An example of behaviorism in psychology. Behaviorism or measurement of behavior

Thing behaviorism is human behavior - it is all actions, words, actions, both acquired and innate.

Behavior from the point of view of behaviorists, it is any reaction in response to an external stimulus, through which the individual adapts to the external environment. This is any reaction, including vascular and secretion by the gland.

Behavioral perspective personality- this is the experience that a person acquires during his life - this is a set of studied patterns of behavior.

Supporters of behaviorism consider human behavior from the position of its formation under the influence of the external environment. They believe that human behavior is shaped by his environment (social environment), and not internal structures and processes taking place inside a person.

Watson's work and the basic ideas of behaviorism were strongly influenced by the discovery by the Russian physiologist I.P. Pavlov of classical conditioned reflexes. Pavlov described what in modern psychology is called classical or Pavlovian teaching. This is learning by association, in which the body makes connections between different stimuli. With this learning, a neutral stimulus (bell) that signals an unconditioned stimulus triggers a response that precedes the unconditioned stimulus (saliva). An unconditioned stimulus is a stimulus that automatically, naturally causes a response without special elaboration. Unconditioned reflexes are innate reflexes, for example, an unconditioned stimulus food causes an unconditioned reaction - salivation. When the unconditioned stimulus (food) is combined with an initially neutral stimulus (bell), the animal develops a conditioned reflex, in this case salivation in response to the bell.

Much influenced by Pavlov's work, Watson stated that observation of behavior can be described in the form of stimuli (S) and responses (R). Watson believed that the simple S - R scheme was quite suitable for describing the observed behavior. The task of psychology is to predict reactions by stimuli, to determine by reactions to what stimuli they have arisen. People, Watson said, are a product of their experience and their behavior can be completely controlled by controlling their environment.

The main task of behaviorism from Watson's point of view is to observe human behavior in order to:

• in each given case, with a given stimulus (situation), determine what the reaction will be;
• in the case of this reaction, determine what situation it caused.

The basic formula of behaviorism is R = f S.

Watson highlighted the following behavioral reactions:

1. external or visible acquired - motor skills - washing floors, playing football;
2. internal or latent acquired (muscle or external speech);
3. external (visible) hereditary (sneezing, blinking);
4. internal (latent) hereditary reactions (work of the endocrine glands, changes in blood circulation).

Watson believed that the number of innate reactions necessary for the adaptation of the body is not large, therefore human behavior is the result of learning. Skills and learning are a major problem in behaviorism.

Skill- an individually acquired or learned action. The process of acquiring skills and learning in behaviorism is treated mechanically.

Behaviorism is a movement in psychology that completely denied human consciousness as an independent phenomenon and identified it with the individual's behavioral reactions to various external stimuli. Simply put, all feelings and thoughts of a person were reduced to motor reflexes, which he developed with experience during his life. This theory at one time revolutionized psychology. We will talk about its main provisions, strengths and weaknesses in this article.

Definition

Behaviorism is a branch of psychology that studies the behavioral characteristics of humans and animals. This trend did not get its name by accident - the English word "behavior" is translated as "behavior". Behaviorism shaped American psychology for many decades. This revolutionary direction radically transformed all scientific ideas about the psyche. It was based on the idea that the subject of study of psychology is not consciousness, but behavior. Since at the beginning of the 20th century it was customary to equate these two concepts, a version arose that by eliminating consciousness, behaviorism also eliminates the psyche. The founder of this trend in psychology was the American John Watson.

The essence of behaviorism

Behaviorism is the science of the behavioral responses of humans and animals in response to environmental influences. The most important category of this trend is stimulus. It means any outside influence on a person. This includes the present, given situation, reinforcement and reaction, which can be the emotional or verbal response of the people around. In this case, subjective experiences are not denied, but are placed in a dependent position on these influences.

In the second half of the twentieth century, the postulates of behaviorism were partially refuted by another direction - cognitive psychology. However, many ideas of this trend are still widely used in certain areas of psychotherapy today.

The motives behind the emergence of behaviorism

Behaviorism is a progressive trend in psychology that arose against the background of criticism of the main method of studying the human psyche at the end of the 19th century - introspection. The reason for doubting the reliability of this theory was the lack of objective measurements and the fragmentation of the information received. Behaviorism called for the study of human behavior as an objective phenomenon of the psyche. The philosophical basis of this movement was John Locke's concept of the birth of an individual from scratch and the denial of the existence of a certain thinking substance by Hobbes Thomas.

In contrast to traditional theory, psychologist John Watson proposed a scheme to explain the behavior of all living things on earth: a stimulus evokes a reaction. These concepts could be measured, so this view quickly found a loyal following. Watson was of the opinion that with the right approach, it would be possible to completely predict behavior, shape and control the behavior of people of different professions by changing the surrounding reality. The mechanism of this influence was declared to be training by means of classical conditioning, which Academician Pavlov studied in detail on animals.

Pavlov's theory

Behaviorism in psychology was based on the research of our compatriot, Academician Ivan Petrovich Pavlov. He found that on the basis of unconditioned reflexes in animals, the corresponding reactive behavior develops. However, with the help of external influences, they can develop acquired, conditioned reflexes and thereby form new models of behavior.

In turn, Watson John began to conduct experiments on babies and identified in them three fundamental instinctive responses - fear, anger and love. The psychologist concluded that all other behavioral responses are superimposed on the primary ones. How complex forms of behavior are formed has not been revealed to scientists. Watson's experiments were highly controversial from a moral point of view, which caused a negative reaction from others.

Thorndike Research

Behaviorism has emerged from numerous studies. Representatives of various psychological trends have made a significant contribution to the development of this trend. For example, Edward Thorndike introduced into psychology the concept of operant behavior, which is formed on the basis of trial and error. This scientist called himself not a behaviorist, but a connectionist (from the English "connection" - connection). He conducted his experiments on white rats and pigeons.

Hobbes argued that the nature of intelligence is based on associative reactions. That appropriate mental development allows the animal to adapt to environmental conditions, Spencer noted. However, it was only with Thorndike's experiments that the understanding came that the essence of intelligence can be revealed without recourse to consciousness. The association assumed that the connection is not between certain ideas in the subject's head, and not between movements and ideas, but between situations and movements.

For the initial moment of movement, Thorndike, in contrast to Watson, took not an external impulse that makes the subject's body move, but a problem situation that forces the body to adapt to the conditions of the surrounding reality and build a new formula for behavioral response. According to the scientist, in contrast to the reflex, the connection between the concepts "situation - reaction" could be characterized by the following features:

• the starting point is a problem situation;
• in response, the body tries to resist it as a whole;
• he is actively looking for an appropriate line of behavior;
• and learns new techniques by the exercise method.

Behaviorism in psychology owes much of its emergence to Thorndike's theory. However, in his research, he used concepts that this trend subsequently completely excluded from the understanding of psychology. If Thorndike argued that the body's behavior is formed on the feeling of pleasure or discomfort and put forward the theory of the "law of readiness" as a way to change the impulses of response, then behaviorists forbade the researcher to turn to both the subject's internal sensations and his physiological factors.

Behavioral principles

The American researcher John Watson became the founder of the direction. He put forward several theses on which psychological behaviorism is based:

1. The subject of the study of psychology is the behavior and behavioral reactions of living beings, since it is these manifestations that can be investigated through observation.
2. Behavior determines all physiological and mental aspects of human existence.
3. The behavior of animals and humans must be considered as a set of motor responses to external stimuli - stimuli.
4. Knowing the nature of the stimulus, you can predict the subsequent reaction. Learning to correctly predict the actions of an individual is the main task of the direction of "behaviorism". Human behavior can be shaped and controlled.
5. All reactions of an individual are either acquired in nature (conditioned reflexes), or are inherited (unconditioned reflexes).
6. Human behavior is the result of learning, when successful reactions are automated by repeated repetition, fixed in memory and can subsequently be reproduced. Thus, the formation of skills occurs through the development of a conditioned reflex.
7. Speaking and thinking should also be considered skills.
8. Memory is the mechanism for retaining acquired skills.
9. The development of mental reactions occurs throughout life and depends on the surrounding reality - living conditions, social environment, and so on.
10. There is no periodization of age-related development. There are no general patterns in the formation of the child's psyche at different age stages.
11. Emotions should be understood as the body's reactions to positive and negative environmental stimuli.

Pros and cons of behaviorism

Each area of ​​scientific activity has its own strengths and weaknesses. The behaviorism direction also has its pros and cons. For its time it was a progressive direction, but now its postulates do not stand up to criticism. So, let's look at the merits and demerits of this theory:

1. The subject of behaviorism is the study of human behavioral reactions. For its time, this was a very progressive approach, because earlier psychologists studied only the consciousness of the individual in isolation from objective reality. However, expanding the understanding of the subject of psychology, behaviorists did it in an inadequate and one-sided way, completely ignoring human consciousness as a phenomenon.
2. Followers of behaviorism sharply raised the question of the objective study of the psychology of the individual. However, the behavior of man and other living beings was considered by them only in external manifestations. Unobservable mental and physiological processes were completely ignored by them.
3. The theory of behaviorism implied that human behavior can be controlled depending on the practical needs of the researcher, however, due to the mechanical approach to studying the problem, the behavior of the individual was reduced to a set of simple reactions. At the same time, the entire active active essence of a person was ignored.
4. Behaviorists made the method of laboratory experiment the basis of psychological research, introduced the practice of experiments on animals. However, at the same time, scientists did not see a particular qualitative difference between the behavior of a person, an animal or a bird.
5. When establishing the mechanism for developing skills, the most important components were discarded - motivation and mental mode of action as the basis for its implementation. The social factor was completely excluded by the behaviorists.

Representatives of behaviorism

John Watson was the leader of the behavioral direction. However, one researcher cannot create a whole movement alone. Several other prominent researchers advocated behaviorism. Representatives of this trend were outstanding experimenters. One of them, William Hunter, created in 1914 a scheme for studying behavioral reactions, which he called delayed. He showed the monkey a banana in one of the two boxes, then covered this sight from her with a screen, which he removed after a few seconds. After that, the monkey successfully found a banana, which proved that animals are initially capable of not only an immediate, but also a delayed response to an impulse.

Another scientist - Lashley Karl - went even further. With the help of experiments, he developed a skill in some animal, and then removed various parts of the brain for him in order to find out whether the developed reflex depended on them or not. The psychologist came to the conclusion that all parts of the brain are equal and can successfully replace each other.

Other currents of behaviorism

Yet the attempt to reduce consciousness to a set of standard behavioral responses was unsuccessful. Behaviorists needed to expand their understanding of psychology to include the concepts of motive and image reduction. In this regard, several new trends emerged in the 1960s. One of them - cognitive behaviorism - was founded by E. Tolman. It is based on the fact that mental processes during learning are not limited to the "stimulus-response" connection. The psychologist found an intermediate phase between these two events - cognitive presentation. Thus, he proposed his own scheme that explains the essence of human behavior: stimulus - cognitive activity (sign-gestalt) - reaction. He saw gestalt signs as consisting of "cognitive maps" (mental images of the studied area), possible expectations and other variables. Tolman proved his views by various experiments. He made animals look for food in the maze, and they found food in different ways, regardless of which way they were accustomed. Obviously, for them, the goal was more important than the mode of behavior. Therefore, Tolman called his belief system "targeted behaviorism."

There is a trend of "social behaviorism", which also makes its own adjustments to the standard "stimulus-response" scheme. Its supporters believe that when determining the stimuli that will properly affect human behavior, it is necessary to take into account the individual characteristics of the individual, his social experience.

Behaviorism and psychoanalysis

Behaviorism completely denied human consciousness. Psychoanalysis, in turn, was aimed at studying the deep features of the human psyche. The founder of the theory, Sigmund Freud, deduced two key concepts in psychology - "consciousness" and "unconscious" - and proved that many human actions cannot be explained by rational methods. Some behavioral reactions of a person are based on subtle intellectual work that takes place outside the sphere of consciousness. Remorse, feelings of guilt, and sharp self-criticism may turn out to be unconscious. Initially, Freud's theory was greeted coolly in the scientific world, but over time it conquered the whole world. Thanks to this movement, psychology again began to study a living person, to penetrate into the essence of his soul and behavior.

Over time, behaviorism has outlived its usefulness, as its ideas about the human psyche turned out to be too one-sided.

Usually, when they talk about the birth of psychology at the beginning of the 20th century, they most often mention such names as Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Alfred Adler.

Freud Sigmund

And this is quite true: after all, these people stood at the origins of psychology, created their own original schools and therapeutic methods based on psychoanalysis.

You can also ask almost any psychologist what direction in psychology it all started with, and most will almost certainly say that this is nothing more than Freud's psychoanalysis.

And the thing is that it was with psychoanalysis that practical psychology began, that is, a set of those specific methods designed to explain somewhat what consciousness is and why a person behaves in one way or another, namely, to help those people who perceived their inner state as a problem, in other words, experienced suffering or psychological discomfort.

To date, practical psychology has long gone beyond psychoanalysis and includes a huge number of methods and the work of a psychologist is much more often associated not with the work of a scientist, but with actions to provide psychological assistance to clients based on these various methods. Most of them, in one way or another, arose on the basis of the ideas of psychoanalysis, were founded by people who grew up within the framework of the psychoanalytic school, or, at least, who had a direct relationship to this method.

And this is not surprising, because almost any of today's areas of psychotherapy, one way or another, but operates with such terms as the ego and the unconscious, that is, it uses the ideas of Sigmund Freud. For this reason, we put psychoanalysis first when we talk about psychology.

However, if we talk about the origins of psychology, it is imperative to remember about another direction that was extremely popular in the 20-40s in America and was born practically simultaneously with psychoanalysis, which was largely based on ideas opposed to the ideas of Freud.

In fairness, it should also be mentioned that if we talk about psychology as a strict scientific discipline, then it is the direction that will be discussed below that can rightfully claim this role.

Behaviorism is the study of human behavior in its various aspects.

The doctrine about which the conversation will go is called behaviorism - the direction from which behavioral psychology, social psychology subsequently emerged, as well as some methods of providing psychological assistance that are used in our time.

The opposition we mentioned in one of the previous paragraphs is very important for explaining the emergence of behaviorism. The fact is that psychoanalysis and other ideas about the structure of human consciousness that arose on its basis were obviously speculative and from the point of view of the classical scientific approach, which implied the use of real experimental data and their interpretation based on comparison with each other, could be at the best case are attributed to the category of scientific assumptions or hypotheses for which, however, there was no scientific experimental data. Numerous observations of the reactions of patients of the same Freud and other psychoanalysts and psychiatrists were based on subjective data that the same patients broadcast to them, of course, it was not possible to verify their reliability, and any feedback that the patient gave to the psychologist for the same reason could be questioned ...

Ivan Pavlov (1849 - 1936) Vladimir Bekhterev (1857 - 1927)

In the light of this approach, many well-known scientists of that time, conducting research on conditioned reflexes of animals, their behavioral characteristics (Pavlov, Bekhterev, Thorndike, Sherrington and others), that is, what could be observed directly under experimental conditions, considered Freud's teaching to be at least unscientific ...

Of course, Sigmund Freud himself and his followers perfectly understood the essence of such claims, but they had their own, no less weighty arguments in favor of their theories, which we will talk about later when it comes to criticism of behaviorism.

Basic principles of Behaviorism.

As already mentioned, this trend arose partly on the basis of the idea of ​​opposition with psychoanalysis, and this opposition to a certain extent determined the attitude of the founder of behaviorism John Brodes Watson (1878 - 1958) to the so-called subjective method in psychology, when the results of self-observation were taken as experimental data. (introspection).

John Brodes Watson

Developing the principles of his new method, Watson assumed that all processes occurring in the human mind could be understood and described on the basis of purely physiological, but at the same time completely objective data, and the basic method that was supposed to be used was contained in a simple formula "Stimulus-response" or S => R and it was this very simple scheme that became the leading one in behaviorism for a very long time.

From the standpoint of the teachings of Watson, a person's personality was considered exclusively as a certain set of behavioral reactions to certain stimuli in a certain environment. Hence the main method for studying a living organism, based on observation and study of its response to various influences of the circumstances of this environment. A huge amount of data on the behavioral reactions of people to various stimuli were collected and subjected to mathematical processing, as a result of which regularities were derived on the basis of which conclusions were drawn about the psychological characteristics of the subjects and their differences.

Such work, which has been carried out by behaviorists for decades, has revealed a lot of useful patterns in human behavior.

As an example of using these studies, we can cite the work of the German psychologist Hans Jürgen Eysenck (1916 - 1997), who based on them created his own factorial theory of personality.

Eysenck's work.

Hans Eysenck

The beginning of the creation of this theory was the study and comparison of the behavioral reactions of rather large groups of military men, on the one hand, with neurotic symptoms, on the other, recognized as psychologically healthy. As a result, Eysenck identified 39 changing factors by which these two groups of subjects differed, and their subsequent analysis revealed four main differences - stability, neuroticism, extraversion and introversion.

Here it should be mentioned that in Eysenck's reading the terms introversion and extraversion must be understood from a slightly different point of view than in Jung's. So, quite expected for a behaviorist, Eysenck tied both terms to purely biological processes of arousal and inhibition. Eysenck associated neurotic manifestations with conditioned reflexes. The adaptive behavior of the individual, aimed at eliminating the stimulus carrying the danger of neurotic consequences and, as a result, reducing the anxiety factor, contributed to the development of the stability factor.

As a result of these studies, Eysenck identified 4 categories of characters, which were defined as a combination of two parameters - stable + introvert, neurotic + extrovert, stable + extrovert, neurotic + introvert.

Eysenck's theory is a rather striking example of the use of data obtained by the method of behaviorism.

What is the main problem with behaviorism?

The behavioral approach to the study of the psyche greatly contributed to the development of psychology as an objective scientific method, and also gave a powerful impetus to the development of new social disciplines such as anthropology, sociology, political science and others.

But from the very beginning of its appearance, Watson's doctrine had one, but a very significant drawback, it emphatically ignored the role of the individual himself in interacting with the environment, and even more so, the role of human mental reality, the existence and strong influence of which on behavioral factors could not be denied. Alas, but often within the framework of the theory of behaviorism of the human personality, the unenviable and undeserved role of an abstract black box was prepared, the contents of which were not taken into account.

Watson himself always emphasized his attitude to the human person, as to a blank sheet of paper, deprived of free will, on which one could write anything.

Here are his words fully demonstrating the position of behaviorism: “Give me a dozen healthy children, physically well-developed, and I guarantee that if I get the external conditions I have defined for their upbringing, then, choosing at random any of them, I will make them my way. the arbitrariness of any specialist: a doctor, a lawyer, an artist, a successful shopkeeper and even a beggar and a thief, regardless of his talents, his inclinations, desires, abilities, vocation, nationality. "

Edward Tolman

Naturally, this position initially laid a stumbling block that limited the possibilities of teaching. Over time, this led to the fact that in 1948 Tolman made a change - in the basic formula of stimulus-response, he added another variable I, which meant the actual mental phenomena in the consciousness of the individual. From now on, the formula of behavioral psychology looked like this S => I => R, where I meant mental processes of a person, which depended on the type of stimulus, environmental conditions, the physical state of the organism, heredity and accumulated experience. This variable explained, for example, the fact of unequal behavior of people exposed to the same stimulus.

This new doctrine has received the name of neobehaviorism and at the moment it is precisely this doctrine that is the main science that studies human behavior.

Principles of non-behaviorism.

Despite the fact that in recent decades, behaviorism has undergone very serious changes, its basic principles, declared by Watson, have remained largely the same.

These include the following.

1. the attitude to the human psyche, as a predominantly "white sheet" with some insignificant influence of congenital hereditary factors.

2. the basic idea of ​​the need to study only behavioral responses to a stimulus that are accessible to direct observation and analysis (although today no one denies the exceptional significance of variable I).

3. the belief that through the use of certain techniques it is possible to significantly change the behavioral reactions of the individual, and in this the followers of this trend really succeeded more than others.

Non-behaviorism today.

It was the use of such techniques for changing the behavioral reactions of people in the framework of practical psychology that allowed the ideas of behaviorism to gain widespread acceptance outside the United States, where it is known mainly thanks to such techniques and the numerous trainings created on their basis.

As a scientific direction, neobehaviorism did not gain popularity outside the United States, but if we talk specifically about the psychotherapeutic methods created on its basis, then it should be recognized that its ideas are very widespread in the world. So it is on the basis of this teaching that most of the therapeutic methods have been created dealing with human behavior and especially with the change in this behavior. Quite a lot of psychologists believe that the origins of problems (including psychological) of a person in society are associated precisely with errors in behavior, when the behavior of an individual is simply inadequate to the situation. In such cases, the first thought lying on the surface completely coincides with the principles of behaviorism - in order to save a person from problems, it is necessary to change the ways of his reactions to certain situations, that is, to teach him to behave adaptively or adequately to emerging situations. For this purpose, several therapeutic techniques have been developed, which practical psychologists use quite successfully in their work.

The main technique, which with good reason can be attributed to behaviorism, is behavioral psychotherapy, which focuses almost exclusively on human behavior and its correction.

This approach works perfectly in the case of various addictions, panic disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder syndromes, various phobias, sleep disorders, eating disorders and other problems associated with behavioral disorders. These are the states in which it is possible to isolate a specific and real symptom with which the psychologist will then have to work. However, at present, behavioral therapy in such a radically pure form is not used very often.

The reason is the same, the need to take into account the factor of the client's inner world, which naturally has a huge impact on behavior. A striking example of this influence is erroneous attitudes and beliefs, which are often the source of maladaptive behavior.

The types of therapy that are based on changing a person's behavior by influencing these attitudes include, for example, cognitive therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, rational emotional therapy, etc. These types of therapy combine both behavioral learning techniques and those used in more traditional psychotherapeutic methods, such as conversation, the purpose of which is to identify the client's dysfunctional beliefs influencing the behavior that is problematic, as well as clarification, as a result of which the client is convinced that his attitudes and beliefs are based on either irrational beliefs, or ideas and assumptions that are not based on a rational basis or are built on the basis of incorrect data.

Of course, the listed therapeutic methods are not in their pure form behaviorism, but it cannot be denied that the fact that behavioral therapy formed their basis.

Conclusion.

If we evaluate psychology as a science as a whole, then it should be recognized that behaviorism is the only direction that can fully claim to be actually scientific, in the sense that most scientists understand it.

However, in the case of psychology, this approach can hardly be called reasonable. The reason is that psychology and especially applied psychology deals with such an elusively subtle substance as human consciousness, which, on the one hand, is obviously not subject to scientific research due to its nature, and on the other hand, is such a complex manifestation of being that it is hardly possible to study it only from the point of view of its external manifestations (behavior) and from any reasonable points of view, this approach is very limited. So is there a way out of this situation?

At the present time, more and more scientists turn a blind eye to the use in psychology of such supposedly "unscientific" ideas as the ideas of psychoanalysis, and even the use of frankly meditative techniques is no longer surprising and outraged. Nevertheless, the need for scientific "rehabilitation" of practical psychology is always invisibly in the air. Perhaps the solution to the problem lies in the future possibility of some revision of the principles of the scientific approach, according to which the so-called subjective method on which most psychological ideas are essentially based is still synonymous with pseudoscience.

Nevertheless, the reality of today is that the presented problem does not at all interfere with the development of practical psychology, which, albeit not on strictly scientific grounds, is increasingly becoming a reality in our everyday life.

Behaviorism shaped twentieth-century American psychology. Its founder, John Watson (1878 - 1958) formulated the credo of behaviorism: "The subject of psychology is behavior." Hence the name - from English behavior- behavior (behaviorism can be translated as behavioral psychology). Behavior analysis should be strictly objective and limited to externally observable reactions. Everything that happens inside a person is impossible to study, i.e. a person acts as a "black box". Objectively, it is possible to study and register only reactions, external actions of a person and those stimuli, situations that cause these reactions. And the task of psychology is to determine the probable stimulus by the reaction, and to predict a certain reaction by the stimulus.

And the personality of a person, from the point of view of behaviorism, is nothing more than a set of behavioral reactions inherent in a given person. Stimulus-response formula S-> R was the leading one in behaviorism. The Thorndike effect law clarifies: the relationship between S and R is enhanced if there is reinforcement. Reinforcement can be positive (praise, material reward, etc.) or negative (pain, punishment, etc.). Human behavior most often stems from the expectation of positive reinforcement, but sometimes the predominant desire is primarily to avoid negative reinforcement.

Thus, from the standpoint of behaviorism, a personality is everything that an individual possesses and his capabilities in relation to reactions (skills, socially regulated instincts, socialized emotions + the ability of plasticity to form new skills + the ability to retain, retain skills) to adapt to the environment, those. personality is an organized and relatively stable system of skills.

A person in the concept of behaviorism is understood primarily as a reacting, acting, learning being, programmed for certain reactions, actions, behavior. By changing incentives and reinforcements, you can program a person for the required behavior.

In the depths of behaviorism itself, psychologist Tolman (1948) questioned the scheme S-> R as too simplistic and introduced an important variable between these members I- mental processes of a given individual, depending on his heredity, physiological state, past experience and the nature of the stimulus, S-> I-> R.

Later, one of Watson's followers, Skinner, developing the concept of behaviorism, proved that any behavior is determined by its consequences, formulated the principle of operant service - "the behavior of living organisms is completely determined by the consequences to which it leads. Depending on whether these consequences are pleasant, indifferent or unpleasant, the living organism will show a tendency to repeat the given behavioral act, not attach any importance to it, or avoid repeating it in the future. " Thus, it turns out that a person is completely dependent on his environment, and any freedom of action, which, as it seems to him, he can use, is pure illusion.

In the 70s, behaviorism presented its concepts in a new light - in the theory of social learning. According to Bandura (1965), the main reason that made us who we are has to do with our tendency to imitate the behavior of others, given how favorable the results of such imitation can be for us. Thus, a person is influenced not only by external conditions: he must also constantly foresee the consequences of his behavior through his self-assessment.

According to D. Rotter's theory of social learning, social behavior can be described using the following concepts:
1) behavioral potential - each person has a certain set of actions, behavioral reactions that have been formed during life;
2) a person's behavior is influenced by the subjective probability with which, in the person's opinion, a certain reinforcement will be after a certain behavior in a certain situation;
3) the nature of reinforcement, its value for a person affects a person's behavior (someone appreciates praise more, someone - money, or is more sensitive to punishment);
4) a person's behavior is influenced by his "locus" of control: whether he feels himself a "pawn" or believes that the achievement of his goals depends on his own efforts.

Behavioral potential, according to Rotter, includes 5 main blocks of behavioral responses:
1) behavioral responses aimed at achieving success;
2) behavioral reactions of adaptation, adaptation;
3) defensive behavioral reactions (these are reactions such as denial, suppression of desires, depreciation, etc.);
4) techniques of avoidance - leaving, escape, rest, etc .;
5) aggressive behavioral reactions - both real physical aggression and symbolic forms of aggression: a mockery directed against the interests of another person.

According to the concept of the American psychologist McGwire, the classification of human behavior and actions should be carried out depending on goals, needs, situations. A need is an experienced and realized state of a person's need for something. The goal shows what a person is striving for, what result he wants to get. The same goal can be set based on different needs (for example, three students set a goal to study at 5, but one - from the need for new knowledge, the other - from ambitious needs to make a career, the third - because of the material need: father promised him to buy a motorcycle in case of excellent studies).

Based on this approach, 16 types of behavior can be distinguished.
1. Perceptual behavior- the desire to cope with information overload due to categorization, as a result of which the diversity of information is classified, simplified and can lead to both a clearer understanding of what is being evaluated and the loss of meaningful information.
2. Defensive behavior- any real or imagined actions of psychological defense that allow you to maintain a positive opinion of a person about himself. Protective behavior allows a person to protect themselves from those problems that he cannot yet solve. But if time passes, and the person does not solve the problem, then this protective mechanism can be an obstacle to personal growth - the person hides his real problem, replacing it with new "pseudo-problems". Freud identified 7 defense mechanisms:
1) suppression of desires - the removal of desires from consciousness, since it "cannot" be satisfied; suppression is not final, it is often a source of bodily diseases of a psychogenic nature (headaches, arthritis, ulcers, asthma, heart disease, hypertension, etc.);
2) denial - withdrawal into fantasy, denial of any event as "untruth";
3) rationalization - the construction of acceptable moral, logical justifications, arguments for explaining and justifying unacceptable forms of behavior, desires;
4) inversion - the substitution of an action, a thought that meets a genuine desire, with a diametrically opposite behavior, thought (the child wants to get his mother's love for himself, but, not receiving this love, he begins to experience the opposite desire to annoy, anger the mother);
5) projection - ascribing to another person his own qualities, thoughts - "distancing the threat from himself";
6) isolation - the separation of the threatening part of the situation from the rest of the mental sphere, which can lead to a split personality, to an incomplete "I";
7) regression - a return to an earlier, primitive way of responding, stable regressions are manifested in the fact that a person justifies his actions from the perspective of a child's thinking, does not recognize logic.
The manifestation of defense mechanisms from time to time is inherent in every person, but the abundance of stable defense mechanisms, stable isolation from reality are most typical for neurotic individuals.
3. Inductive behavior- people's perception and assessment of themselves based on the interpretation of the meaning of their own actions.
4. Habitual behavior Satisfaction with positive reinforcement creates a greater likelihood of reproducing familiar behaviors in appropriate situations.
5. Utilitarian behavior- the desire of a person to solve a practical problem with the maximum achievement of success.
6. Role behavior in accordance with role requirements, circumstances that force a person to take some action.
7. Scenario behavior- a person is an executor of many rules of permissible "decent" behavior, corresponding to his status in a given culture and society.
8. Modeling behavior- options for the behavior of people in small and large groups (imitation, suggestion), but difficult to control both by the person himself and by other people.
9. Balancing behavior- when a person has simultaneously conflicting opinions, assessments and tries to "reconcile" them, reconcile them by changing their assessments, claims, memories.
10. Liberating behavior- a person seeks to "protect himself" from real or seeming "negative conditions of existence" (to avoid possible failures, abandonment of average attractive goals, compliance).
11. Attributive behavior- active elimination of contradictions between real behavior and the subjective system of opinions, elimination of dissonance between desires and real actions, bringing them to mutual correspondence.
12. Expressive behavior- in those areas where a person has achieved a high level of skill and satisfaction, while maintaining a consistently high self-esteem, the constant reproduction of which is the main regulator of everyday social behavior.
13. Autonomous behavior- when the feeling of freedom of choice (even the illusion of such a choice) creates a person's readiness to overcome any barriers to achieving the goal (the idea of ​​oneself as an active “doer”, and not an executor of someone’s orders, someone’s will).
14. Assertive behavior- the experience of their actions as the fulfillment of their plans with the maximum use of internal conditions.
15. Exploratory behavior- striving for the novelty of the physical and social environment, the readiness to "endure" information uncertainty, to which the previously mastered methods of processing it are applicable.
16. Empathic behavior- accounting, a large coverage of sensory information underlying the interpersonal interaction of people, the ability to understand the emotional and mental state of another person.
Psychoanalytic theories based on Freudianism describe and predict human behavior belonging to the categories 2,6,10. Behavioral theories describe categories of behavior 2,4,10,12. Cognitive theories - categories 1,3,9,11. Humanistic theories predict behavior 7,13,14. All theories are correct to the extent of their applicability.