Annotated Bibliography and Outline on Behaviorism

This annotated bibliography and outline covers the evolution of behaviorism, development of behaviorism, and the studies of researchers. It also includes a conclusion summarizing the three main themes.

Running head: ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY 1
Annotated Bibliography and Outline
Your Name
Grand Canyon University

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY 2
Ledoux, S. F. (2012). Behaviorism at 100. American Scientist, 100(1), 60-65.
The philosophy of behaviorism deals with the different disciplines related to behavior of
organisms. There have been disciplinary developments in the field of behaviorism in the
past one hundred years which has led to the generation of a more clear and specific
version of behaviorism that informs about a basic and separate natural science related to
behavior. This journal related to behavior aims to study how the study of behavior went
through an evolution to take the form of a discipline, which is not dependent on
psychology. The study was conducted on a set of different people possessing different set
of personalities who acted as samples for the research. Their personalities acted as
primary sources of information that helped the researchers observe and conclude the
multiple traits of behavior possessed by different sets of people all over the world.
Clark, R. E. (2004). The classical origins of Pavlov’s conditioning. Integrative
Physiological & behavioral science, 39(4), 279-294.
The aim of this article is to present a short description of the elaborated scientific
discovery of classical conditioning by Ivan Pavlov in the United States of America and
Russia. The study explains and analyzes how the concept of classical conditioning was
included in the research as a scientific methodology in the United States of America. The
study of classical conditioning was initially conducted by Ivan Pavlov. The theory of
classical conditioning has been studied at a large scale in all over the world and has been
modified over the years as a result of the studies conducted.

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Green, C. D. (2009). Darwinian theory, functionalism, and the first American
psychological revolution. American Psychologist, 64(2), 75.
Functionalism was a partial attempt of making psychology appealing within the context
of America and to smoothen the application of psychology to the territories outside of the
scientific laboratories. The applications of psychology that saw an emergence from the
atmosphere of functionalist theory included psychology of children and development,
clinical; psychology, psychological testing and psychology of the industry. The study to
make psychology appealing to the general public was successful in terms of making the
terms easy to understand and the concepts easily accessible to them. However, there were
certain limitations to this study because it did not clarify the methods of simplification of
the theories of the psychological concepts to the people outside the diasporas of the
scientific laboratories.
Moore, J. (2011). Behaviorism. The Psychological Record, 61(3), 449-464.
The development of accounting of behavior is considered as one of the most important in
the contemporary research and theory of accounting. The focus of the theory is more on
the behavior of accountants and users of the information of accounting, than on the
different accounting aspects such as the determinants of law or associated calculations.
The behavioral research in the process of accounting is often mistaken as the paradigm of
behavior known as behaviorism that operates in scientific research and humanities and
which is implanted in psychology and philosophy. This paper handles the problem of
paradigm of research in behavioral accounting. The prime focus of this paper is on the
question of the similarity in nomenclature of the paradigm of behavior, which is applied
in scientific studies is called “behavioral accounting.” The considerations and data that

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are presented in this paper are theoretical in nature. The author of the paper focusses on
the study of literature, which is based on the papers of history and contemporary times.
The considerations are associative in nature. They combine fields such as philosophy,
psychology, behaviorism, accounting and finance.
Digdon, N., Powell, R. A., & Harris, B. (2014). Little Albert’s alleged
neurological impairment: Watson, Rayner, and historical revision. History of
psychology, 17(4), 312.
Some of the researchers of psychology suggested that “Little Albert,” the infant who was
used by two researchers Watson and Rayner in their study that they conducted about
conditioned fear in the year 1920; was not healthy as he was described. He was
neurologically impaired and was a special child almost from his birth. Some papers also
talked about the ethical breaches committed by Watson and his accomplices in regards of
conducting this research. However, this paper examines the circumstantial evidences in
favor of the breach caused by the researchers and comes to the conclusion that Albert the
infant was a normal child. This paper goes on to nullify the claims by the other
researchers that the child was neurologically impaired. The historical contexts of the
study of Albert and the modification and reconstruction of the study since 1920 has been
taken into consideration. The paper also elaborates the evidentiary issues related to the
study focusing on the analysis of the footages by the researchers of that era. The paper
also examines the context within which Watson and Rayner conducted their study on
Albert. In conclusion, the paper states the reasons the disputes related to historical events
are significant and the point stated by story of neurologically impaired Albert about the
contemporary psychological discipline.

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Origins of Behaviorism Outline Paper
I. Introduction
i. Behaviorism is defined as a concept of psychology that highlights the
methods related to science and objectivity for investigation of the cases.
The approach of behaviorism is concerned with the responses to stimulus
that are observable in nature and states that every behavior is acquired
through the interaction with the environment. The concept of behaviorism
as a philosophy of science started with an article by John B. Watson in the
year 1913. The different varieties of the article inform about the different
disciplines related to behavior. This paper intends to identify and evaluate

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the evolution of the science of Behaviorism over the past 100 years and
the different researches by various researchers associated with it.
II. Development of behaviorism
a. Earlier schools of thought
Functionalism was the base within which the concept of behaviorism was
implanted and grew into the dominant psychological form that it is today
throughout the middle of the twentieth century. The American theory of
functionalist psychology is made of the effort to build scientific psychology on
the successes of the English theory of evolution. It was a response to the
blockage of the psychological research program of Wundt, which had been
implanted in the experimental psychology of the Germans.
b. Limitations of introspection and study of the consciousness
The method of introspection requires the participants of the research to describe
their experiences of the mental tasks that are performed by them. There are
limitations of this method. It has been observed that research participants who are
trained highly are not able to report on their experiences subjective in nature. It
was the researchers from structuralism who first realized the significance of the
process of unconsciousness. They stated that several aspects of significance occur
outside our consciousness and psychologists cannot have expectations from the
research participants of reporting all of their experiences accurately.
c. Beginnings of the study of behavior
i. Pavlov

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The Russian psychologist, Ivan Pavlov conducted an experiment on his
dogs to understand their psychology. He was recording his observation of
his dogs as they would salivate in response to being fed. He defined this in
behavioristic terms as unconditioned response. His studies came to be
known as theories of classical conditioning. It includes the association of
an absolute stimulus that instigates a particular response with a
conditioned stimulus so that the same response is instigated by the
conditioned stimulus.
ii. Watson
Classical conditioning theory includes the learning of a new behavior
through the process of association. John Watson suggested that the
classical conditioning process was capable of explaining every aspect of
human psychology. He conducted the much controversial Little Albert
experiment on an infant of 9 months of age with the same name to observe
the effect of the theory of classical conditioning on humans.
d. Why did behaviorism emerge?
Behaviorism emerged due to three reasons mainly. Firstly, the researchers
believed that psychology should be able to explain behavior referenced on
association and materialism. Secondly, behavior cannot be caused by immaterial
thoughts. It is the psychological changes which cause changes in the thoughts and
physiology. Thirdly, behavior is reflective in nature and cused by measurable
events.
e. What distinguishes behaviorism from other schools of thought?

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Behaviorism proposes that environmental causes are more responsible for
behavior than internal forces. The concept of behaviorism focusses on observable
behavior. Whereas, the other schools of thoughts such as structuralism and
functionalism focus on the idea of breaking down of mental processes into the
simplest components.
III. Researcher #1
a. What did #1 study?
b. Why was it important?
c. How did it shape the emerging school of behaviorism?
d. What lasting effect did this person/research have on psychology?
This study gives an in depth explanation of how and why were the nomenclatures that
were used for the identification of classical conditioning theory were modified over the
years. The author of this article has taken up the responsibility of tracing the evolution of
the terminology that was associated with the form of conditioning by Pavlov, from the
introduction of the theory in the United States of America as “the Pavlov salivary reflex
method” to the form at present known as classical conditioning. The research concludes
with the introduction and development of a theory to identify, evaluate and analyze the
reason and time period when the adoption of the term classical conditioning took place.
IV. Researcher #2
a. What did #2 study?
b. Why was it important?
c. How did it shape the emerging school of behaviorism?

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d. What lasting effect did this person/research have on psychology?
The applications of psychology that saw an emergence from the atmosphere of
functionalist theory included psychology of children and development, clinical;
psychology, psychological testing and psychology of the industry. The study to make
psychology appealing to the general public was successful in terms of making the terms
easy to understand and the concepts easily accessible to them. However, there were
certain limitations to this study because it did not clarify the methods of simplification of
the theories of the psychological concepts to the people outside the diasporas of the
scientific laboratories.
V. Researcher #3
a. What did #3 study?
b. Why was it important?
c. How did it shape the emerging school of behaviorism?
d. What lasting effect did this person/research have on psychology?
The initial study proved that behavior was not just a philosophy but was indeed an
element of science that required and deserved to be studied in great detail. This could be
concluded because the data was measurable unlike philosophical data, which can never
be measured or quantified. This study gave a new dimension in the research of behavioral
sciences. The study nullified the traditional idea of the behavioral laws discovered as a
result of experiments were irrelevant in case of human beings. Instead, it was found out
that the natural laws of governing of behavior were relevant to humans as well as
animals.

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VI. Conclusion
a. Provide a statement of conclusion. A statement of the conclusions that can be
drawn when the articles are taken together as a single entity. What is the overall
message of the group of articles? By tying all articles’ material together, support
the assertion from the thesis.
b. Summarize the three main themes.
The ambition of this paper was to analyze the factors of behaviorism. This
paper aimed at the observation and evaluation of different approaches to
determine the process of behaviorism.
The researchers aimed at studying the different approaches to study the
mental processes responsible for the behavior of humans and animals. These
processes included structuralism, functionalism and behaviorism. Furthermore,
this project aimed at explaining the controversial experiments and analyze them to
find out the reason and truth behind the controversies.
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References
Clark, R. E. (2004). The classical origins of Pavlov’s conditioning. Integrative
Physiological & behavioral science, 39(4), 279-294.
Digdon, N., Powell, R. A., & Harris, B. (2014). Little Albert’s alleged neurological
impairment: Watson, Rayner, and historical revision. History of
psychology, 17(4), 312.
Green, C. D. (2009). Darwinian theory, functionalism, and the first American
psychological revolution. American Psychologist, 64(2), 75.
Ledoux, S. F. (2012). Behaviorism at 100. American Scientist, 100(1), 60-65.
Moore, J. (2011). Behaviorism. The Psychological Record, 61(3), 449-464.