Pavlov was one of the first behavioural psychologists and he developed the idea of classical conditioning through his study on dogs. He found that dogs had the ability to associate an involuntary reflex to a new stimulus, with the reflex being salivating and the stimulus being a bell. Through repeated exposure to the bell being rung before given food, the salivary response to food became conditioned to the bell ringing. He also found that this conditioned response could gradually be eliminated through a process he called extinction. Extinction refers to when the conditioned response becomes dissociated from the conditioned stimulus, for example the dog stops receiving food after he hears the bell. The dog gradually learns to stop associating the bell with food and thus stops salivating at the sound of it. This can be linked to Skinner’s negative reinforcement.
Skinner was another behavioural psychologist who further explored Pavlov’s idea of classical conditioning and developed the theory of operant conditioning. He thought that Pavlov’s classical conditioning was too simple of an explanation for complex behaviours. His theory of operant conditioning involves learning through pairing behaviour and the consequences to said behaviour, while classical conditioning pairs two stimuli to learn a behaviour. There are three types of operant conditioning: positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement and positive punishment. Positive reinforcement involves a rewarding consequence to increase the likelihood of a behavior being repeated while, negative reinforcement consists of avoiding an unpleasant experience. Positive punishment is when an individual receives a negative consequence for a behavior, causing the individual to avoid repeating the behaviour in the future.
Skinner’s theory was developed through a study done on rats and pigeons and Pavlov’s study was done on dogs and their theories were then generalised to humans. Behaviourists argue that there is nothing wrong with doing so due to learning in animals and humans being very similar and thus generalisations are interchangeable. They argue it makes studies more reliable and increases their validity, due to the fact there is more control in animal experiments, with there being less individual differences and demand characteristics. However, the use of animals in research is said to be unethical due to their being less concern about protection from harm for animals than humans. Furthermore, it is also argued that animal studies cannot be generalised to humans; Skinner’s study may provide an understanding of rat behaviour but little about human behaviour.
On the other hand, behaviourists' use of the scientific method has allowed psychology to be recognised as a scientific discipline and encourages research that is focused more on objective dimensions of behaviour. This has led to an increasingly valid and reliable understanding of human behavior and with its status as a scientific discipline, it has led to more funding and research opportunities to further advance the psychology discipline.
Furthermore it has made important contributions to modern understanding of mental illnesses e.g. phobias which are thought to be the result of earlier unpleasant experiences. Consequently, this understanding has helped psychologists develop therapies such as systematic desensitisation, which attempts to recondition a patient's fear response. In addition, some addictions such as gambling can be understood by operant conditioning, as the rewards of gambling act as a positive reinforcement. This shows behaviourist approach has many real world applications in the understanding and treatment of atypical behaviour.
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