Thorndike and Skinner: Learning Theories and Behaviorism
Edward Thorndike: Instrumental Learning
A contemporary of Pavlov, Thorndike focused on instrumental learning, where an animal’s behavior is reinforced. His experiments with a hungry cat in a box demonstrated that animals learn through trial and error, reducing the time and errors to escape and reach food.
Theory of Association or Connection of Learning:
- Learning is the connection between sensory impressions and action impulses.
- Achieved through trial and error, where the brain records correct responses
Emotional Intelligence in Education: Concepts, Factors, and Skills
Theme 6: Educating Emotional Intelligence
Concept of Emotional Intelligence
Educational values relate to the idea of growing as a “whole person.” This involves:
- Critical knowledge and its application.
- Understanding emotions and their influence on actions.
- Evaluation: using moral language to assess value.
- Will: guiding students to manage emotions through higher-level intelligence.
Extensive neurobiological research demonstrates that thinking and emotions are intertwined:
- Emotions and thinking are interconnected
Understanding Human Behavior: Psychology’s Scope & History
Psychology: Definition and History
We are all interested in how people act, not only what happens but also why. While these questions are often answered vaguely, psychology has developed a body of knowledge about behavior.
Definitions and Purposes
Psychology is the scientific study of behavior. It describes behavior (what) and explains its causes (why).
Example 1: Why did you purchase this book? What do you expect from it? If you achieve your goals, would you likely buy another book on a different subject?
Read MoreForensic Psychology: Objectives and Evaluation
Forensic Psychology Objectives
Forensic psychology has three main objectives:
- To provide the judicial process with principles, techniques, and instruments for objective assessment of human behavior, assisting judges in sentencing consistent with expert demands.
- To integrate psychologists and professionals into interdisciplinary teams working with courts and judicial bodies, advising magistrates, judges, prosecutors, etc.
- To establish ethical principles for interventions in the judicial field, ensuring
Understanding Personality: Traits, Theories, and Development
Understanding Personality
Etymology of “Person”
The term “person” has evolved with several underlying meanings:
- The image we present to others.
- Our role in life’s events.
- The interaction of individual qualities and actions (the basis of psychological definitions).
- Prestige and dignity (the dominant meaning today).
Personality is often linked to social attractiveness, with qualities others admire or praise.
Defining Personality
Personality is the characteristic and habitual way a person thinks, feels, and
Read MoreUnderstanding Employee Motivation: Key Theories
Motivation
- Focus of content: Reasoning models answer what motivates behavior? They are based on the assumption that employees are driven by the desire to satisfy their needs.
- Focus of the process model of motivation that emphasizes how and why individuals choose certain behaviors to fulfill their personal goals.
1. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Maintains that individuals have a complex set of five levels of needs which they try to satisfy in sequence, from base to top (pyramid).
- Physiological needs: (need