I-P: Behavioral Psych 2

[Andy]

Please post the strengths and weaknesses of Behavioral Theory in
Psychology.

Also explain Ivan Pavlov's Drooling Dogs Experiment.

[Laila Malki]

Weaknesses of Behavioral Theory:
Theory was more concerned with effects of stimuli.
He considered emotion to be just another example of classical conditioning
He rejected the notion of individual differences

Strengths of Behavioral Theory:
He was a chief proponent of "nurture" and believed that all human differences were the result of learning
He believed that practice strengthens learning


Ivan Pavlov's Drooling Dog Experiment:
Pavlov and his assistants would introduce a variety of edible and non-edible items and measure the saliva production that the items produced. Salivation occurs automatically in response to a specific stimulus and is not under conscious control. Pavlov noted that the dogs would often begin salivating in the absence of food and smell. He  realized that this salivary response was not due to an automatic, physiological process.Pavlov suggested that the salivation was a learned response. The dogs were responding to the sight of the research assistants' white lab coats, which the animals had come to associate with the presentation of food.

[Kourtney]

The weaknesses in behavioral Theory in psychology was that it
focused more on the effects of stimuli and did not consider individual
differences. Some
of the strengths was that when humans practice learning it was
believed to strengthen it.

Ivan Pavlov's Drooling dog Experiment was when Ivan and his assistants
brought in different types of food to the dogs activating the
salivating response. When they kept repeating
the same thing the dogs did the same thing. He learned that there was
a learned salivation response.

[Nicole Ni]

The strengths of behavioral theory in psychology is Skinner developed
some key ideas that are widely used today, and he changed the way
people look at things that are observable. The weaknesses of
behavioral theory in psychology is enforced that people should stick
to experimental observations but in Beyond Freedom and Dignity Skinner
used assumptions, not just what he observed, and some have thought
that Skinner’s theories treat people as if they were the animals that
he began studying. Ivan Pavlov's drooling dogs experiment was in the
1890s, Pavlov was investigating the gastric function of dogs, and
later children, by externalizing a salivary gland so he could collect,
measure, and analyze the saliva and what response it had to food under
different conditions. He noticed that the dogs tended to salivate
before food was actually delivered to their mouths, and set out to
investigate this "psychic secretion", as he called it.