Behaviorism

Early work in the field of behavior was conducted by the Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov (1849–1936). Although his research focused on the physiology of digestion, he turned to study conditioned reflexes upon conducting a now classic series of experiments with dogs (2).

However, properly speaking methodological behaviorism emerged at the turn of the twentieth century as a reaction against introspective psychology. Introspective psychologists of the time maintained that the study of consciousness was the primary object of psychology, relying heavily on first-person reports of sensations and immediate experiences. (3)

As a doctrine, behaviorism upholds the following three sets of claims:

• Psychology is the science of behavior. Psychology is not the science of the inner mind – as something distinct from behavior.

• Behavior can be described and explained without making ultimate reference to mental events or to internal psychological processes. The sources of behavior are external (in the environment), not internal (in the mind, in the head).

• If, in the course of theory development in psychology, mental terms or concepts are deployed in describing or explaining behavior, then either (a) these terms or concepts should be eliminated and replaced by behavioral terms or (b) they can and should be translated or paraphrased into behavioral concepts. (4)

In chronological order:

• Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936)

• Edward L. Thorndike (1874-1949)

• John B. Watson (1878-1958)

• B. F. Skinner (1904-1990)

Instruction grounded in behaviorism is great in learning contexts where an objectivist view can be adopted, i.e. where there is a consensus on what constitutes the “right” or “true” answer to a question or problem, in a rather unambiguous way (5). This makes behaviorism approaches especially indicated for technology-mediated learning (6).

However, behaviorism’s indifference towards internal psychological processes, coupled with its focus on observable behavior (4) might make it difficult to evaluate or even define learning outcomes. Is learning the actual acquisition of knowledge and/or skills, or just the ability to provide the expected responses to a structured set of questions, like a typical exam? Furthermore, behaviorist approaches to learning can endorse conformity and discourage critical thinking (7).

Companies and institutions like universities or consulting firms tend to have big offices with many staff members who rely on their phone and computer to carry on their duties. Although such companies usually have some kind of IT helpdesk to provide support, the latter is often clogged with requests related to digital literacy (“How do I use this new online portal deployed by HR?”).

By experience, many of these demands can often be addressed by the colleague next door. However, on one hand, we ignore most of the time the full extent of our colleague’s knowledge and skills. On the other hand, our colleagues have little incentive to spend time sharing their skills with a colleague. I could envisage using behaviorism to bridge that gap by creating an internal peer-to-peer learning platform.

There, staff members could list either the abilities they excel at (and which could be easily taught to peers, like advice for writing compelling e-mails, creating Excel formulas and macros, etc.) or the problems they face with the use of new tools. They would engage as teachers, learners, or both. An easy indicator to observe initially would be how many requests to the IT helpdesk have transformed into micro-learning actions through the peer-to-peer platform. That said, In order to further emphasize the effects of a behavioral approach, the learning platform would run initially on a purely altruistic basis, with no stimulus or penalties.

During a second phase, operand conditioning would kick in. A positive reinforcement on a fixed interval schedule would be introduced (8), in order to incentivize staff to take on learning requests from colleagues. This could take the shape of, say, an Amazon gift voucher for every five learning requests addressed. However, we would not want to encourage greedy behavior, with “teachers” addressing multiple learning requests in a poorly manner just to obtain the reward.

In order to limit the latter, we would need to modulate the reward scheme by setting up a secondary reinforcement in the shape of tokens or points: 0.5 points per learning request addressed and one full point only if the learner evaluates positively the learning action. Personally, I would avoid the possibility of allocating negative points, since punishment causes increased aggression [ibid], which would take the form of friction among colleagues.