LEARNING THEORY
Learning theories and theories of behavior are essentially interchangeable concepts.
Learning theories are sometimes called stimulus-response psychology.

Thorndike bond theory
The founder of the theory of learning, E. Thorndike, considered consciousness as a system of connections that unites ideas by association. The higher the intelligence, the more connections it can establish. Thorndike proposed the law of exercise and the law of effect as two basic laws of learning. According to the first, the more often an action is repeated, the deeper it is imprinted in the mind. The law of effect states that connections in consciousness are established more successfully if the response to the stimulus is accompanied by reward. To describe meaningful associations, Thorndike used the term "belonging": connections are easier to establish when objects seem to belong to each other, i.e. interdependent. Learning is facilitated if the material being memorized is meaningful. Thorndike also formulated the concept of "spreading effect" - the willingness to assimilate knowledge from areas adjacent to those areas that are already familiar. Thorndike experimentally studied the propagation of the effect in order to determine whether teaching one subject affects the mastering of another - for example, whether knowledge of the ancient Greek classics helps in the preparation of future engineers. It turned out that a positive transfer is observed only in cases when areas of knowledge are in contact. Learning one type of activity can even hinder the mastery of another ("proactive inhibition"), and the newly mastered material can sometimes destroy something already learned ("retroactive inhibition"). These two types of inhibition are the subject of the theory of memory interference. Forgetting some material is associated not only with the passage of time, but also with the influence of other types of activity.

Pavlovsky conditioned reflex
In the early 1900s, the Russian physiologist I.P. Pavlov conducted a series of experiments on dogs, demonstrating the mechanism of a conditioned reflex. A hungry dog ​​will salivate at the sight of food. During each feed, the bell rang, and eventually the dog began to salivate at the sound alone, as it was trained to correlate the bell with the appearance of food. The release of saliva at the sight of food is an unconditioned reflex, and the release of saliva on a bell is the result of learning, or a conditioned reflex. Pavlov's discovery, called classical conditioning, left such a deep mark in psychology that the development of a conditioned reflex became almost synonymous with learning. Pavlov also discovered that some conditioned reflexes can spread to adjacent areas (generalization); on the other hand, you can develop the ability to subtly distinguish (differentiate) similar stimuli. Discovery of the orienting reflex, or the reflex "what is it?" - also the merit of Pavlov.

Skinner's operant behaviorism
Following the same direction, the American behaviorist B. Skinner singled out, in addition to the classical conditioning, which he designated as respondent, the second type of conditioning is operant conditioning. Operant learning is based on active actions ("operations") of the organism in the environment. If some spontaneous action turns out to be useful for achieving the goal, it is supported by the achieved result. A pigeon, for example, can be taught to play ping-pong if the game becomes a means of obtaining food. Reward is called reinforcement because it reinforces the desired behavior.

Pigeons will not be able to play ping-pong if they do not form this behavior in them by the method of "discriminatory learning", i.e. consistent selective encouragement of individual actions leading to the desired result. Reinforcement can be randomly distributed or followed at specific intervals or in a specific proportion. Randomly distributed reinforcement - periodic wins - drives people to gamble. A reward that appears at regular intervals - wage- keeps a person on the job. Proportional reward is such a strong reinforcement that the experimental animals in Skinner's experiments literally drove themselves to death, trying to earn, for example, more delicious food. Punishment, as opposed to reward, is negative reinforcement. With its help, one cannot teach a new type of behavior - it only forces one to avoid already known actions, followed by punishment. Skinner pioneered programmed learning, learning machine development, and behavioral therapy.

Hull's learning theory
Another behavioral theory of learning belongs to K. Hull. According to his views, learning occurs due to the fact that with each answer there is a reinforcement in the form of partial satisfaction, i.e. "Reductions", needs. The individual learns to respond in a certain way if, as a result, desire or need decreases - for example, for food or sex. This reaction becomes a habit. According to Hull, a habit that gets stronger with each reinforcement is a fundamental law of learning. In the absence of habits and needs, a person will not carry out any actions, because without a habit he will not know how to act, and without a need he will lose motivation for action. Since none of these psychodynamic factors can be observed directly, Hull called them "psychic constructs," acting as "intermediate variables" between stimulus and response.

Tolman's cognitive behaviorism
Unlike Skinner, Hull and other supporters of the dominant role of the stimulus-response relationship, E. Tolman proposed cognitive learning theory, considering that the mental processes involved in learning are not limited to SR communication. He considered the mastery of the “gestalt sign” to be the fundamental law of learning, i.e. cognitive representation, which occupies an intermediate position between stimulus and response. While the connection "stimulus - response" is mechanical in nature, cognition plays an active mediating role, and the result has the form: stimulus - cognitive activity (sign-gestalt) - response. Gestalt signs are composed of "cognitive maps" (mental images of familiar terrain), expectations, and other intermediate variables. The rats with which Tolman conducted experiments did not need to develop a conditioned reflex to find the path leading to food in the maze. They headed straight for the trough because they knew where she was and how to find her. Tolman proved his theory by experiments on finding the right place by experimental animals: the rats were heading towards the same goal, regardless of which way they were trained to move. Wishing to emphasize the defining role of the goal in behavior, Tolman called his system "goal behaviorism."

Memory
Memory is so closely related to learning that the two do not always differentiate. Ebbinghaus, for example, considered material learned if it could be reproduced without error. Psychologists distinguish two types of memory: short-term, which we use, when we remember a phone number only in order to immediately dial it, and long-term, which is required for such purposes as mastering an array of professional knowledge. As short-term memory quickly fades, traces in memory fade over time if not reinforced by repetition. Long-term memory needs a period of consolidation before material can be retained permanently. Consolidation is thought to involve the restructuring of neural networks, which results in the formation of engrams - structural memory traces in the brain. According to Pozner's hypothesis, engrams are destroyed over time, i.e. memory fades away spontaneously. Some researchers consider memory as a three-term structure, adding "average" memory to the phases mentioned above. Short-term memory lasts for seconds and minutes, medium-term memory - about two hours, after which long-term memory functions.
Collier's Encyclopedia

Introduction

Relevance of the research topic. At the beginning of the 21st century, the psychology of behaviorism is becoming more and more widespread in Russia. The situation of the transition from the Soviet system to the Western path of development caused enormous social and ideological upheavals in most people associated with the deprivation of a sense of belonging to a powerful state, the loss of a consolidating and uplifting social idea, the devaluation of moral values, etc.

The circle of attention of behaviorism is precisely the problem of a person who is faced with the need to independently, in confusion and doubts, determine his identity and the values ​​for which he lives. The development of one's own individuality becomes both a task and a way to cope with the new social reality.

The general situation in psychology, characterized by a movement from a natural-scientific paradigm to a humanitarian one, from an explanatory approach to an understanding one, from the study of a person as an isolated object to an examination of the inextricable connection between man and the world also contributes to the development and spread of behaviorism and the desire for an active exchange of ideas with it on the part of others psychological directions.

The purpose of this work is to substantiate the question of the features behavioral concept learning.

The behavioral concept of learning

B. Skinner's operant conditioning theory

Translated from English, behaviorism means "behavior." It was precisely this that became the central subject of attention of this direction.

Behaviorism recognized the existence of complex behavior, which it explained by combinations of chains of stimuli and reactions. Actually, their study was also included in the main tasks of the flow.

Learning (teaching, learning) is the process of the subject acquiring new ways of carrying out behavior and activities, fixing and / or modifying them. Stolyarenko L.D. Fundamentals of Psychology. - Rostov-on-Don: Phoenix, 2006. - S. 68-72. The change in psychological structures that occurs as a result of this process provides an opportunity for further improvement of activities.

For the first time, the patterns of learning, established by experimental methods, were established within the framework of behaviorism. The theory developed by B.F. Skinner (1904-1990), is called the theory of operant conditioning.

Skinner's goal was to explain the mechanisms of learning in humans and animals (rats and pigeons) on the basis of a limited set of basic principles. The main idea was to manage the environment, to control it, while receiving orderly changes. He said: "Control the conditions, the environment, and order will open to you" B. Skinner. Operant Behavior // History of Foreign Psychology: Texts. M: AST, 2006, pp. 60-82 4.

The learning procedure is called “operant conditioning”.

It consisted in the experimenter's desire to establish a connection between stimulus (S) and response (R) through reinforcement - reward or punishment. In the stimulus-response (S-R) scheme, it was the response that was key for Skinner. The reactions were considered in terms of simplicity-complexity. Simple - salivation, withdrawal of the hand; difficult - decision math problem, aggressive behavior.

Operant conditioning is the process by which the characteristics of a response are determined by the consequences of that response. The implementation of operant behavior is inherent in the biological nature of the organism. Learning was viewed by Skinner as a process.

Reinforcement is one of the conditioning principles. Already from infancy, according to Skinner, human behavior can be regulated with the help of reinforcing stimuli B. Skinner, Operant Behavior // History of Foreign Psychology: Texts, M. AST, 2006. C, 60-82 5. There are two different kinds reinforcements. Some, such as eating or eliminating pain, are called primary reinforcers. they have a natural reinforcing power. Other reinforcing stimuli (smile, adult attention, approval, praise) are conditioned reinforcements. They become so as a result of frequent combination with primary reinforcements.

Operant conditioning relies primarily on positive reinforcement, i.e. to the consequences of reactions that support or enhance them, for example, food, monetary reward, praise. However, Skinner stresses the importance of negative reinforcement, which leads to a fading response. Such reinforcing stimuli can be physical punishment, moral pressure, psychological pressure.

Besides reinforcement, the principle of conditioning is its immediacy. It has been found that in the early stages of an experiment, the response can only be maximized if it is reinforced immediately. Otherwise, the reaction that began to form will quickly fade away.

With operant, as well as with respondent conditioning, generalization of stimuli is observed. Generalization is an associative connection of a response with stimuli that arose in the process of conditioning, similar to the initial development of a conditioned reflex. Examples of generalization are - fear of all dogs, which was formed as a result of the attack of one dog, a positive reaction of the child (smile, pronouncing the words "dad" in contact with men similar to his father, movement to a meeting, etc.)

The formation of a reaction is a very complex process. The reaction does not arise immediately and suddenly, it takes shape gradually, as a number of reinforcements are carried out. Sequential reinforcement is the development of complex actions by reinforcing actions that gradually become more and more similar to the final form of behavior that was supposed to be formed. Continuous behavior is formed in the process of reinforcement individual elements behaviors that add up to complex actions.

The following modes of reinforcement were identified: continuous reinforcement - presentation of reinforcement every time the subject gives the desired reaction; intermittent or partial reinforcement. For a stricter classification of reinforcement modes, two parameters were identified - temporary reinforcement and proportional reinforcement. In the first case, they reinforce only when the period during which it is necessary to perform the corresponding activity has expired, in the second: they reinforce the volume of the work (number of actions) that must be performed.

On the basis of two parameters, four modes of reinforcement were described: J. Watston. Behavior as a subject of psychology (behaviorism and non-behaviorism) // a reader on the history of psychology / Ed. P.Ya. Galperina, A.N. Zhdan.- M .: Publishing house of Moscow State University, 1980.-P.34-44. 6

Reinforcement mode with constant ratio. Reinforcement is carried out in accordance with the established volume of reactions. An example of such a regime would be remuneration for a certain, constant amount of work.

Reinforcement mode at regular intervals. Reinforcement is only done when a firmly established, fixed time interval has expired. For example, monthly, weekly, hourly wages, rest after fixed hours of physical or mental work.

Reinforcement mode with variable ratio. In this mode, the body is reinforced on the basis of some, on average, a predetermined number of reactions.

Reinforcement mode with variable interval. The individual receives reinforcement after an indefinite interval has elapsed.

Skinner spoke about the individuality of reinforcement, about the variability of the development of a particular skill in different people as well as in different animals. Moreover, the reinforcement itself is unique in nature, since we cannot confidently say that for a given person or animal, it can act as a reinforcement.

As the child develops, his reactions are absorbed and remain under the control of the reinforcing influences from the environment. In the form of reinforcing influences are food, praise, emotional support, etc. he believes that mastery of speech occurs according to the general laws of operant conditioning. The child receives reinforcement by pronouncing certain sounds. Reinforcement is not food and water, but the approval and support of adults.

From a learning psychology perspective, there is no need to look for underlying underlying causes for the explanation of disease symptoms. Pathology, according to behaviorism, is not an ailment, but either (1) the result of an undiagnosed reaction, or (2) a learned maladaptive reaction.

Behavior change is also built on the principles of operant conditioning, on a system of behavior modification and associated reinforcements.

Behavioral changes can occur as a result of self-control. Self-control includes two interdependent reactions: Ufimtseva O.V. Behaviorism. - M.: Nauka, 2008. P. 178 7

A control reaction that affects the environment, altering the likelihood of secondary reactions (“withdrawal” to avoid expressing “anger”; removal of food to wean from overeating).

A control reaction aimed at the presence in a situation of stimuli that can make the desired behavior more likely (the presence of a table for the implementation of the educational process).

Behavior change can also occur as a result of the implementation of behavioral counseling. Much of this type of counseling is based on learning principles.

Advantages:

Striving for rigorous hypothesis testing, experiment, control of additional variables.

Recognition of the role of situational variables, environmental parameters and their systematic study.

A pragmatic approach to therapy has allowed the creation of important procedures for behavior change.

Disadvantages:

Reductionism is the reduction of the principles of behavior obtained in animals to the analysis of human behavior.

Low external validity is caused by the behavior of experiments in the laboratory, the results of which are difficult to transfer to natural conditions.

Ignoring cognitive processes when analyzing S-R connections.

Big gap between theory and practice.

Behavioral theory does not provide consistent results.

Page 1

The basic laws of teaching behavioral theory are widely applied in modular teaching technology. The principles of the behavioral theory of learning were formulated by E. Thorndike, who studied the features of animal learning for a long time. His experiments with animals served as the basis for the emergence of the behavioral trend in psychology. But experiments with animals cannot be completely transferred to humans, therefore, the principles of behaviorism in the practice of modular training have been improved.

Thorndike has no doubts about the legitimacy of transferring the principles of teaching animals to teaching humans. for him there is no qualitative difference between the two processes. He directly writes: "The development of the animal world in this respect consists in the quantitative growth and quantitative complication of the same process of communication between the situation and the response, inherent in all vertebrates and even lower animals, starting at least with lampreys and ending with man himself."

The Thorndike teaching process consists in establishing certain links between a given situation and a given reaction, "and also in strengthening these links.

He points out the law of effect, the law of repetition (exercise) and the law of readiness as the basic laws of education and the connection between stimulus and response.

E. Thorndike attaches particular importance to the law of effect. He defines it as follows: “When the process of establishing a connection between a situation and a response is accompanied or replaced by a state of satisfaction, the strength of the connection increases; when this connection is accompanied or replaced by a state of dissatisfaction, its strength decreases. "

The law of exercise is that the more often the temporal sequence of stimulus and response is repeated without subsequent stimulus and subsequent response, the stronger the connection will be. Moreover, Thorndike emphasizes that the repetition of the temporal sequence of the stimulus and response without a subsequent positive effect (reinforcement) does not lead to the formation of a connection, i.e. exercise only matters when combined with reinforcement.

The law of readiness indicates the dependence of the rate of formation of a connection on its correspondence to the present state of the subject. "Every psychological connection," Thorndike writes, "has the imprint of the individual nervous system in its specific state." This law is the main advantage modular system learning. Those. each student receives education according to an individual schedule, as they gradually master the material. This is very important point since each student has a different mindset and mentality, and therefore teaching according to a strict schedule leads to a high level of academic failure in schools and higher educational institutions.

In addition to these three principles, known as the "laws of learning", Thorndike points out a number of additional conditions that contribute to the formation and consolidation of the connection between external influence and the corresponding reaction of the student. Among them, he refers to the awareness of the belonging of stimulus and response, the acceptability of this connection. The belonging of a stimulus and a reaction lies, for example, in the fact that they are perceived as belonging to the same class of objects (for example, they are parts of speech) or as elements of something whole, etc.

It should be noted that E. Thorndike opposes those supporters of behaviorism, "who do not want to see anything in the psychological life of a person, except for the external manifestations of muscular activity." He points out that the activity of neurons consists not only in conducting nerve current from external sensory organs to external motor organs. They also have their own inner life: they create internal communications between themselves and between the various images, ideas and feelings evoked by their behavior. But, recognizing the reality of the psyche, E. Thorndike does not take it into account when analyzing learning, limiting the latter to a stimulus-response-reinforcement scheme. The value of the psyche in the formation of communication is not shown and is not taken into account. The psyche remains an internal process that runs parallel to nervous activity and is in no way included in the subject's behavior; its purpose is unknown. This understanding of the psyche is no different from the understanding of it by the old subjective-idealistic psychology.

The behavioral direction in psychotherapy is based on the psychology of behaviorism and uses the principles of learning to change cognitive, emotional and behavioral structures. Behavioral psychotherapy includes a wide range of methods. The development of methodological approaches within this area reflects the evolution of the goals of behavioral psychotherapy from external to internal learning: from methods aimed at changing open forms of behavior directly observed behavioral responses(based mainly on classical and operant conditioning) to methods aimed at changing deeper, closed psychological formations (based on theories of social learning, modeling and cognitive approaches).

The theoretical basis of behavioral psychotherapy is the psychology of behaviorism.

Behaviorism. This trend in psychology was formed at the beginning of the 20th century. The founder of behaviorism is Watson. Thorndike's experiments, which laid the foundation for its emergence, as well as the works of Pavlov and Bekhterev, also had a significant influence on the formation of behaviorism.

From the point of view of representatives of behaviorism, psychology was supposed to become a science of behavior, since behavior is the only psychological reality accessible to direct observation and having parameters that can be directly measured and influenced and, therefore, studied in the same way as is customary in natural sciences.

Orthodox behaviorism essentially equates psyche and behavior. Behavior is understood in this case as a set of reactions of the organism to the effects of the external environment, to a set of fixed stimuli. A person is seen as a carrier of certain forms

behavior formed according to the principle of "stimulus - response". which is considered as the main unit of behavior ..

The complication of the traditional behaviorist scheme "stimulus-response" due to the introduction of intermediate (intervention, mediator) variables marks the transition to non-behaviorism, which is associated with the names of Tolman and Hull. The basic formula of behaviorism is transformed into the formula "stimulus-plan, image-reaction" (S-n-o-R).

In accordance with this, stimuli began to be designated as independent variables, and reactions - as dependent. Intermediate variables are those psychological formations that mediate the body's responses to certain stimuli. The study of intermediate variables is one of the main tasks of behavioral psychology.

The central problem of behaviorism is the problem of gaining individual experience or the problem of learning (teaching) as the acquisition of various skills and abilities. Behavioral learning theories have served as the basis for the development of specific methodological approaches to behavioral psychotherapy.

Learning. Learning is a process and result of the acquisition of individual experience, knowledge, skills and abilities. Teaching acts as the main methodological principle and the main task of behavioral psychotherapy (as well as important factor therapeutic action in other psychotherapeutic systems, in particular in group psychotherapy).

The central place in these theories is occupied by the processes of classical and operant conditioning and learning from models. Accordingly, three types of learning are distinguished: S-learning, R-learning, and social learning.

Classical conditioning. Classical conditioning is closely related to the name of Pavlov, who made a fundamental contribution to the theory of classical conditioned reflexes, which became the basis for the development of behavioral psychotherapy.

The basic scheme of the conditioned reflex S - R, where S is a stimulus, R is a reaction (behavior). In the classical Pavlovian scheme, reactions arise only in response to the action of any stimulus, unconditioned or conditioned stimulus. The formation of a conditioned reflex occurs under the conditions of: a) adjacency, coincidence in time of the indifferent and unconditioned times

dredgers, with some advance of the indifferent stimulus, b) repetition, multiple combinations of indifferent and unconditioned stimuli.

The experimenter acts on the body with a conditioned stimulus (bell) and reinforces it with an unconditioned one (food), that is, an unconditioned stimulus is used to induce an unconditioned response (salivation) in the presence of an initially neutral stimulus (bell). The result or product of learning according to such a scheme is respondent behavior - behavior caused by a certain stimulus (S). The supply of reinforcement in this case is associated with a stimulus (S), therefore this type of learning, in the process of which a connection is formed between stimuli is referred to as type S learning.

Operant conditioning. The theory of instrumental or operant conditioning is associated with the names of Thorndike and Skinner. Skinner, one of the most prominent representatives of behaviorism, showed that the influence of the environment determines human behavior, he considers culture, the content of which is expressed in a certain set of reinforcement complexes, as the main factor in the formation of human behavior. With their help, you can create and modify human behavior in the right direction... Methods of behavior modification are based on this understanding, which are used not only in psychotherapeutic practice, but also in practice, for example, educational influences.

According to the principle of operant conditioning, behavior is controlled by its outcome and consequences. In accordance with the scheme of operant conditioning, the experimenter, observing the behavior, fixes random manifestations of the desired, "correct" reaction and immediately reinforces it. Thus, the stimulus follows the behavioral response, using direct reinforcement through reward and punishment. The result of such learning is operant learning, or operant. This learning is referred to as type R learning. Operant or instrumental behavior (behavior of type R) is behavior caused by reinforcement following the behavior.

It is necessary to pay attention to the ratio of concepts such as positive and negative reinforcement and punishment, distinguish between punishment and negative reinforcement. Positive or negative reinforcement reinforces behavior (therefore, sometimes the term reinforcement is simply used, implying that the purpose of the impact is to strengthen the reaction, regardless of whether the reinforcement is positive or negative), punishment weakens.

Positive reinforcement is based on the presentation of incentives (rewards) that enhance the behavioral response. Negative reinforcement consists of reinforcing behavior by removing negative incentives.

Punishment is also subdivided into positive and negative: the first is based on depriving the individual of a positive stimulus, the second - on the presentation of a negative stimulus. Thus, any reinforcement (both positive and negative) increases the frequency of the behavioral reaction, strengthens the behavior, any punishment (both positive and negative), on the contrary, reduces the frequency of the behavioral reaction, weakens the behavior.

Social learning. This type of learning is based on ideas according to which a person learns new behavior not only on the basis of his own, direct experience (as in classical and operant conditioning), but also on the basis of the experience of others, on the basis of observation of other people, that is, through modeling processes ... Therefore, this type of learning is also called modeling or model learning. Learning by Models

involves learning through observation and imitation of social patterns of behavior. This trend is primarily associated with the name of the American psychologist Bandura, a representative of the mediator approach (Bandura called his theory the mediator-stimulus associative theory).

For Bandura, complex social behavior is shaped by observing and imitating social patterns. Observing the model contributes to the development of new reactions in the observer, facilitates the implementation of previously acquired reactions, and also modifies existing behavior.

Bandura identifies three main regulatory systems for the functioning of an individual: 1) previous stimuli (in particular, the behavior of others, which is reinforced in a certain way); 2) feedback (mainly in the form of reinforcement of the consequences of behavior); 3) cognitive processes (a person represents external influences and the response to them symbolically in the form of an "internal model of the external world"), providing control of stimulus and reinforcement.

17. BEHAVIORAL DIRECTION IN PSYCHOTHERAPY. CONCEPT OF PATHOLOGY (CONCEPT OF NEUROSIS) .

As the psychological foundation of behavioral psychotherapy, behaviorism defines the approach to the problem of health and illness. According to these ideas, health and illness are the result of what a person has learned and what has not been learned, and a personality is an experience that a person has acquired during his life.

The focus is not so much on the disease as on the symptom, which is understood as behavior, more precisely, as a violation of behavior. A neurotic symptom (neurotic behavior) is viewed as maladaptive or pathological behavior resulting from improper learning. Behavioral Disorders in the Behavioral Direction

tendencies are acquired, represent an internalized incorrect reaction that does not provide the necessary level of adaptation.

This maladaptive response is formed in the process of “wrong” learning. An example of such "wrong" learning can be the interaction of parents with a child, whom the parents pay attention to, pick up only when he does something wrong, for example, is capricious; or a child who is clearly lacking in outward manifestations of love, attention, warmth, and care receives more when he falls ill. Thus, the child's need for attention is fully satisfied only when he behaves “badly”, in other words, “bad”, non-adaptive behavior is positively reinforced (a significant need is satisfied).

Representatives of the cognitive-behavioral approach focus their attention on intermediate variables (cognitive processes), emphasizing their role in the development of impairments. So, Beck believes that psychological problems, emotional reactions and clinical symptoms arise due to distortions of reality based on erroneous assumptions and generalizations, there is a cognitive component between stimulus and response.

The person himself may consider them as reasonable, reasonable, although others may often perceive them as inadequate. Automatic thoughts contain a greater distortion of reality than ordinary thinking and, as a rule, are little understood by a person.

their impact on the emotional state is also adequately assessed. It also does not provide adequate regulation of behavior, which leads to maladjustment.

Within the framework of this approach, an attempt is made to identify the most typical, frequently occurring distortions or errors of thinking. Among them, such as filtering, polarization of assessments, excessive generalization or generalization, alarmism, personalization, erroneous perception of control, righteousness, erroneous ideas about justice, etc. patients with the same diagnosis, that is, certain automated thoughts that underlie the corresponding disorders.

Ellis, like Beck, believed that between stimulus and response there is a cognitive component - a person's belief system. Alice identifies two types of cognitions - descriptive and evaluative. Descriptive(descriptive) cognitions contain information about reality, information about what a person perceived in the world around him (pure information about reality). Evaluative cognitions contain a relation to this reality (evaluative information about reality). Descriptive cognitions associated with evaluative, but the connections between them can be of varying degrees of rigidity. Flexible links between descriptive and evaluative

cognitions form a rational system of attitudes (beliefs), rigid - irrational... Irrational attitudes are rigid connections between descriptive and evaluative cognitions, which are of an absolutist nature (such as prescriptions, requirements, mandatory orders that have no exceptions). Irrational attitudes do not correspond to reality, both in strength and in quality of this prescription. If a person cannot realize irrational attitudes, then the consequence of this is long-term, inappropriate to situations emotions that impede the normal functioning of the individual. From the point of view of Ellis, emotional disorders are caused precisely by disorders in the cognitive sphere, irrational beliefs or irrational attitudes.

18. BEHAVIORAL DIRECTION IN PSYCHOTHERAPY. PSYCHOTHERAPY.

From the point of view of representatives of the behavioral direction, health and illness are the result of what a person has learned and what has not been learned. Maladaptive behavior and clinical symptoms are viewed as a result of a person not learning something or learning something wrong, as a learned maladaptive response that was formed as a result of improper learning.

In accordance with these ideas about norm and pathology, the main goal of clinical and psychological interventions within the framework of the behavioral approach is to retrain, replace non-adaptive forms of behavior with adaptive, "correct", reference, normative, and the task of behavioral psychotherapy as a therapeutic system itself is in the reduction or elimination of the symptom.

In general, behavioral psychotherapy (behavior modification) is aimed at managing a person's behavior, at retraining, reducing or eliminating a symptom and approaching behavior to certain adaptive forms of behavior - to replace fear, anxiety, anxiety with relaxation until the reduction or complete elimination of symptoms, which is achieved in the process of learning through the use of certain techniques. Learning within the framework of behavioral psychotherapy is carried out on the basis of the previously discussed theories of learning, formulated by behaviorism.

In behavioral psychotherapy, learning is carried out directly, being a purposeful, systematic process, realized by both the psychotherapist and the patient.

The patient must learn and train new alternative forms of behavior. The behavior of the psychotherapist in this case is also completely determined by the theoretical orientation: if the tasks of psychotherapy are to teach, then the role and position of the psychotherapist must correspond to the role and position of the teacher or technical instructor, and the relationship between the patient and the psychotherapist is of a teaching (educational, educational) nature and can be defined as a teacher-student relationship.

Psychotherapy is an open, systematic process directly controlled by the psychotherapist. The psychotherapist, together with the patient, draw up a treatment program with a clear definition of the goal (establishing a specific behavioral reaction - a symptom that must be modified), clarifying the tasks, mechanisms, stages of the treatment process, determining what the psychotherapist will do and what the patient will do. After each psychotherapeutic session, the patient receives certain tasks,

and the psychotherapist monitors their implementation. The main function of the psychotherapist is to organize an effective learning process.

Within the framework of behavioral psychotherapy, 3 main types of it (or three groups of methods) can be distinguished, directly related to three types of learning:

3) direction, methodically based on the paradigm of social learning.

Methods based on the classical Pavlov paradigm, on classical conditioning, use the stimulus-response scheme and systematic desensitization or other methods of symptom reduction. An example of such a methodological approach is the method

classical systematic Wolpe desensitization, aimed at reducing or completely eliminating the symptom by replacing it with relaxation.

Skinner's Operant Paradigm-Based Methods, use the "reaction-stimulus" scheme and different kinds reinforcements. An example of such a methodological approach is the so-called token system, some types of training.

Methods Based on the Social Learning Paradigm, use the scheme "stimulus - intermediate variables - response". Various systems of directive psychotherapy are used here, the purpose of which is to change numerous psychological parameters, considered as intermediate variables. Depending on what psychological processes are considered as mediators (attitudes, as, for example, in rational-emotional psychotherapy Ellis, or cognition, as in Beck's cognitive psychotherapy), psychotherapeutic targets are determined. So all existing methods behavioral psychotherapy is directly related to certain theories of learning. In clinical practice, behaviorism is not only theoretical basis behavioral psychotherapy, but also had a significant impact on the development of such a direction as environmental therapy.

In contrast to the theories considered, in which innate instincts are considered as the source of the child's development, the theory of learning proceeds from the idea that it is the social environment, the influences of which shape a person, that is the main factor of his mental development. The subject of research in this area of ​​psychology is not inner world a person (not his emotions, experiences or mental actions), but externally observed behavior. Therefore, this direction was named behaviorism(from the English word behavior - behavior).

The main provisions of this theory are associated with the ideas of the famous Russian physiologist Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, who discovered the mechanism of the conditioned reflex. In his famous experiments with dogs, Pavlov showed that initially neutral stimuli for the body (sound, sight, smell) acquire physiological significance if they are associated with vital positive or negative reinforcement. For example, a bell or a light bulb before feeding, after several combinations, begins to cause salivation in the dogs. If the same signals are combined with negative reinforcement (for example, with an electric shock), they will cause a defensive reaction. This mechanism of the formation of connections between external stimuli and reactions (S - R) was put by the American scientist J. Watson, the founder of behaviorism, as the basis for the formation of human behavior in general and the development of a child in particular. However, this formula has been substantially supplemented with new factors.

Thus, the outstanding American scientist B. Skinner introduced the concept of instrumental (or operant) conditioning. If, in the classical sense, conditioning implies establishing a connection between a stimulus and a response, then with an instrumental one, certain forms of behavior are associated with subsequent reinforcement. If any sequence of actions calls for reinforcements, these actions will be repeated. For example, if the dog is given a sugar cube every time it stands on its hind legs and "dances", it is likely to repeat this action often in order to receive the desired reward. This pattern is also typical for humans. When parents reward a child for good behavior, this reward is viewed by behaviorists as positive reinforcement that reinforces the desired behaviors. In contrast, punishment is negative reinforcement that inhibits the child's misbehavior. Thus, the child learns to behave correctly and socially acceptable forms of behavior are fixed in him.

However, the stimulus-response (S - R) formula soon found its limitations. As a rule, the stimulus and response are in such difficult relationship that it is impossible to trace a direct connection between them. One of the largest representatives of neobehaviorism, E. Tolman, supplemented this scheme with an essential component. He proposed to place between S and R a middle link, or "intermediate variables" (V), as a result of which the formula acquired the following form: S - V - R. By intermediate variables, Tolman understood internal processes that mediate the action of a stimulus, i.e. affect external behavior... These include goals, ideas, desires, in a word, phenomena of the inner mental life of a person. However, these variables themselves were of interest to adherents of behaviorism only insofar as they influence human behavior.

In the 1930s, American scientists N. Miller, J. Dollard, R. Sears and others attempted to translate the most important concepts of psychoanalytic theory into the language of learning theory. It was they who introduced the concept of "social learning" into scientific use. On this basis, for more than half a century, the concept of social learning has been developed, the central problem of which is the problem of socialization. Transforming Freud's ideas, N. Miller and J. Dollard replaced the pleasure principle with the reinforcement principle. Reinforcement, they called what increases the tendency to repeat the reaction that has arisen. Learning is the strengthening of the connection between stimulus and response that occurs through reinforcement. The main forms of social reinforcement are praise, attention of adults, their assessment, etc. The task of parents is to maintain the correct, socially acceptable behavior of the child, reject unacceptable forms of behavior and thus socialize him. If there is no corresponding response in the child's repertoire of behavior, it can be acquired by observing the behavior of the “model”. Learning through imitation in social learning theory is the main way of acquiring new forms of behavior. The American psychologist A. Bandura made a special emphasis on the role of imitation. He believed that reward and punishment were not enough to shape a new behavior in a child. Children acquire new behaviors through imitation. One of the manifestations of imitation is identification - a process in which a person borrows not only actions, but also thoughts and feelings from another person acting as a “model”. Imitation leads to the fact that the child can imagine himself in the place of the "model" and feel empathy for this person.

The famous American psychologist R. Sears introduced the dyadic principle of studying child development into scientific use, according to which adaptive behavior and its reinforcement should be studied taking into account the behavior of the other partner. Sears focused on the influence of the mother on the development of the child. The main condition for learning in his theory is dependence. Reinforcement always depends on mother-child contact. The child constantly experiences dependence on the mother, and the motivation of dependence (active demand for love, attention, affection, etc.) is the most important need of the child, which cannot be ignored. At the same time, the child's development follows the path of overcoming this dependence and changing its forms. It can be seen that in this approach the theory of social learning is most closely intertwined with the ideas of psychoanalysis.

The theory of social learning is based not only on the description of behavior according to the formula "stimulus-response", but also the provisions of Freud's teachings. Freud and the behaviorists coincide not in the problem of sexuality, but in relation to the child and society. A child is viewed as a creature alien to society. He enters society as a "rat in a labyrinth," and an adult must guide him through this labyrinth, so that as a result he becomes like an adult. The initial antagonism of the child and society unites these two areas and reduces mental development to learning acceptable forms of behavior.

The development of a child from the standpoint of behaviorism is a purely quantitative process of learning, i.e. gradual accumulation of skills. This learning does not imply the emergence of qualitatively new mental formations, since it occurs in the same way at all stages of ontogenesis. Therefore, in behaviorism it comes not about the mental development of the child, but about his social learning... The experiences, ideas, interests of the child are not the subject of research here, since they cannot be seen and measured. And the adherents of behavioral psychology considered it legitimate to use only objective methods based on the registration and analysis of external observable facts and processes. This is both the strength and the weakness of the ideas of behaviorism. On the one hand, this direction of scientific thought added clarity, objectivity, "measurable ™" to psychology. Thanks to him, psychology turned to the natural science path of development and became an exact, objective science. The method of measuring behavioral reactions has become one of the main in psychology. This explains the immense popularity of behaviorism among psychologists around the world.

On the other hand, behaviorists ignored the significance of the phenomena of the human psyche (consciousness, his will and his own activity) (this weak side this direction). According to the theory of behaviorism, classical and operant conditioning are universal mechanisms of learning that are common to humans and animals. At the same time, learning occurs as if automatically: reinforcement leads to "consolidation" in nervous system successful reactions, regardless of the will and desire of the person himself. From this, behaviorists conclude that with the help of stimuli and reinforcements it is possible to "mold" any human behavior, since it is rigidly determined by them. In this understanding, a person is a slave to external circumstances and his past experience.