Behaviorism was introduced by John Watson in 1913. Behaviorism suggested that psychology should be studied in a scientific manner. It assumes that a learner is essentially passive in the learning process. Behavior is shaped through positive reinforcement or negative reinforcement, where thinking or emotions play little or no role. There is no major difference between animal and human learning. B.F. Skinner's study of behavior in rats was conducted under carefully controlled laboratory conditions. He said that the way rats learn to press a lever is much the same as the way humans learn behavior.
Skinner said that the best way to study humans was to observe our behavior. He was not interested in examining internal mental events, emotions or thinking processes. Skinner based his idea about operant behavior on Thorndike's law of effect, which says that responses that produce a satisfying effect are more likely to occur again in that situation. Operant conditioning is a form of psychological learning where an individual modifies behavior due to the association of the behavior with a stimulus.
Skinner said behavior that is reinforced is strengthened and behavior that is not reinforced is weakened. He called this the Law of Effect -- Reinforcement. He based his ideas on animal studies. He used a Skinner box, where he tested the ideas that it is possible to change behavior by the use of reinforcement. Three types of responses were identified -- neutral operants, reinforcement and punishment. Neural operants neither increase nor decrease the probability of a behavior being repeated. Reinforcement increase the probability of a behavior being repeated. Punishment decreases the likelihood of a behavior being repeated.
In the experiments conducted by Skinner, rats that were taught to press a lever repeated the behavior if they were positively rewarded with food. In a similar way, rewarding a child $10 for doing her homework should increase the chances that she will do her homework in the future. There is also negative reinforcement, where you avoid something unpleasant and this gives you a positive reward. The rats could avoid an electric current by taking another route to the food lever. Punishment is different from reinforcement since the idea is to weaken or eliminate a certain behavior. There is positive and negative punishment. Positive punishment means that you introduce an unfavorable event or outcome to weaken the response it follows. Negative punishment occurs when a favorable event or outcome is removed after a behavior occurs. Removing a negative reinforcer can also lead to positive behavior since it stops or removes an unpleasant experience.