Synonyms
Behavioral psychology; Cognitive behaviorism
Definition
Behaviorism is a psychological theory (and branch of psychology), focusing on observable behavior rather than mental phenomena, that attempts to explain behavior by learning principles such as classical and operant conditioning. In classical conditioning, an unconditioned stimulus already eliciting a response is paired with a neutral stimulus. With repeated pairing, the neutral (conditioned) stimulus begins to elicit the same response as the unconditioned stimulus. Operant conditioning focuses on environmental consequences that increase (positive reinforcement) or decrease (negative reinforcement) the frequency of behavior. Early behaviorists focused exclusively on observable behavior, while more recent cognitive behaviorists have applied learning principles to patterns of thought. As behaviorism historically attempted to account for behavior solely in terms of environmental factors, neuropsychology has had limited impact...
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Stringer, A.Y. (2018). Behaviorism. In: Kreutzer, J.S., DeLuca, J., Caplan, B. (eds) Encyclopedia of Clinical Neuropsychology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57111-9_663
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57111-9_663
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