historical/cultural context of learning perspective*

The historical and cultural context of the learning perspective, including the “reform, efficiency and progress” world view and scientific developments in the early 1900s, contributed to psychology’s history. It was then that behavioralism emerged and continued to appeal to most Americans until the 1950s because of its parsimonic nature and its basic assumption that the environment could be changed to alter human behavior.

In the early 1900s, science was at its peak and optimism for the future was rising. People believed that it could resolve many problems and questions, and that society will advance due to these advantages of ‘new’ sciences. It was very life-affirming for people in the USA (a new country enthused by ‘new’ sciences with ‘can do’ approaches). This empiricist philosophy influenced the basic principles of behavioralism: that behavior is learned from the environment, and that one could overcome obstacles to development by reform.

Theories developed were very different from Freud’s unconscious and the ideas of introspection, which were impossible to test using scientific methods. Pioneers of the behaviorist approach to psychology—Watson, Pavlov, and Thorndike—focused on more scientific and objective methods to studying human behavior, which drew more people to rely on it. Only observable aspects of human behavior were studied, and the simplest explanations were offered regarding how responses to stimuli in the environment occur.

Furthermore, Darwin’s proposal on humans’ adaptation to the environment, coupled with the capitalist idea that those who conform to varying business situations will be rewarded, influenced another principle of this perspective. According to behaviorists, rewards motivate humans to strive for success and act differently.

Over time, behavioralism became the learning perspective due to insights from other perspectives (biological and cognitive) and additional influences from Skinner, Garcia, and Seligman, who were other behaviorists. However, despite its immense popularity due to its optimistic nature, its popularity declined in the late 1900s because of criticism.

-- yuki