Behaviorism

2 Pages 579 Words

Behaviorism, The Problems with Reward

The learning perspective claims that many behaviors generally looked upon as puzzling, or just plain “natural” may be the consequence of patterns of reinforcement-and that these patterns can be manipulated to alter behaviors. (Tavris and Wade, p 214) I believe this has been proven, with studies like little Albert, and in Pavlov's study of the dogs. Both of these studies show that behaviors can be learned, but the question is; does behaviorism make a positive or a negative contribution to explaining human behavior? My opinion? Negative. I think it simplifies us (humans) to a point were all that is supposed to matter is what we get for what we do. A statement I read written by Alfie Kohn explains this well:
“Gradually it began to dawn on me that our society is caught in a whopping paradox. We complain loudly about such things as the sagging productivity of our workplaces, the crisis of our schools, and the warped values of our children. But the very strategy we use to solve those problems-dangling rewards like incentive plans and grades and candy bars in front of people-is partly responsible for the fix we are in. we are a society of loyal Skinnerian's, unable to think our way out of the box we have reinforced ourselves into.” (Kohn, preface-xii)
What I think he is trying to say is that raising our children in this way causes the behaviorists to be correct, because we have taught them to “do” only if they “receive”. I think this approach has caused us to forget about the intrinsic rewards, such as the good feeling we get when we help someone, not because we have to-but just to be nice.
I do think conditioning can be quite helpful in some situations, such as training your dog, or even potty training a child. Behaviorists can also help many people using behavior modification such as training brain damaged patients to control inappropriate behavior, and help ordinary people e...