Psychology covers a vast field, and one interesting aspect of it is personality.
Personality by itself involves various issues. Some of which basic aspects are
Psychoanalytic, Ego, Biological, Behaviorist, Cognitive, Trait, Humanistic and
Interactionist. Though personality as a subject fascinates me a lot, what
interests me the most in this subject is behaviorism. For me different types of
behaviors are amazing to learn about, mainly the behavior therapy, collective
behavior, crime and punishment, and Social behavior and peer acceptance in
children. I chose Behaviorism over the other aspects because I believe Behavior
determines human personality and is very interesting. You can tell what one is
by his behavior, and one behaves according to what place he has in society. By
doing this paper on Behavior, I hope to get a better understanding of, if
behavior develops a personality or if personality guides behavior. I also see
behaviorism helping me in the future with my personal and professional career by
understanding human personality and behaviour better than I do. No matter what
your major is, if you can determine one`s personality by his behavior you can
really get your work done from that person and understand the better than you
would otherwise. This person could be your employee or your employer. Behavior
Therapy Behavior therapy is the application of experimentally derived principles
of learning to the treatment of psychological disorders. The concept derives
primarily from work of Russian psychologist Ivan Pavlov. Behavior-therapy
techniques differ from psychiatric methods, particularly psychoanalysis, in that
they are predominately symptom (behaviour) oriented and show little or no
concern for unconscious processes, achieving new insight, or effecting
fundamental personality change. Behavior therapy was popularized by the U.S.
psychologist B.F. Skinner, who worked with mental patients in a Massachusetts
state hospital. From his work in animal learning, Skinner found that the
establishment and extinction of responses can be determined by the way
reinforcers, or rewards, are given. The pattern of reward giving, both in time
and frequency, is known as a schedule of reinforcement. The gradual change in
behavior in approximation of the desired result is known as shaping. More recent
developments in behavior therapy emphasize the adaptive nature of cognitive
processes. Behaviour-therapy techniques have been applied with some success to
such disturbances as enuresis (bed-wetting), tics, phobias, stuttering,
obsessive-compulsive behavior, drug addiction, neurotic behaviours of normal
persons, and some psychotic conditions. It has also been used in training the
mentally retarded. Collective Behavior Much of collective behaviour is dramatic,
unpredictable and frightening, so the early theories and many contemporary
popular views are more evaluative than analytic. The French social psychologist
Gustave Le Bon identified the crowd and revolutionary movements with the
excesses of the French Revolution; the U.S. psychologist Boris Sidis was
impressed with the resemblance of crowd behavior to mental disorder. Many of
these early theories depicted collective behaviour returned to an earlier stage
of development. Freud retained this emphasis in viewing crowd behaviour and many
other forms of collective behaviour as regressions to an earlier stage of
childhood development; he explained, for example, the slavish identification
that followers have for leaders on the basis of such regression. More
sophisticated recent efforts to treat collective behavior as a pathological
manifestation employ social disorganization as an explanatory approach. From
this point of view collective behavior erupts as an unpleasant symptom of
frustration and malaise stemming from cultural conflict, organizational failure,
and other social malfunctions. The distinctive feature of this approach is a
reluctance to take seriously the manifest contest of collective behaviour.
Neither the search for enjoyment in recreational fad, the search for spiritual
meaning on a religious sect, nor the demand for equal opportunity in an
interest-group movement is accepted to face value. An opposite evaluation of
many forms of collective behaviour has become part of the analytic perspective
in revolutionary approaches to society. From the revolutionist║╞s
point of view a much collective behavior is a release of creative impulses from
the repressive effects of establish social orders. ║╟Revolutionary
theorists such as Frantz Fanon depict traditional social arrangements as
destructive of human spontaneity, and various forms of crowd and revolutionary
movements as man║╞s creative self-assertion bursting its social
shackles.║╠ (MSN behaviorism Search/types of behaviors.) Crime and
Punishment Psychologists have approached the task of explaining delinquent
behavior by examining in particular the processes by which behaviour and
restraints on behaviour are learned. (MSN behaviorism Search/crime and
punishment) Criminality is seen to result from the failure of the superego, as a
consequence either of its incompletes development or of unusually strong
instinctual drives. ║╟The empirical basis for such a theory is
necessarily thin. Behaviour theory views all behaviour criminal and otherwise as
learned and thus manipulable by the use of reinforcement and
punishment.║╠ Social learning theory examines the manner in which
behaviour is learned from contacts within the family and other intimate groups,
from social contacts outside the family, particularly from peer groups, and from
exposure to models of behavior in the media, particularly television. Mental
illness is the cause of a relatively small proportion of crime, but its
importance as a causative factor may be exaggerated by the seriousness of some
of the crimes committed by persons with mental disorders. Severe depression or
psychopathy may lead to grave offenses of violence. Social Behavior and Peer
Acceptance The peer relations literature is replete with studies showing that
children who demonstrate certain kinds of social behaviors while refraining from
other types of behaviors tend to be liked by their peers. For example, children
who play cooperatively and show leadership abilities usually enjoy high peer
acceptance (Hatzichristou & Hopf, 1996; Lass, Price, & Hart, 1988). On
the other hand, children who display high levels of aggressive behavior or who
interact with their peers in argumentative, disruptive, and socially
inappropriate ways are often rejected by their peers (Coie & Dodge, 1988;
Dodge, 1983; Dodge, Coie, Pettit, & Price 1990). Shy and withdrawn behavior,
such as not playing interactively with peers, watching peers play rather than
joining in, and wandering around a classroom or playground, also tends to be
associated with low peer acceptance (Lemerise, 1997). A study was designed to
isolate the types of social behaviors that predict kindergarten
children║╞s peer acceptance when considering several types of social
behavior simultaneously. The outcome of that question is important to help
parents, teachers, and others who work with young children understand what
social skills to specifically foster and promote in order to enhance
children║╞s perceptions of their peer acceptance. Previous research
has discovered developmental differences in the associations between social
behaviors and peer acceptance. Aggression, for example, is linked with
problematic peer relations from early childhood through adolescence, while
socially withdrawn behavior begins to be associated with low peer acceptance in
middle and late childhood (Rubin, Bookwork, & Parker, 1998) Adult
perceptions of children║╞s confidence in their own peer acceptance
also may influence their social behaviors. Adults who believe children are not
confident about their peer acceptance might provide more opportunities to help
these children develop play and friendship skills that could, in turn, lead to
more confidence in their peer acceptance. For example, a teacher who believes a
child lacks confidence in his or her peer acceptance might pair the child with
another child who is confident about her peer acceptance, in order to provide a
model of behavior. In summary, this study investigated the associations between
aggression, shyness/ withdrawal, prosocial behavior, friendship skill, and
social behavior problems and peer acceptance in kindergarten students.
Children║╞s own feelings of peer acceptance, sociometric ratings
from peers, and teacher and parent perceptions of children║╞s
confidence in their peer acceptance were included in the regression analysis to
isolate the social behaviors that predict kindergartners║╞ peer
acceptance across informants. The present study also investigated differences in
social behaviors and peer acceptance among children of different genders and
varied ethnic backgrounds in a diverse school and community. After doing this
paper I came to the conclusion that behavior shapes personality. The research
involving children to learn social acceptance, showed us clearly that how one
behaves makes him what he is. I believe the same for adults. I believe if one
behaves in a certain way for a long time, not only society with believe you are
what you are behaving as but he himself will start believing he is what he is
behaving as. Also I have learnt to be more patient with people because I take a
step in the further and think why a person would behave in a particular way. I
now can see a clear difference between normal and abnormal behaviours to the
knowledge I have gathered by reading about Skinner, Freud, Dollard and Miller.