Understanding Learning through Behaviorism Essay

Understanding Learning through Behaviorism - Essay Example Watson and Thorndike. The last section focuses on the process of how an individual learns a new behavior while following the guidelines of behaviorism. The invention of behavioral psychology or behaviorism came into existence with the experiment conducted by Pavlov on his dog and in this experiment was regarded as classical conditioning. The title of the founding father of behaviorism can easily be awarded to John B. Watson who first came up with the concept of psychological behaviorism. Watson first described the term in an article that was published during the period of 1913 (Smith, 1986, p.61). He stated that those psychologists were not comfortable with the methods of introspection as well as analogy because both these methods were highly biased. He believed that the belief that an individual’s actions are a result of his/her unconscious mind is a superstitious way of studying behavior. After Watson, B.F. Skinner was one of those well-known behaviorists who further explored the field and distributed different ways of studying behaviorism into methodological and radical behaviorism. There are three essential components of behaviorism and these components should exist in order to help individuals and animals learn new behavior. These components include the stimulus (Ogden, 2011). The term stimulus refers to any external object or element in an environment which can cause an individual to act in a certain manner. The second component is the response which basically the actions that humans or animals carry out as a result of being in contact with a particular stimulus. The third components is reinforcement which is the consequence that an individual may experience and this consequence is provided by the reinforce to help strengthen a behavior. One of the most renowned experiments that were conducted in the field of behaviorism based learning was conducted by Ivan Pavlov and his experiment is well recognized as

Organizations and Management Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Organizations and Management - Case Study Example Some employees avoid interacting with members of other cultures/ethnicities and/or view them as "undesirable" staff. This case vividly portrays that interpersonal communication employed by the CEO is ineffective and inefficient caused by different values and traditions of people, and poor interaction between all employees. For instance, the CEO and Western employees have different perception and understanding of the "family" concept of organizational culture but the CEO is unable to recognize these difficulties and problems experienced by the subordinates. The "western" are perceived as impolite and disruptive because of different communication n corms and traditions which have not been communicated and explained to Westerns people by the CEO (Wood, 2003). 2. The case study vividly portrays the important role of CEO and his vision in organizational culture. Communication should be seen as a process by which knowledge that resides in one or more people comes to be represented in one or more others. Certainly the transfer of knowledge is not the only thing that happens in communication, and for certain purposes it may not be the most useful way of thinking about the process. Below we refer briefly to some other dimensions of communication that may be important for cooperative work. Underlying the knowledge transfer view of communication is the assumption that any communicative act rests on a base of mutual knowledge (West and Turner 2006). The example of Mainland Enterprises reveals a set of mechanisms derives from the fact that individuals can often be assigned to social categories, and such category membership often predicts individual knowledge. Of course, category membership is not a perfect predictor of knowledge. Conversation (and similar interactive forms) permits communicators to formulate messages that are tightly linked to the immediate knowledge and perspectives of the individual participants, because it affords the participants moment-to-moment information on each others' understanding. Such information permits the formulation of messages that are extremely efficient because they are based on a reasonably precise assessment of the hearer's current knowledge and understanding. The distinction between self and other is rather a rudimentary one, but it can be shown that the Western employees differentiate between message recipients (Knapp and Vangelisti 2004). The problem of misperception and misunderstanding is caused by patriarchal and autocratic management style of the CEO. he does not permit freedom of choice trying to control decision-making and problem-solving within the company. These causes provide stronger support for the common ground hypothesis than the relatively narrow margin of difference between the friend and stranger conditions would lead one to conclude, because the experimental situation was one that would minimize the likelihood of finding such differences. This situation proves that in communicating with "friends" and "family", employees are likely to have direct and detailed knowledge of the information