Behavior in Psychology: Definitions, Manifestations, and Learning Theories

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Behavior in Psychology: Definitions, Manifestations, and Learning Theories

Psychology of Personality · Chapter 8: Behavioral and Learning TheoriesSection 8.1 · lesson 46 of 838 min · free with a free account

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In this lesson

What counts as behavior, what shapes it, and why early behaviorists chose watching over asking.

  • Define behavior as the behavioral tradition uses the word
  • Distinguish overt, covert, verbal, reflexive and learned forms
  • Name the determinants behavioral theorists emphasise
  • Explain what the observability rule buys and what it costs

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Transcript

Everything said in the video, section by section (1,091 words). Read along, or search it.

Behavioral and Learning Theories

Behavior in Psychology

Early psychology had a data problem it could not solve by being more careful. Its evidence was people's reports of their own inner experience. And no outside observer could check whether those reports were accurate. The behaviorists' answer was to change what counted as evidence entirely. Study only what can be seen, recorded, and verified from outside. This section defines behavior in that strict sense. It sets out the forms behavior takes, and the factors that shape it. And it looks squarely at what that definition buys, and what it leaves out.

The Problem

Introspection Cannot Be Checked

Start with the problem, because the definition is a response to it. Introspection asks a person to observe their own mental states, and report them. The difficulty is not that people are dishonest. It is that if two researchers disagree about what a participant felt, there is nothing to appeal to. The data exist inside one head, and nowhere else. So the behaviorists made a hard methodological choice. Restrict psychology to what can be seen, recorded, and verified by an outside observer. That single move is what gave early behaviorism a claim to be a rigorous empirical science. It is worth noticing how radical it was. Whole categories of evidence were simply discarded.

Definition

Behavior Is What an Observer Can Record

So here is the definition the tradition works with. Behavior is any observable, measurable action or reaction of an organism to its environment. Every word in that sentence is doing work. Observable rules out anything only the person themselves can access. Measurable means it can be counted, timed, or rated by someone else. And reaction to its environment ties the behavior to a stimulus that can also be described. The range of what qualifies is deliberately wide. It runs from simple reflexes at one end. To complex, learned patterns of conduct at the other. Learning, in this vocabulary, means a relatively lasting change in behavior due to experience.

Manifestations

Five Forms, One Standard

Behavior shows up in several distinct forms, and the differences matter for measurement. Overt behavior is directly visible. Raising a hand. Covert behavior is internal but still measurable. An increased heart rate. Verbal behavior conveys information through language. Answering a question. Reflexive behavior is an automatic, unlearned reaction. Blinking at a bright light. And learned behavior is acquired through experience. Riding a bicycle. The covert category is the one students most often misread. Covert does not mean private, and it does not mean mental. Heart rate and muscle tension are internal, but an instrument can measure them. So they pass the observability test. A private feeling does not.

The Payoff

Precision Instead of Impression

Why bother sorting behavior this way at all? Because it lets psychologists describe and quantify conduct precisely. Instead of relying on vague impressions of a person. Consider the difference between two statements about the same meeting. He seemed anxious. That cannot be counted, or compared across observers. He interrupted eleven times in twenty minutes. That can. And verbal behavior, though it carries meaning, can still be recorded and coded. This is the methodological bargain in one line. Give up the inner report. Gain a number that two researchers can agree on.

Determinants

What Actually Shapes Behavior

Now to the harder question. What actually shapes behavior? Behavioral theory names three sources that interact rather than compete. Biological predispositions, which the organism brings to the situation. Environmental stimuli, meaning the events that surround and prompt the behavior. And learning history, the accumulated record of what has happened before. The word interaction matters here. None of the three acts alone, and no behavior is traced to a single source. A determinant, in this vocabulary, is simply a factor that shapes or causes behavior.

The Emphasis

Where Behaviorists Put the Weight

All three factors are acknowledged. But they are not weighted equally. Behavioral theorists stress environmental stimuli and learning history. Biological predispositions are acknowledged, and then treated largely as a backdrop. It is worth being precise about what is being claimed. Not that biology is irrelevant. That would be a much stronger, and much weaker, position. The claim is about proportion. That much of what people do is acquired through experience. And that emphasis is what makes the rest of the chapter possible. If behavior were mostly innate, conditioning would have very little left to explain.

The Consequence

Personality as a Learned Repertoire

Now the definition starts doing real work. For the behavioral tradition, personality is the sum of a person's characteristic learned behaviors. Not a hidden inner essence that produces those behaviors. Compare that with the more familiar picture. Usually we say a person has a trait, which sits inside, and that behavior leaks out of it. The behavioral account says something different. A person does a set of things reliably. That pattern is the personality. There is nothing further behind it that the pattern is evidence of. This is not a softer or more modest claim. It is a genuinely different account of what a person is.

In Practice

The Student Who Arrives Early

Take a concrete case, because the abstraction can slide past. A student consistently arrives early, takes detailed notes, and participates actively. A trait theorist reads this as evidence of an underlying disposition. Conscientiousness, perhaps, showing itself through behavior. A behaviorist reads the pattern itself as the meaningful unit. Both are looking at the same student. They disagree about what the pattern is, not about what it looks like. For the behaviorist, that consistent set of learned behaviors is a meaningful part of the student's personality. No further inner cause needs to be posited to explain it.

The Limit

What the Rule Deliberately Excludes

It would be dishonest to present this definition without naming its cost. Thoughts and feelings are not denied by behaviorists. They are ruled out of the evidence base, because they cannot be publicly checked. That exclusion is the tradition's greatest strength. It is also its standing weakness, and the criticism it has never fully shaken off. It bought objectivity, and a genuinely testable science. It also left out much of what people mean when they talk about someone's inner life. Later sections in this chapter meet that objection directly. And the social learning theorists eventually let cognition back in through the front door.

Consolidate

Three Things to Carry Forward

Three things to carry forward from this section. First, behavior is defined by observability. Any observable, measurable action or reaction of an organism to its environment. Second, its determinants are weighted toward experience. Environmental stimuli and learning history do the explanatory work, with biology behind them. Third, personality is a repertoire, not an essence. A set of characteristic learned behaviors, shaped largely by environment and learning. Everything else in this chapter follows from that first line. Classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and social learning are all answers to one question. How does experience install a behavior?

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FAQ

Questions students ask us

About Behavior in Psychology: Definitions, Manifestations, and Learning Theories

How do behaviorists define behavior?
Behaviorists define behavior as any observable, measurable action or reaction of an organism to its environment. Observable excludes anything only the person can access, measurable means someone else can count, time, or rate it, and reaction to the environment ties it to a describable stimulus. The definition covers everything from simple reflexes to complex learned conduct, and learning means a relatively lasting change in behavior due to experience.
What is the difference between overt and covert behavior?
Overt behavior is directly visible, such as raising a hand, while covert behavior is internal but can still be measured, such as an increased heart rate or muscle tension. Covert does not mean private or mental; an instrument can record it, so it passes the observability test, whereas a private feeling does not. Behavior can also be verbal, reflexive, such as blinking at a bright light, or learned, such as riding a bicycle.
What shapes behavior according to behavioral theory?
Behavioral theory names three interacting sources of behavior: biological predispositions, environmental stimuli, and learning history. They are not weighted equally. Behaviorists stress environmental stimuli and the accumulated record of past experience, while treating biology largely as a backdrop. The claim is about proportion, not that biology is irrelevant: much of what people do is acquired through experience, which is why conditioning has so much to explain.
How does behaviorism define personality?
Behaviorism defines personality as the sum of a person's characteristic learned behaviors, not a hidden inner essence that produces them. A trait theorist would call a student who reliably arrives early, takes detailed notes, and participates conscientious. A behaviorist treats that consistent pattern itself as the personality. Thoughts and feelings are not denied, but they are excluded from the evidence because they cannot be publicly checked.

About the Psychology of Personality course

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Psychology of Personality (Psychology 300) carries a NCCRS credit recommendation for 3 semester credits. ACE and NCCRS have over 2,100 cooperating colleges that will consider accepting credits; the final decision is with the universities.
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