Chapter 1 The Three Main Theories Underlying Behaviour Management If we want to understand behavior, we have three powerful theories we can turn to. They are behavioural theory, cognitive theory and humanist theory. •
Behaviourist theory is about managing behaviour by attaching rewards and costs to behaviours.
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Cognitive theory deals with the ways in which people process information and understand the world.
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Humanist theory is about understanding and meeting people’s emotional and psychological needs. In this chapter we will consider these three theories.
A. Behavioural Theory Behavioural theory is based on the observation that all animals respond in a patterned way to regular stimuli. A certain stimulus is associated with a certain response. The model used to describe this shows the mind as a black box with a stimulus going in and a response coming out. S
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This simple idea lies behind all the animal experiments we are familiar with. For example, if rats are given a lump of cheese every time they touch a green bar with their nose and an electric shock each time they touch a red bar, they will soon start touching the green bar all the time. These theories give us insights into human behaviour and they can be applied in the schools environment.
1. The importance of the proximal environment. People are strongly influenced by their immediate surroundings. It is a commonplace observation that if we follow a class of students around a school their behaviour will vary dramatically from one class to another. That variation will be largely accounted for by the behaviour of the teachers and teaching assistants in the different rooms. As teachers we often attribute pupils’ behaviour to their psychological characteristics or social background. However, when we put our behaviourist spectacles on we are reminded that the first place to look when understanding how to manage behaviour is the immediate environment – the classroom.
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