Effect'. Operant Conditioning deals with
operant - intentional actions that have an effect on the surrounding environment. Skinner set out to identify the
processes which made certain operant behaviors more or less likely to occur.
Skinner (1938) proposed two laws that govern the conditioning of an operant:

The Law of Conditioning: If the occurrence of an operant is followed by presentation of a reinforcing stimulus, the
strength is increased.

The Law of Extinction: If the occurrence of an operant already strengthened through conditioning is not followed by the
reinforcing stimulus, the strength is decreased.

Because operant conditioning focuses on voluntary behavior, Skinner’s experiment was much different than Pavlov’s in
that Skinner placed a rat in a box that contained a lever that would produce a food pellet when pushed. As the rat ran
about the box, it accidentally bumped into the lever and it was provided with a pellet of food. The rat soon associated
pushing the lever with receiving food (positive reinforcement) which increased the odds of it pushing the lever again.
This is illustrated in picture 5 as follows.
 Wubante 167

Picture 5: Animal behavior in learning

The behavior of an animal, which is always reinforced, continues as long as reinforcement goes on. Skinner also
noted that punishment could also modify the animal’s behavior. For example, if he were to take the food pellets out of
his experiment, the rat would eventually stop pressing the lever after realizing it was no longer going to receive a reward
for doing so. This is an example of negative punishment “punishment by removal”.
Unlike Pavlov’s experiment with dogs, the behavior of the rats was completely voluntary, and due to instances of both
positive and negative reinforcement, Skinner proved that they could learn to associate certain behaviors with certain
consequences.
One of the contributions of Skinner to behaviorism is the concept of behavior modification. This approach expresses
changing human behaviors through developed rules and principles, and it especially uses positive reinforcement. A very
common example of this is the case of a child who cried to get what she/he wants. If what the child wants is bought, the
possibility of the child to cry in order to get what she/he wants at a later time. Because what he/she wants is bought
when she/he cries. However, it is a more preferable case to reward the child when she/he doesn’t cry. Another
contribution of Skinner to education is programmed instruction. Programmed instruction means directing a student by
means of reinforcing his/her responses given to teaching materials in a manner of small progresses. Although it was not
successful in early 1960s when it was first developed, it is used in a very effective way with the development of
computers today. The student is exposed some questions and he/she is allowed to go on only if she/he gives the correct
answer. Thus, the student can pass to higher levels as he/she learns. Programmed instruction, which can be defined as
reinforcing the suitable behavior of a student, is one of the most important contributions of Skinner to education.
In general, both Ivan Pavlov and B. F. Skinner are considered behaviorists. This means that they focused on
measurable, observable, and specific behaviors and how these behaviors can be manipulated and changed. Unlike
many psychological theorists of their time, who focused primarily on thoughts and emotions, these behaviorists sought
to deal with more concrete actions. Pavlov was the first to demonstrate conditioning, where behaviors can be created
and reinforced through a system of pairing behaviors with stimuli. On the other hand, Skinner denied the importance of
what comes before a behavior. Instead, he believed that it is what comes after the behavior that is most important.
Following behaviors with rewards and punishment determines whether these behaviors will be repeated.
There are also other noteworthy behaviorists that have been influenced by Pavlov and Skinner, including John Watson
and Thorndike.

John B. Watson (1878-1958)

Although behaviorism is closely related to Pavlov’s experiments in early 1900s, it was Watson who established
behaviorism in 1913 with his article. Watson is the founder of behaviorist theory. He believed behavior originated from
experiences. He was largely influenced by Pavlov’s ideas about conditioning. In his famous experiment, he conditioned
a young boy named Albert, an 11 month old infant child. The goal of the study was to condition Albert to become afraid
of a white rat by pairing the white rat with a very loud, jarring noise (UCS). At first, Albert showed no sign of fear when
he was presented with rats, but once the rat was repeatedly paired with the loud noise (UCS); Albert developed a fear of
168 Inter. J. Eng. Lit. Cult.

rats. It could be said that the loud noise (UCS) induced fear (UCR). The implications of Watson’s experiment suggested
that classical conditioning could cause some phobias in humans.
According to Watson, behaviors can be simple just like reflexes while they can also be very complex. Complex
behaviors are called actions. Actions such as eating, reading, and building are complex. However, no matter how much
complex an action is, they can also be handled in terms of simple actions. Responses can also be divided into
implicit/explicit or learnt/unlearnt. Responses that psychology will investigate should be somehow observable. Watson
claimed that observable behaviors had to be investigated by means of separating them into the smallest unit, to the
responses of muscles and nerves. According to Watson’s behaviorism, behavior is separated to the smallest unit.

E. L. Thorndike

Edward Lee Thorndike (1874-1949) is said to be the greatest learning theorists of all time in some by some sources
(Hergenhahn, 1982 as cited in Johnson 2004:19-30). Thorndike was a psychologist who carried out studies not only in
the field of learning but also in other fields of education. He claimed that stimulus and response are connected to each
other about learning. According to him, a neural connection is established in the organism when learning takes place.
He called his theory as connectionism. It states that behavioral responses to specific stimuli are established through a
process of trial and error that affects neural connections between the stimuli and the most satisfying responses.
Similar to Pavlov, Thorndike also used animal experiments. He developed his ideas on “instrumental conditioning” which
is made up of two laws: The law of exercise and the law of effect. For example, he placed a cat in what skinner called
a “puzzle box” and waited to see how long it would it take for the cat to escape and find food. The cat struggled at first,
but eventually found its way out. After that every time the cat was placed in the box, it escaped more quickly than before,
proving the law of exercise that strengthens it. The law of effect is that the strength of the learned response is
determined by whether or not the behavior is rewarded or punished. Look the situation in following picture.

Picture 6: Thorndike’s Puzzle Box

Principles Derived from Thorndike’s Connection

Learning requires both practice and rewards.

A series of S-R connections can be chained together if they belong to the same action sequence (law of
readiness).
Transfer of Learning occurs because of previously encountered situations.
Intelligence is a function of the number of connections learned.

Behaviorism and the Construction of Knowledge

This theory postulates that learning has nothing to do with the mind. In fact, learning occurs with the acquisition of new
behavior. It was introduced by B.F. Skinner one of the behaviorist psychologist saying that a measurable learning
outcome is only possible if we change the learner’s behavior. According to Skinner, behavior is a learned response
reinforced by the consequences resulting from that behavior. For instance, if students are rewarded for doing extra work,
they're more likely to repeat that behavior.
 Wubante 169

To behaviorists, learning comes from observation of cultures (Henry Plotkin 2003 as cited in Qasi 2007: 2-10). It
comes from the environment. There must be some incentive to create certain responses. According to behaviorism, the
incentive may either be positive or negative. If it is the former then the learner will be rewarded, while if it is the latter, the
learner will be punished (Lisa [Link], Ming Yeh Lee, Sosan Birden, Doris Flower. 2003 as cited in Qasi 2007:
2-10). Study has also shown that behaviorist methods of reinforcement are very effective in creating positive behavior in
almost any learning environment. Such methods positively affect the performances among learners (John Dawning,
Tedd Keating, and Karl Bennett 2005 as cited in Qasi 2007: 2-10).
Behaviorism is the psychology of the environment which a person lives. After all, the main stimuli of behaviors
come from the external environment rather than the internal. It is the situational interactions (external or environment)
which have effect to the particular individual (learner) not to the mind (Robert Marrone, 1999 as cited in Qasi 2007: 2-
10). B.F. Skinner believed that if we could change the behavior of a rat which is an animal, then human behavior could
also be changed. To behaviorists, man’s actions should be controlled (Charlotte Hua Liu & Robert Mathew 2005 as cited
in Qasi 2007: 2-10), as scientists control and influences other natural phenomena. This theory denies the existence of
the human mind as a distinct feature to that of animal kingdom. As such, to behaviorist man is like a machine can be
switched on and off (Michael L. Birzer. (2003 as cited in Qasi 2007: 2-10). We also learn from our interactions with
our environment or surrounding. The process of learning occurs because our learning is associated with a condition
and that condition is the environment.

Basic Tenets of Behaviorist Approach

The following principles illustrate the operating princip1es of behaviorism:

1. Behaviorist theory is the habit formation theory of language teaching and learning reminding us the learning of
structural grammar. In other words, language learning is a mechanical process leading the learners to habit formation
whose underlying scheme is the conditioned reflex. Thus, it is definitely true that the language is controlled by the
consequences of behavior.
2. The stimulus-response (S-R) is a pure case of conditioning. Behaviorists emphasize that conditioning and building
from the simplest conditioned stimulus to more and more complex behaviors. Each stimulus is thus the caser of the
response, and each response becomes the initiator of a stimulus, and this process goes on and on this way.
3. All learning is the establishment of habits as the result of reinforcement and reward. Positive reinforcement is a
reward while negative reinforcement is prevention. In a stimulus situation, the response is exerted and if the response is
positively augmented by a reward, then the association between the stimulus and the response is reinforced and thus
the response will very likely be manipulated by every response to stimulus. The result will yield conditioning when
responses to stimuli are coherently reinforced, and then habit formation is established. It is because of this fact that this
approach is termed habit formation by reinforcement.
4. The learning due to its socially conditioned nature can be the same for each individual. In other words, each person
can learn equally if the conditions in which the learning takes place are the same for each person.
5. All behaviorists agreed that it is more worthwhile to focus on observable rather than just theory. They also agreed that
behavior is shaped by experiences surrounding the behavior.
6. Basic strategies of language learning within the scope of behaviorist theory are imitation, reinforcement, and
rewarding.

Arguments on Behaviorist Approach

As it has seen from the basic tenets of behaviorist approach, some of the principles are questionable. For one thing,
the learners may find themselves in a situation where the stimulus for the correct response does not occur, so the
learner cannot respond. For example, a worker who has been conditioned to respond to a certain cue at work may stop
production when an anomaly /irregularity occur because they do not understand the system. Chomsky (1959) argues
that Skinner does not acknowledge the internal structure of the learner or how they process input information. Therefore,
Behaviorism does not explain the mental processes involved in language learning, distancing itself, for instance, from
the sociocultural perspective which accounts both: the external stimuli and the internal mental structure.
It is also highly unlikely for learning to be the same for each individual; that is, each person cannot learn equally well in
the same conditions in which learning takes place, for the background and the experience of the learners make
everybody learn differently. In addition, according to Chomsky, there must be some innate capacities which human
beings possess that predispose them to look for basic patterns in language.
An additional concept related to this theory is the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis (CAH). According to this concept,
learners of a second language would start the acquisition process using the habits formed in their L1 and, eventually,
170 Inter. J. Eng. Lit. Cult.

these habits would interfere with the new ones needed for the L2. In other words, there is not any single theory can ever
clarify how people behave or learn in the context of a changing environment.

Application of Behaviorist Approach in Ethiopian Context

One of the most representative teaching methods related to the Behaviorist approach is the Audio-lingual Method.
This methodology was very popular in the 1960s and 1970s, and it is based on the premise of learning through habit-
formation. Thus, the classroom activity takes the following procedure: students listen to an audio which contains
particular structures and patterns that they must repeat in order to drill grammatical points, such as verb forms and
sentence structures. Therefore, students are first taught to listen and speak, and then to read and write based on the
assumption that this is the natural sequence in first language acquisition/learning.
By considering a behaviorist approach class, students are also required to satisfy a mastery requirement in one unit
before proceeding to the next. Typically, a unit in the program would have more than one equivalent form of
assessment; for example, three quizzes of equal difficulty. Students are required to demonstrate mastery of a unit’s
objectives at a certain level. If the student does not reach the threshold, he or she is redirected to unit materials (or
supplements if provided) and can then take an equivalent form of the unit assessment. From a behaviorist perspective,
demonstrating mastery, and being allowed to continue to a subsequent unit, was presumed to be reinforcing.
Moreover, behaviorist approach is applied in all Ethiopian ‘Kies Schools’. Learners from ‘Kies Schools’ memorize and
apply as necessary all the courses that are offered to them on the basis of their levels. As soon as the learners complete
their courses, they get rewards/certificates from the concerned bodies. The way of their certification depends on
approval. Similarly, the religious schooling (Kies School Learners) and the learners in KG, Nursery, and others are also
supported with ‘Fidel Gebeta’ and ‘Abugida’ on the first days of their education. This implies that the behaviorist
approach is practically applied in the overall Ethiopian education system till these days. In short, it is better to say
Ethiopia is the home of behaviorist approach. In one case, it is the place where religious education is totally fall on such
approach. In the other case, its significant role for Ethiopian teachers and students is obvious and everlasting in that
most of the EFL classroom teaching and learning takes place for the mastery of the content of lessons in all grade levels
(primary, secondary, and tertiary) supporting with formal instruction. Therefore, it is better to say behavioristic approach
is serving as a cornerstone in the Ethiopian education system in all grade levels.

Summary

Learning is seen as a process of developing connections between a stimulus and a response. This process is called
conditioning. As the behavior is reinforced, habits are importance of environment: learning is a result of environmental
rather than genetic factors. The child is born as a clean slate and the environment writes its messages on this clean
slate mind. As a result, behaviorist approach is one of the most important and efficient instrument in learning and
teaching. It is also possible to say that behaviorism is serving as a cornerstone in that different types of teaching and
learning theories are originated and developed in it. In addition, behaviorist approach is serving as base for constructing
educational knowledge using various reinforcement techniques.
In spite of contradictions in behaviorism methodology, one cannot deny its usefulness in the classroom, notably, the
concept of reward and punishment add insights into learning, language development, and moral and gender
development, which have all been explained in terms of conditioning. In addition, it has exerted a great impact by
influencing many teaching methods on the area of language teaching, for example, Audio-lingual Method, Total Physical
Response, and Silent Way embody the behaviorist view of language.

Issues for Interest

1. The Effectiveness of Behavioral Approaches in Primary EFL Contexts

2. Behaviorist Approaches to Motivation
3. The Effect of Behaviorism in Tertiary Level Learners
4. Critical Review of Behaviorist Approach
5. From Constructivism to Behaviorism to Teacher Education
 Wubante 171

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