From Stimulus to Response: A Journey into Behaviourism

Group details

Hemanth Kailashan – I am from India and i am a professional musician. I loved working on this project with Lily. Our project and idea was bit challenging but we worked it out and all thanks to Lily for the patience and hard work.

Fahima Akter Runa – I am from Bangladesh. I enjoyed a lot working with Lily. We enjoyed a lot to watch the theory with the process of automata.

Zheng Wei – I am from China. I got many excellent experiences in this class.

Zishan Zhu – I am from China. It is my first time learning Education.

Peter Letting – I am a Kenyan citizen. Working with lily has been the greatest experience considering my background in the teaching profession. The outcome is more than we imagined, way to go Lilly.

Group Photos

Working Automata.

Detailed description

From Stimulus to Response: A Journey into Behaviorism

In our community project, we use automata based on behaviorism to help students build better study habits through a system of rewards and punishments. The four key techniques we apply are positive reinforcement, positive punishment, negative reinforcement, and negative punishment, each aimed at encouraging or discouraging specific behaviors from improving students’ academic performance and study habits.

1. Positive Reinforcement: In our project, we use this method to promote on-time homework completion. For instance, when a child finishes his math homework by the deadline, he is rewarded with time to watch his favourite TV shows, motivating him to continue developing good habits and completing tasks on time.

2. Positive Punishment: Positive punishment involves introducing more task s to discourage undesirable behavior. For example, if the child delays his homework, he may be given extra assignments as a punishment. This could mean additional math problems for a student who delays his work, helping to reduce deferral and emphasize the importance of staying focused.

3. Negative Reinforcement: Negative reinforcement is about removing something unpleasant to encourage good behavior. For example, if the child finishes his homework on time, he might not have to do chores or can enjoy some quiet time. This encourages him to stay on track and avoid extra tasks.

4. Negative Punishment: Negative punishment involves removing a valued reward to discourage unwanted behavior. For example, if the child doesn’t complete his homework, he may lose privileges like no TV time at all. By taking away something he enjoys, it encourages him to avoid neglecting his homework in the future.

In summary, by using both positive and negative methods, teachers and parents can help students develop better study habits, stay disciplined, and improve their academic performance.

Reflection.

In this project, our group chose the theme of behaviorism. Behaviorism is a psychological theory that studies observable behaviors and how they are shaped by external stimuli. Proposed by John B. Watson, it emphasizes measurable actions over internal thoughts (Watson, 1913). Later, Pavlov’s classical conditioning and Skinner’s operant conditioning further developed the theory (Pavlov, 1927; Skinner, 1953).

Before speaking with Lily, we had a group discussion about this topic. First, each of us researched and organized theoretical knowledge about behaviorism, and then we pooled all the materials together for a discussion. We started by sharing our perspectives and explaining theories with examples from our own life experiences. Fahima and Hemanth shared how rainy days make them feel sleepy in their cultures. Similarly, Zishan and I provided comparable examples, explaining that napping after lunch is a habit instilled in us by schools and parents from a young age. They believe that if we don’t take a nap at noon, we won’t have the energy to work or study in the afternoon. Therefore, after lunch, we often feel drowsy and need a quick nap. This is similar to Skinner’s box experiment, where the rat learns that pressing a button yields food, forming a conditioned reflex through repeated actions (Skinner, 1953).

Due to a misunderstanding of the requirements, we initially thought the meeting with Lily would be a lecture-style session. So, after sharing and recording our ideas, we prepared a few questions for the meeting. However, when we entered the classroom, we learned from other groups and Dr. Tanya’s explanation that we not only needed to present theoretical points on behaviorism to Lily but also had to create a related model.

We immediately started brainstorming. Peter and Hemanth mentioned training a puppy, an idea inspired by Pavlov’s experiment (Pavlov, 1927). We envisioned creating a pathway where the puppy would follow a desired route with food rewards, gradually forming a conditioned reflex through repetition and remembering that taking the correct path would result in a reward. However, while explaining this model to Lily, we realized it was too complex and difficult to execute. Therefore, we revised it to a scenario involving a child watching TV and doing homework, demonstrating different behaviors under conditions of positive reinforcement, positive punishment, negative reinforcement, and negative punishment (Chance, 2013).

Although the process felt rushed, we were fortunate to have collected and organized a large amount of information beforehand, which was immensely helpful in creating the model on the spot. In the end, with Lily’s assistance, we successfully completed a very impressive project.