Have you ever wondered exactly why people do what they do? According to a school of thought known as behaviorism, it all ...

As a doctoral student and professor of psychology, John Watson studied the behavior of animals. He especially was interested in stimulus-response reactions to various situations, such as rats going ...

The following is, for the most part, an excerpt of a book chapter I'm working on for an APA book series: Psychologists have a long history of ignoring (e.g., Koch, 1964), not understanding (e.g., ...

My recent article, "Behavior Modification Is Everywhere: Why Education Can’t Afford to Pretend Otherwise," sparked thoughtful, even passionate, comments from readers. These responses highlighted ...

Cognitive psychology and behaviorism are often held to be competing, mutually exclusive paradigms in contemporary psychology. The present paper argues that cognitive psychology is actually quite ...

Operant conditioning, sometimes called instrumental conditioning or Skinnerian conditioning, is a method of learning that uses rewards and punishment to modify behavior. Through operant conditioning, ...

The scientific study of both internal mental processes and observable behavior is known as psychology. It explains activities by methodical research. Clinical, cognitive, social, and I-O psychology ...

One of the most infamous psychology experiments ever conducted involved a carefully planned form of child abuse. The study rested on a simple scheme that would never get approved or funded today. In ...

In Jarek Janio’s Inside Higher Ed opinion column, “Beyond ‘Grit’ and ‘Growth Mindsets,’” Janio argues that, to promote better student learning, college instructors should ignore questions about ...

Learn how behaviorists explain market inefficiencies through human psychology. Discover key concepts in behavioral economics and finance that challenge rational models.