Pros And Cons Of Extrinsic Motivation

Whereas some studies have shown that contingently applied extrinsic rewards decrease intrinsic motivation created by an interesting task, an equal number of studies have failed to support this phenomenon, known as the over justification effect. Research studies from work and organizational psychology journals were categorized according to whether intrinsic motivation had been measured via free-time or task performance measures. Results of a meta-analysis, testing for a moderator effect, show that support for the over justification effect occurs only when intrinsic motivation is operationalized as task behavior during a free-time measure. In contrast, task performance measures indicate that the effects of intrinsic and extrinsic rewards on

Skinner, like Watson, also recognized the role of internal mental events, and while he agreed such private events cannot be used to explain behavior he proposed they should be explained in the analysis of behavior.

Another important distinction between methodological and radical behaviorism concerns the extent to which environmental factors influence behavior. Watson's (1913) methodological behaviorism asserts the mind is tabula rasa (a blank slate) at birth. In contrast, radical behaviorism accepts the view that organisms are born with innate behaviors, and thus recognizes the role of genes and biological components in behavior. Critical Evaluation

An obvious advantage of behaviorism is its ability to clearly define behavior and to measure changes in behavior. According to the law of parsimony, the fewer assumptions a theory makes, the better and the more credible it is. Behaviorism, therefore, looks for simple explanations of human behavior from a very scientific

Despite these criticisms behaviorism has made significant contributions to psychology. These include insights into learning, language development, and moral and gender development, which have all been explained in terms of conditioning.
The contribution of behaviorism can be seen in some of its practical applications. Behavior therapy and behavior modification represent one of the major approaches to the treatment of abnormal behavior and are readily used in clinical psychology.

CONCLUSION

There is little difference between the learning that takes place in humans and that in other animals:
There's no fundamental (qualitative) distinction between human and animal behavior.
Therefore, research can be carried out on animals as well as humans (i.e. comparative psychology).

Consequently, rats and pigeons became the primary source of data for behaviorists, as their environments could be easily controlled.
Behavior is the result of stimulus – response:

All behavior, no matter how complex, can be reduced to a simple stimulus – response association). Watson described the purpose of psychology