ABSTRACT
This chapter briefly looks at the roots of behaviorism and three overarching models employed in the study of learning, namely, stimulus-response (S-R), stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R), and response. Watsonian behaviorism and Pavlovian learning exemplify an S-R model while most of the neobehaviorists that follow embrace an S-O-R model of learning. The chapter examines Orval Hobart Mowrer who believed that learning was mediated by two types of responses, namely, autonomic emotional responses and instrumental behavioral responses. It describes the several defining features of neobehaviorism and how they shaped Clark Hull’s hypothetic–deductive theory of learning. The influence and impact that behaviorism has had and continues to have on the field of psychology is profound and extensive. When behaviorism began to win over its opponents there were still many who were hesitant to embrace it because they found it difficult to see the translation of findings derived from animal studies of learning as applicable to improving the quality of life of humans.
