CASE STUDY

Case Study: Behaviourist Theory

Case Study: Behaviourist Theory

Introduction

Behaviour of a person is often linked to the environment in which one lives. According to the psychologists studying the subject behaviour believes that every individual is born with a unique system meaning, that everybody's response to a situation is different from one another in terms of reaction. Over the years these systems in humans adapt and learn new things from the surroundings, the same way other living things do (Sammons, p.1).

Behaviourist describes human behaviour in two categories:

Stimulus responsible for the change

Series of actions that caused one to react in a particular way (Andreassi, 2000, p. 10)

According to researches the series of learning process occurs by two ways known as operant conditioning and classical conditioning. Operant conditioning represents the kind of behaviour in which the person reacts to situations naturally. It means that all the reactions are involuntary and the person reacts accordingly to what he feels in a particular situation. On the other hand classical conditions denotes voluntary responses in which one is trained to react in a particular way in a particular situation (Ormrod, 2004, chapter 3).

Discussion

People Responsible For The Change In Fiona's Behaviours

Fiona is still in the early days of her childhood where she spends most part of her time with her class fellows and tutors in the school. The child usually wakes up in the moring, reaches the school by a van and enters into the school atmosphere. This is the time when the surrounding atmosphere plays a very important role in Fiona's life. She learns what she sees, reacts the way her surroundings responds and in short her innocent mind gets adapted to the whole situation or the scenario she lives in (Greenberg et. al, 2003, p. 466).

If we talk about each factor that affects Fiona's behaviour separately then accordingly the most important is the role of teachers. Teachers are the sole mentors of a student in the early stages of life. The way they deal to each situation of the classroom affects Fiona both positively and negatively. The positive change in Fiona's behaviour it means that the teacher is cooperative with her, helps her when she gets stucked in different class activities, motivates her, encourages her over the good things she do, avoids favouritism, avoids discrimination on the basis of physical characteristics of a child, helps her in the process of learning and most importantly teachs her without serious punishments (Stratton, 2004, p. 105).

On the other hand if we talk about the variation in a her behaviour negatively then it means the teacher is not supportive, does not help her when she faces any problem rather leaves her unattended, follows favouritism on the basis of the class performances and treat children on the basis of physical attributes, discourages her when she do something wrong and also engage her in several punishments as a revenge to the misconduct she follows (Ayers, 2000, p. 5).

Secondly the most important aspect of change in behaviour of ...