A bell, a plate of food, and a cat that does not startle

Behaviorism, in this account, holds that human behavior can be learned and revised according to the stimuli and the reinforcements in the environment. Pavlov contributes classical conditioning and reciprocal inhibition; Skinner contributes operant conditioning through reinforcement. Social-work practice, the paper says, takes those principles and turns them into methods for increasing a desired behavior and for reducing a problem one.

The classical story is the familiar one, told carefully. A dog's response to food is an unconditioned response; a bell begins as a neutral stimulus; presented together, the bell later works on its own. Operant conditioning is given as an active process: a behavior is repeated or disappears according to its result. Fear and anxiety, treated as neurotic behaviors, are also described as learned, and therefore as something that can be offset by another behavior. The illustration is a hungry cat offered food together with a weak electric shock that is gradually increased; the anxiety response, the paper says, did not appear. That is the door into reciprocal inhibition.

Six ways of loosening fear, and a habit that becomes a personality

The methods are listed as tools, not as slogans. Assertiveness training has a person who is anxious in relationships practice assertive behavior, so that the anxiety falls. Relaxation training repeats muscle tension and release in order to overcome fear. Systematic desensitization asks someone, already relaxed, to recall an anxious situation and to get through it. Implosion has the person face the problem without avoiding it, so that the anxious element can be removed. Flooding presents that element again and again until the fear is no longer felt. Emotional imagery is described as a psychological treatment that concentrates on a positive image.

Skinner's side of the paper is about accumulation. Early stimuli and reinforced behaviors become habits, and habits pile up into a personality. Behavior and reinforcement, he is said to have insisted, stand in a very close relation. The same learning principle can still produce different development from one person to another, because of differences in genetics and in environment. A sound personality, in this telling, is the result of stimulus and of a discriminating ability that have grown in a suitable way.

Raising a behavior, lowering one, and a warning

To raise a behavior, the paper offers a practical shelf. Positive reinforcement is a welcome reward — praise, candy, free time. Negative reinforcement teaches that the right behavior can get a person out of an unpleasant situation. A token is given when a target number or a target period is reached. Differential reinforcement rewards only the correct behavior; intermittent reinforcement rewards it only some of the time. Shaping raises the reward at each step. Fading, in the example given, teaches writing by slowly thinning the letters from dark to faint. A behavior contract asks the social worker and the client to record the goals and the rewards in a specific way.

To lower a problem behavior, the list is sterner: reinforce an opposite, appropriate action; cut off the reinforcing stimulus so the behavior is extinguished; use punishment; give a timeout in another space, for a period of self-restraint; apply stimulus satiation, a stimulus strong enough that it becomes sickening; and, last, aversion therapy, which brings an aversive stimulus in alongside, and which the paper flags as needing ethical care. If you are writing a practice essay, that last caution is as much a finding as the techniques themselves. This is a social-work toolbox, not a lecture on watching a classmate.

Sources

1. A campus paper on Pavlov's classical conditioning and Skinner's operant conditioning, written for social-work practice, including reciprocal-inhibition methods and techniques for increasing or decreasing behavior, with an ethical caution on aversion therapy.

Last updated: 14 November 2026