Behavior Rehearsal Paper

376 Words2 Pages
Behavior Rehearsal Therapy came from observational learning techniques that were popularized by Albert Bandura in the 1960’s, leading into the ‘70’s. Although Albert Bandura was a social learning theorist, he placed great emphasis on observational learning. He believed observational learning was based on three principles; vicarious reinforcement, modeling, and behavior rehearsal. “Vicarious reinforcement is being influenced by seeing someone else get reinforced, modeling is learning by watching another person perform a behavior, and behavior rehearsal is acting out a behavior to learn and refine as a skill” (Dewey, 2007, p.1). Behavior rehearsal therapy is an extension of behaviorism and experimental methods of psychology. The idea of behaviorism is that “all behaviors are caused by events in the environment, factors outside of themselves” (Parrott III, 2003, p. 270). John B. Watson contributed to the behaviorism movement by factoring in the study of overt behavior. He basically sought to prove that a “phobia could be induced by external forces alone” (Parrott III, 2003, p.270). In one study, he presented an 11-month old infant with a white rat, tamed. He then crashed the hammer against a steel bar above the infant’s head. After he repeated this act several times, the infant was conditioned and therefore showed a strong fear of the rat and also generalized the fear to other furry animals, like rabbits (Parrott III, 2003). In other prospects, Ivan Pavlov and his conditioned response technique, as well as, B.F. Skinner and his operant conditioning through use of pigeons, held important emphasis on the behavioristic thinking and movement. Albert Bandura ultimately placed the majority of the influence through his social modeling approach, which included behavior rehearsal therapy. The entire group of “behavioral” psychologist held to the knowledge and belief that
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