Classic Behavioristic Principles of Psychology Developed...

According to Gewirtz and Pelà ¡ez-Nogueras (1992), â€Å"B. F. Skinner contributed a great deal to advancing an understanding of basic psychological processes and to the applications of science-based interventions to problems of individual and social importance.† He contributed to â€Å"human and nonhuman behavior, including human behavioral development, and to various segments of the life span, including human infancy† (p. 1411). One of Skinners greatest scientific discoveries was â€Å"single reinforcement† which became sufficient for â€Å"operant conditioning, the role of extinction in the discovery of intermittent schedules, the development of the method of shaping by successive approximation, and Skinners break with and rejection of stimulus-response†¦show more content†¦The introduction has demonstrated the origins and influences of both reinforcement and behavioral therapy Skinner In this case, we first discuss about the modern-day applications of reinforcement learning in education. Second, we will discuss about the modern-day applications of reinforcement learning in behavior therapy. Lastly, an overall conclusion will be provided to discuss about how Skinners theory of human behavior and how it influenced and evolved reinforcement learning in both education and behavior therapy today. Modern-day applications of Reinforcement learning in Education Originally, reinforcement learning was motivated by â€Å"animal learning of sequential behavior, but has been developed and extended in the field of machine learning as an approach to Markov decision processes† (Ishii and Yoshida, 2006, p. 326). According to Andersen and Sandaker (2010), â€Å"A reinforcer is a stimulus which affects the probability of the kind of behaviour that produces it.? There can be both positive reinforcers and negative reinforcers. One where â€Å"behaviour that produces stimuli that reinforce consequences will increase.† The other is where â€Å"behaviour that produces these stimuli decreases or behaviour that removes them or postpones them increases.† Therefore, â€Å"many reinforcing stimuli are unconditional and function as reinforcers without prior learning. man is aShow MoreRelatedBehaviorism and Classical Conditioning Essay3350 Words   |  14 Pagesmentalistic and overly conscious theories. In 1913, John B. Watson gave severa l lectures describing a new, exclusively mentalistic concept of the science of psychological study. Watson abandoned any possibility of introspection, choosing to claim that psychology can only be the study of observable human behavior and anything that is not observable does not exist. To many psychologists of his time, Watsons new theories were not only radical, but ridiculous, but to the younger American psychologists, fatigued