Although behaviorists generally accept the important role of heredity in determining behavior, deriving from Skinner's three levels of selection: phylogeny, ontogeny, and culture,[3] they focus primarily on environmental events.
It was derived from earlier research in the late nineteenth century, such as when Edward Thorndike pioneered the law of effect, a procedure that involved the use of consequences to strengthen or weaken behavior.
[7][8] In addition, while behaviorism and cognitive schools of psychological thought do not agree theoretically, they have complemented each other in the cognitive-behavioral therapies, which have demonstrated utility in treating certain pathologies, including simple phobias, PTSD, and mood disorders.
Through stimulus control and subsequent discrimination training, whenever Skinner turned off the green light, the pigeons came to notice that the food reinforcer is discontinued following each peck and responded without aggression.
[citation needed] As experimental behavioural psychology is related to behavioral neuroscience, we can date the first researches in the area were done in the beginning of 19th century.
[17] Later, this essentially philosophical position gained strength from the success of Skinner's early experimental work with rats and pigeons, summarized in his books The Behavior of Organisms and Schedules of Reinforcement.
[42] Noam Chomsky, an American linguistic professor, has criticized and questioned Skinner's theories about the possible suggestion of parental tutoring in language development.
[52] The idea of classical conditioning helped behaviorist John Watson discover the key mechanism behind how humans acquire the behaviors that they do, which was to find a natural reflex that produces the response being considered.
In logical positivism (as held, e.g., by Rudolf Carnap[10] and Carl Hempel),[10] the meaning of psychological statements are their verification conditions, which consist of performed overt behavior.
Daniel Dennett likewise acknowledges himself to be a type of behaviorist,[60] though he offers extensive criticism of radical behaviorism and refutes Skinner's rejection of the value of intentional idioms and the possibility of free will.
[66] According to Moore,[67] the perseverance in a molecular examination of behavior may be sign of a desire for an in-depth understanding, maybe to identify any underlying mechanism or components that contribute to comples actions.
Molar behaviorists, such as Howard Rachlin, Richard Herrnstein, and William Baum, argue that behavior cannot be understood by focusing on events in the moment.
Additionally, researchers found that recent progress in sensor and communication technology, coupled with data analysis and computational modeling, holds significant potential in revolutionizing interventions aimed at changing health behavior.
Simultaneous advancements in sensor and communication technology, alongside the field of data science, have now made it possible to comprehensively measure behaviors occurring in real-life settings.
[80][81] This shift was due to radical behaviorism being highly criticized for not examining mental processes, and this led to the development of the cognitive therapy movement.
In the mid-20th century, three main influences arose that would inspire and shape cognitive psychology as a formal school of thought: In more recent years, several scholars have expressed reservations about the pragmatic tendencies of behaviorism.
In the early years of cognitive psychology, behaviorist critics held that the empiricism it pursued was incompatible with the concept of internal mental states.
Skinner primarily emphasized reinforcement as the sole determinant for selecting responses, overlooking these critical processes involved in creating new behaviors.
A similar formal argument was presented by Ying Zhang and John Staddon (1991, in press) concerning operant conditioning: the combination of contiguity and competition among action tendencies suffices as an assignment-of-credit mechanism capable of detecting genuine instrumental contingency between a response and its reinforcer.
ABA has also been particularly well-established in the area of developmental disabilities since the 1960s, but it was not until the late 1980s that individuals diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders were beginning to grow so rapidly and groundbreaking research was being published that parent advocacy groups started demanding for services throughout the 1990s, which encouraged the formation of the Behavior Analyst Certification Board, a credentialing program that certifies professionally trained behavior analysts on the national level to deliver such services.
Early behavioral interventions (EBIs) based on ABA are empirically validated for teaching children with autism and have been proven as such for over the past five decades.
Since the late 1990s and throughout the twenty-first century, early ABA interventions have also been identified as the treatment of choice by the US Surgeon General, American Academy of Pediatrics, and US National Research Council.
Discrete trial training—also called early intensive behavioral intervention—is the traditional EBI technique implemented for thirty to forty hours per week that instructs a child to sit in a chair, imitate fine and gross motor behaviors, as well as learn eye contact and speech, which are taught through shaping, modeling, and prompting, with such prompting being phased out as the child begins mastering each skill.
Current research is showing that there is a wide array of learning styles and that is the children with receptive language delays who initially require discrete trials to acquire speech.
[101][102][103][104][105][106] Another evidence-based counseling technique derived from RFT is the functional analytic psychotherapy known as behavioral activation that relies on the ACL model—awareness, courage, and love—to reinforce more positive moods for those struggling with depression.
Incentive-based contingency management (CM) is the standard of care for adults with substance-use disorders; it has also been shown to be highly effective for other addictions (i.e., obesity and gambling).
Another evidence-based CM intervention for substance abuse is community reinforcement approach and family training that uses FBAs and counterconditioning techniques—such as behavioral skills training and relapse prevention—to model and reinforce healthier lifestyle choices which promote self-management of abstinence from drugs, alcohol, or cigarette smoking during high-risk exposure when engaging with family members, friends, and co-workers.
Various forms of CBT have been used to treat physically experienced symptoms that disrupt individuals' livelihood, which often stem from complex mental health disorders.
[107] A popularly noted counseling intervention known as dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) includes the use of a chain analysis, as well as cognitive restructuring, emotional regulation, distress tolerance, counterconditioning (mindfulness), and contingency management (positive reinforcement).
Some large randomized control trials have indicated that cognitive-based BA is as beneficial as antidepressant medications but more efficacious than traditional cognitive therapy.