What is behaviorism?

Behaviorism focuses on understanding and influencing behavior through external stimuli. A stimulus is anything outside of you that can cause a reaction, like a sound or a visual. Behaviorism looks at how these stimuli can be associated with certain behaviors.

It is of two types:

• The first form of behaviorism is classical conditioning, made famous by Ivan Pavlov. In his experiment, Pavlov got dogs to salivate at the sound of a bell by repeatedly pairing the bell with food. The dogs learned to associate the bell with food, so they would salivate even when only the bell was present. This is classical conditioning, where a neutral stimulus (the bell) becomes associated with a natural response (salivation).
• Operant conditioning, developed by B.F. Skinner, is more relevant to gamification. In operant conditioning, behaviors are influenced by their consequences. A behavior is followed by a positive or negative reinforcement. Positive reinforcement means getting a reward, like money or food, which encourages the behavior. Negative reinforcement can be a punishment or the removal of a benefit, which discourages the behavior.^[1]

Gamification uses these principles to encourage specific behaviors. The key idea is that the consequences of user actions influence their future behavior.