My textbook says that behaviorists believe that all behavior is learned. Do behavior analysts believe that all behavior is learned?
No. All behaviorists know that organisms are born with many specific, sometimes very complex patterns of behavior. No one believes that spiders learn to spin webs. No one seriously questions that the tendency of border collies to herd sheep (versus poodles, for instance) is inborn and due to selective breeding. But the question is not always where the behavior came from, but what is making it occur right now, how it might be changed, or what you might have to do to make it happen in the future. Behaviorists are often concerned that people believe that an innate behavior is also hard to change. Some behavior is hard to change, are and some is not. The degree to which an unlearned behavior can be changed is as much a function of our knowledge about the behavior as the behavior itself. It was not that long ago that the behaviors associated with developmental disabilities were thought to be almost impossible to change. Applied behavior analysts often seem to disregard the unlearned origins
No. All behaviorists know that organisms are born with many specific, sometimes very complex patterns of behavior. No one believes that spiders learn to spin webs. No one seriously questions that the tendency of border collies to herd sheep (versus poodles, for instance) is inborn and due to selective breeding. But the question is not always where the behavior came from, but what is making it occur right now, how it might be changed, or what you might have to do to make it happen in the future. Behaviorists are often concerned that people believe that an innate behavior is also hard to change. Some behavior is hard to change, are and some is not. The degree to which an unlearned behavior can be changed is as much a function of our knowledge about the behavior as the behavior itself. It was not that long ago that the behaviors associated with developmental disabilities were thought to be almost impossible to change. Applied behavior analysts often seem to disregard the unlearned origins
