The Balancing Stones Sculpture Writing Project
February - March 2017
Good Afternoon everyone ~ We are back here to continue with our Writing Project. We are about to progress to Stone 8. Everyone should have written a full Journal page to prepare us to come up with our Stone 8 word. Our Instructions from our last session were as follows...
Stone 8
Previous Instructions: You were to complete a full Journal page about the
Writing Angle you used for your Stone 7 word. For instance, my Stone 7 word was "Behavorism".
My Writing Angle was Novelist.
You were instructed to connect your Stone 7 word with
your Writing Angle. So, I wrote a full page about the behavorism of a Novelist. I
found it to be a rather interesting thing to do! Depending upon your Stone 7 word and
your Writing Angle, your assignment may have been humorous, or a serious
assignment that really made you think deep.
Be sure to label the top of your full
Journal page that you have written: (Stone 8
Prep).
Below is my full page Journal example
for your reading review (Stone 8 Prep).
After you have read over my example, then we will go right to how we
will get to our Stone 8 word and what that will consist of…
(Stone 8 – PREP)
Full Journal Page
Stone 7 Word: “Behavorism”
Writing Angle: Novelist
Recognizing that as a Novelist, there is a certain
pattern of behavior that most Novelists adhere to – the question that comes to
mind is, “What pattern of behavior is it that most Novelists adhere to?”. Patterns of behavior are normally explained
in terms of conditioning without appeal to thoughts or feelings. Knowing also that psychological disorders are
best treated by altering behavior patterns, the next question that comes to
mind is, “How many Novelists have psychological disorders?”.
On dealing with the behaviorism of a Novelist, an understanding
of the systematic approach comes into play with a regard to human
behavior. All behaviors are either reflexes produced by a response to certain stimuli in the environment, or a
consequence of the individual's history, including especially reinforcement and
punishment, together with the individual's current motivational state and
controlling stimuli. Thus, although behaviorists generally accept the important
role of inheritance in determining behavior, they focus primarily on
environmental factors.
As behavior relates to a Novelist, the whole topic of “behaviorism” has
to be brought to the forefront to consider how the two relate to one another.
Behaviorism combines elements of philosophy, methodology, and
psychological theory. It emerged in the late nineteenth century as a reaction
to depth psychology and
other traditional forms of psychology, which often had difficulty making
predictions that could be tested experimentally. The earliest derivatives of
Behaviorism can be traced back to the late 1800s where Edward Thorndike pioneered
the law of effect (a process that involved strengthening
behavior through the use of reinforcement).
During the first half of the twentieth century, John B. Watson devised
methodological behaviorism, which rejected introspective methods and sought to understand behavior by only
measuring observable behaviors and events. It was not until the 1930s that B. F. Skinner suggested
that private events—including thoughts and feelings—should be subjected to the
same controlling variables as observable behavior which became the basis for
his philosophy called radical behaviorism. While Watson and Ivan Pavlov investigated
the stimulus-response procedures of classical conditioning, Skinner assessed the controlling nature of consequences and also the antecedents (or discriminative stimuli) that signal the behavior; the technique became known as operant conditioning.
The application of radical behaviorism (known as applied behavior analysis) is
used in a variety of settings, including, for example, organizational behavior management, to the treatment of mental disorders, such as autism and substance abuse. In addition, while behaviorism and
cognitive schools of psychological thought may not agree theoretically, they
have complemented each other in cognitive behavior therapies, which
have demonstrated utility in treating certain pathologies, including simple phobias, PTSD, and mood disorders.
While there
are many areas of “behaviorism” that can be studied, as it relates to a “Novelist”,
there is only one specific area that comes into focus: 1) Radical behaviorism: Skinner's behaviorism theorizes that processes within the organism should be
acknowledged, particularly the presence of private events (such as thoughts and
feelings), and suggests that environmental variables also control these
internal events just as they control observable behaviors. Radical behaviorism
forms the core philosophy behind behavior analysis. Willard Van Orman Quine used many of radical behaviorism's ideas in
his study of knowledge and language.
By René Allen
©Copyright - René Allen - MARCH 2017 - All Rights Reserved
____________________________________________
After you have read my full page Journal example, you have an idea of how to connect your Stone 7 word with your Writing Angle.
In essence, the instruction was for me to connect my Stone 7 word, which is "Behaviorism" with my Writing Angle, which is "Novelist".
Now that you have written your full Journal page and connected your Stone 7 word with your Writing Angle, you need to take a look at what you wrote.
Ask yourself the following:
1) What knowledge did you gain?
2) Does your writing inspire you to write further?
3) Does your Journal page lead you to other topics of interest?
4) What is the one word that jumps out at you from your writing?
For our Stone 8, you are to use the word that jumps out at you from the full journal page that you wrote.
Take a moment to print out the Balancing Stones Sculpture and place your word for your Stone 8 in the position closest to your Stone 7.
Think about the word that you chose for your Stone 8. Think about the word in relation to the Writing Angle that you have been using to write your Journal pages thus far. We've only written two (about Stone 6 and Stone 7). Next, we will come back here for the next Instruction.
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to post them on the Blog. I will be sharing the feed-back received in our next Session (both on G+ and on the Blog).
See you back here shortly!
Peace, Love & Light,
René
© Copyright - René Allen - FEBRUARY - MARCH 2017 - All Rights Reserved
