According to behaviorists, people of all ages learn in the same way?

Question

--basically, by classical or operant conditioning. Is the idea that children and adults learn in the same way consistent with your experience, or can you think of aspects or types of learning that seem to be different at different ages.

Answer 1

I think you might be over-generalizing a bit there...

Behaviourism is an attempt to frame psychology without ever referring to the 'black box' that is another person's thoughts. It seems to me to be a natural outgrowth of the conflict that arises when trying to be scientific about a subject which has so far largely evaded the development of objective measurement devices. There is no tool to measure thoughts, so conjecturing about them is scientifically pointless.

On the other hand, everything else that is measurable IS fair game to a behaviourist. This includes - but is not limited to - age, gender, genetic makeup, hair colour, tongue mass, bran scans, and just about anything else objective that you wish to toss in.

What it does not include is the question of whether a particular person actually KNOWS anything you teach them, curiously enough. Instead, a behaviourist would probably be curious about, say, performance on a standardized test.

So though I think you are right in saying that behaviourists believe that all people learn through a kind of conditioning, I don't think you are correct in saying that they believe that age is not a factor in exactly what kind of conditioning people respond to best.

So, for example, it would be nothing less than ignorant for a behaviourist to assume that all 90-year-olds have the same hearing capabilities of an 18-year-old and thus can learn information presented auditorially whith exactly the same efficacy. Hearing ability is something that can be measured, however, so they don't have to ignore this! It is likewise foolish to assume that infants who can't even read can learn as much from a book as an older person who can. But again, linguistic behaviour is something that can be measured!

Behaviourists are not fools. They are just playing by slightly different rules than other people. Once you learn the ground rules, however, there is really not very much that's limiting about it... and it's probably a good way to avoid leaping to unwarranted conclusions (such as the supposed connection between performance on an IQ test and actual intelligence).

Answer 2

No. Toddlers often learn about objects by putting them in thier mouths. Adolescents and adults do that too, but not as often. That would be classical conditioning because the reward is that they learn about the object, increasing the likelyhood they'll do the same thing again.

Answer 3

all people attack anything in their air space and destroy it with the most devastating righteousness possible but i don't want u to become sensitive in your grouped thoughts here, u seem so secure