PSY 453 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Rosalie Rayner, Behaviorism, Edward Thorndike
30 Jul 2020
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Below we define the main terms of behavioral theory: stimulus. This term refers to any signal, information, or event that produces a reaction (response) in an. Any behavior of an organism that arises in reaction to a stimulus : conditioning. Conditioning is a type of learning derived from the association between stimuli and responses: reinforcement. A reinforcement is any consequence of a behavior that increases the probability that it will happen again: punishment. Opposite to reinforcement: consequence of a behavior that decreases the probability of it happening again. Wilhelm wundt (1832-1920), considered by many the father of psychology , laid the foundations for what would end up being behaviorism. He created the first scientific psychology laboratory and systematically used statistics and the experimental method to extract general rules about the functioning of mental processes and the nature of consciousness. Wundt"s methods relied heavily on introspection or self-observation, a technique in which experimental subjects provide data on their own experience.
