John B Watson

John B Watson is considered to be the 'father' of behaviourism
"Strict behaviourists believed that all behaviours were the result of conditioning. Any person, regardless of his or her background, could be trained to act in a particular manner given the right conditioning."

CLASSIC CONDITIONING is a technique used in behavioural training in which a naturally occurring stimulus is paired with a response. Next a previously neutral stimulus is paired with the naturally occurring stimulus . Eventually the previously neutral stimulus comes to evoke the response without the presence of the naturally occurring stimulus. The two elements are then known as the conditioned stimulus and the conditioned response.

OPERANT CONDITIONING (sometimes referred to as instrumental conditioning) is a method of learning that occurs through reinforcements and punishments for behaviour. Through operant conditioning an association is made between a behaviour and the consequence for that behaviour. When a desirable result follows an action, the behaviour becomes more likely to occur again in the future. Responses followed by adverse outcomes, on the other hand, become less likely to happen again in the future

The second conditioning technique fits in more with B.F.Skinner and his influences on behaviourism. He did 'radical Behaviourism', his theories being that the response rate is directly related to the reinforcement presented after the action. He invented the 'skinner box' in which the test subject (usually a rat) would be tasked with pulling a lever which would release a treat. This experiment showed that the positive reinforcement encouraged the action to be done again.

The classic conditioning was discovered by Ivan Pavlov. Theres an experiment I read up on last year (i will find it and post it later) but basically there was a group of monkeys and they put a structure in the centre with something desirable at the top. But if a monkey went to get the thing all the monkeys were punished. Eventually the monkeys started attacking any others who tried to get the desirable for fear of being punished. Which supports the operant conditioning theory. The experiment continued with slowly replacing the monkeys one by one, as each new one came in they would go for the desirable and the others would react violently and stop them. Eventually all the original monkeys were gone and the ones there still stopped any others climbing to the desirable although none of them was ever exposed to the punishment. It became a social norm among them, a known rule.