Key Concepts and Importance of Behaviorism and Cognitivism

Key Concepts and Importance of Behaviorism and Cognitivism
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Behaviorism Definition
           Behaviorism refers to a learning theory which states that all behaviors are acquired through conditioning (Watson & Kimble, 2017). This theory holds that one can objectively study human or animal psychology through observable actions. Behaviorists believe that human or animal responses to stimuli shape their reactions (Ziafar & Namaziandost, 2019). This school of thought maintains that psychologists can study behaviors systematically and objectively regardless of internal mental state (Watson & Kimble, 2017).  
Key Concepts related to Behaviorism
           The key concepts associated with behaviorism include classical and operant conditioning. Classical conditioning involves creating a link between a naturally occurring stimulus and a previously neutral one (Mackintosh, 2019). Pavlov's experiment is a common test used to demonstrate classical conditioning. At the end of the experiment, Pavlov's dogs learned to salivate after hearing the sound of a bell despite failing to respond to the bell in the first experiment (Mackintosh, 2019).
Operant conditioning is a learning technique that employs rewards and punishments for behavior. The Skinner box experiment is widely used to demonstrate operant conditioning, in which animals or humans learn a behavior by associating it with consequences (Akpan, 2020).  In operant conditioning, a response is more likely to re-occur when it is reinforced. This enhances positive and negative reinforcements to increase behaviors, followed immediately by punishments (Mackintosh, 2019). Behaviorists often try to shape one's behavior by using conditioning, reinforcements, and punishments. 
Cognitivism
           Cognitivism is the study of mental processes, including how people think, perceive, learn, retain information, solve problems and react to a stimulus (Marušić & Schwenkler, 2018). 
Key Concepts Related to Cognitivism
One of the key concepts of cognitivism is that learning creates psychological maps or cognitive structures in the brain. Equally, learning processes help understand these cognitive structures (Wallace et al., 2015). Piaget’s theory emphasized that developing children construct cognitive structures to understand and react to stimuli (Ghazi & Ullah, 2015). These structures change to pave the way for new information and integrate more information that forces human cognitive systems to become more complex. 
          Another key concept is perceptual constancy: The tendency to respond to maintain constancy in perceiving stimuli, even though the stimuli have changed. This involves seeing familiar objects as having standard characteristics such as shape and size regardless of changes in their actual appearance (Cohen, 2015). The fact that the mind processes all these perceptions makes perceptual constancy a significant concept related to cognitivism.
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