| The first- and second-generation
behaviorists all made a fundamental error in considering animal
learning principles to be sufficient as the theory by which
to explain human behavior. But it is obvious that much human
behavior cannot be explained simply through use of the basic
principles. As an example, the child’s being intelligent
can’t be explained as the result of the child having been
reinforced (rewarded) when having behaved intelligently. Having
only the basic principles traditional behaviorists, thus, never
explained intelligence, personality, and other traits and complex
behaviors. PB states that while animals face every new situation
armed only with their basic learning principles, that is not
true for humans.
Humans Also Learn
According to Cumulative-Hierarchical Learning Principles.
Humans learn complex repertoires, and those repertoires
themselves play a causative role in the later behavior, experience,
and learning of those humans. To illustrate, a child who has
learned to respond to words, to instructions, has become a
markedly different learning organism than a child who has
not learned that repertoire. The first child will be capable
of learning new things that will be quite beyond that which
a preverbal child, chimpanzee, or lower animal can learn.
In explaining what the individual experiences, how the individual
behaves, and what the individual can learn, it is necessary
to specify the repertoires the individual has already learned.
Repertoires with those profound effects are called basic behavioral
repertoires (or BBRs). PB divides those repertoires into three
categories, language-cognitive, sensory-motor, and emotional-motivational
(see Staats, 1996, chapt. 3 for an exposition of the human
learning principles).
Continue to Levels of Study: Child
Development
top
|
