Behaviorist theories share a number of common underlying assumptions Essay Example

and kicking-can ultimately tell us that learning has occurred.Thirdly, learning is most likely to take place when stimuli and responses occur close together in time. For stimulus-response relationships to develop, certain events must occur in conjunction with other events. When two events occur at a more or less the same time, we say that there is contiguity between tem.

These two examples illustrate contiguity:One of your instructors scowls at you as she hands back the exam she ha just corrected. You discover that you have gotten a D- on the exam, and you get an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of your stomach. The next time your instructor scowls at you, that same uncomfortable feeling returns.Another instructor smiles and calls on you every time you raise your hand. Although you are fairly quiet in your other classes, you find yourself raising your hand and speaking up more and more frequently in this one.In the first situation, the instructor's scowl and the D- on your exam are presented more or less simultaneously; here we see contiguity between two stimuli.

IN the second situation, your response of raising your hand is followed immediately by the instructor's smile and his calling on you; in this case, we see contiguity between a response and two stimuli (although smiling and calling on you are responses that the instructor makes, the are stimuli for you). IN both situations, your behavior has changed: You've learned to respond with an unpleasant feeling in your stomach every time a particular instructor scowls, and you've learned to raise your hand and speak up more frequently in another instructor's class.