Behaviorism

After this week's class, I thought about the discussion and presentation on behaviorism some more, and came to realize just how much of an impact behaviorism has in my work life. I attended a management training that was presented to management staff who supervise one or more employees and the goal was to inform managers of different types of conflicts that could arise in the workplace, along with solutions to those problems. The room of managers broke up in to teams of "employees" and "supervisors" and we conducted a role playing scenario of what-if scenarios. We presented in teams in front of the entire group and were evaluated by the human resources personnel conducting the training and at every step of the simulation, we were informed of good vs. bad behavior. We were also "rewarded" with a free pen or other types of incentives, when we handled a situation well. The second half of the training had us break in to teams and we were tested on what we learned that day, and the team with the highest score won gift cards. Looking at this training now from my newly gained knowledge on behaviorism, it is interesting to see just how much of an influence it still has on our lives as adult learners in the workplace.