Behaviorism Timeline

Behaviorism Timeline

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Ivan Pavlov(1890s - 1900s)

John B. Watson(1878 - 1958)

Edward Thorndike (1874 - 1949)

B.F. Skinner(1904 - 1990)

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B.F. Skinner

• Developed operant conditioning and the concept of reinforcement
• Distinguished positive/negative reinforcement and punishment
• Discovered and mapped different schedules of reinforcement
• Created radical behaviorism. This argued that all behavior, including thoughts and feelings, follows the same laws
• Invented operant conditioning chamber (Skinner box)

Edward Thorndike

• Developed the Law of Effect which said behaviors following satisfying consequences are likely to be repeated while behaviors following negative consequences tend to decrease.
• Used puzzle boxes to study learning in cats
• Coined the term connectionism. This is the idea that learning creates connections between situations and responses

John B. Watson

• Officially founded behaviorism as a school of psychology in 1913
• Declared psychology should study only observable behavior (vs. consciousness or mental states)
• Conducted controversial "Little Albert" experiment demonstrating human emotions could be conditioned
• Famous quote: "Give me a dozen healthy infants... and I'll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select"

Ivan Pavlov

• Accidentally discovered classical conditioning while studying digestion in dogs
• Showed that neutral stimuli (like a tone) could trigger automatic responses through repeated pairing
• Demonstrated that learning could be studied objectively/scientifically in the laboratory
• Won the Nobel Prize in 1904 for his work on digestion (not classical conditioning)