Incentive motivation and the aquistion of motivation for mastery, which ususally procede in stages from very concrete rewards to those that require a sense of satisfaction , are derived from self-imposed standards which behaviorists attribute to the establishment of states of expectancy. His goal was to discover the laws that govern learning. Skinner defined learning as a more or less permanent change in behavior that can be detected by observing an organism over a period of time. From this, Skinner identified two classes of behavior - respondent and operant.
Respondent behavior refers to behavior that is elicited involuntarily in reaction to a stimulus.
Operant behavior is simply emitted by an organism, that is, all organisms are inherently active, emitting responses that operate in the environment. The behaviorist key concepts reinforcement, objectivism and environmentalism all are significant in the framework of instructional designs. Behaviorism has influenced the design of instruction in many ways. Three major implications of behavior theory in instruction have been to strengthen, weaken and teach behaviors. These methods are used primarily by Special Educators to change inappropriate student behavior.