Chapter 9 - Behaviorism antecedent influences

Clever Hans - the wonder horse and math genius

- owner- Wilhelm von Osten
- his goal was to prove that Darwin was correct in suggesting that humans and animals have similar mental
processes

Toward a science of behavior

- functionalism was matureing while structuralism maintained a strong but no longer exclusive position

- the year 1913 brought a declaration of war that intended a deliberate break of structuralism and
functionalism - called Behaviorism
- founder of behaviorism - John B. Watson- wanted no modification of the past
- he called for a scientific psychology that dealt only with observable behaviorial acts that could be
described objectively in terms such as "stimulus" and "response"
- his psychology rejected all mentalistic concepts and terms such as image , sensation, mind , and
consciousness and introspection, which assumed the existence of conscience processes were
meaningless and irrelevant to him

- the major forces that watson effectively brought together to form his system of behavioral psychology
were : The philosophical tradition of objectivism and mechanism, animal psychology , and functional
psychology

- the recognition of the need for greater objectivity in psychology can be traced to Descartes, whose
mechanistic explanations for the operations of the human body where among the initial steps towards an
objective science

- more important in the history of objectivism is, the french philosopher,

Auguste Comte - founder of the movement known as positivism that emphasized a (facts), the truth of
which was not debatable
- according to him, the only valid knowledge is that which is social in nature and objectively observable.
These criteria rule out introspection, which depends on a private individual consciousness and cannot be
objectively observed

- by the time Watson set the work on his Behaviorism, the objectivistic, mechanistic, and materialistic
influences were so pervasive that they led inevitably to a new kind of psychology- one without
consciousness, mind, or soul- one that focused on only what could be seen, heard, and touched. The result
was a science of behavior that viewed human beings as machines.

The influence of animal psychology on behaviorism

-(relationship between animal psychology and Behaviorism) Behaviorism - is a direct outgrowth of studies
in animal behavior during the first decade of the 20th century (the most important antecedent of Watson's
program was animal psychology - grew out of evolutionary theory and led to attempts to demonstrate the
existence of mind in lower organisms and the continuity between animals and human minds
-George Romanes and Conwy Morgan - 2 pioneers in animal psychology whose influence persisted for
quite some time (animal psychology became more objective)
Alfred Binet- published the psychic life of microorganisms
Francis Darwin- discussed the role of consciousness in plants

Jacques Loeb
- a significant step toward greater objectivity in animal psychology can be credited to him
- develop a theory of animal behavior based on the concept of tropism- an involuntary forced movement
- he believed that an animal's reaction to a stimulus is direct an automatic, thus the behavioral response it
said to be forced by the stimulus and does not require any explanation in terms of the animal's alleged
consciousness
- although his work represented the most objective and mechanistic approach to animal psychology of its
time, he had not totally cast off the past and did not reject consciousness in animals(humans) that were
high on the evolutionary scale
- he argued that animal consciousness was revealed by associative memory - which is the animals had
learned to react to certain stimuli in a desirable way and defined as an association between stimulus and
response, taken to indicate evidence of consciousness in animals

Rats, Ants, and the animal mind

Robert Yerkes - began animal studies in

1900 using a variety of animals, and his research strengthened the position and influence of comparative
psychology

Willard Small- introduced the rat maze in 1900 which became a standard method for the study of learning.
Yet consciousness continued to intrude in animal psychology, even with the rat running the maze. In
interpreting the rat's behavior, used mentalistic terms
- over his conclusions for more objective than those produced by Romane's athropomorphizing they too
reflected a concern with mental processes and elements

Henry Turner - an african american graduate who published an article titled ” a preliminary note on ant
behavior", published so much research on comparative and animal studies in psychology

- by 1910, 8 comparative psychology laboratories had been established

- Margaret Floy Washburn - published "The Animal Mind" which was the first comparative psychology
textbook published in the united states
- in her work, the attribution of a consciousness to animals persisted , as did the method of introspecting
the animal mind by analogy with the human mind

On becoming an animal psychologist

- in 1908, only six animal studies were published in psychology journals

- in 1911, the Journal of Animal Behavior later known as the (Journal of Comparative Psychology) began
publication
- in 1906, a lecture by the russian psychologist, Ivan Pavlov, was reprinted in the journal, Science,
introducing his work on animal psychology to the american audience
Ivan Pavlov
- his research supported an objective psychology and watson's behaviorism in particular
- the trend toward greater objectivity in the study of animal behavior was strongly supported by events in
germany in 1904 which was the year that the government established a committee which included Carl
Strumpf to examine Clever Hans's powers and determine whether any deception or trickery was involved
- the committee concluded that the wonder horse was not receiving intentional signals or cues from his
owner
-Oskar Pfungst - a graduate student assigned by Carl Strumpf to examine the wonder horse in the manner
of an experimental psychologist
- he concluded that the wonder horse had been unintentionally conditioned by his owner, Von Osten
- his experimental report about the wonder horse was revealed by john b watson for the Journal of
Comparative Neurology and P,sychology, and its conclusions influenced watson's growing inclination to
promote a psychology that would deal only with behavior and not with consciousness

Edward Lee Thorndike

- he was one of the most important researchers in the development of animal psychology
- he fashioned a mechanistic, objective learning theory that focused on overt behavior
- he believed that psychology must study behavior , not mental elements or conscious experiences , and
thus he reinforced the trend toward greater objectivity began by the functionalists
- he did not interpret learning subjectively but rather in terms of concrete connections between stimuli and
response, although he did permit some reference to consciousness and mental processes
- the works of thorndike and pavlov provide an example of independent simultaneous discovery in which
thorndike developed his law of effect in 1898 and pavlov proposed a similar law of reinforcement in 1902
- he studied chicks
- he called his experimental approach to the study of association - connectionism- an approach to learning
that was based on connections between situations and responses
- instead of talking about associations or connections between ideas , he was dealing with connections
between objectively verifiable situations and responses
- although he developed a theory within a more objective frame of reference , he continued to invoke
mental processes
- he retained the influence of Romanes and Morgan because his terms were more mentalistic than
behavioristic
- his objective analysis of animal behavior often incorporated subjective judgments about the animals
alleged conscious experiences
- he was not freely granting high levels of consciousness and intelligence to animals as extravagantly as
Romanes had
- you can see a steady reduction in the importance of consciousness in animal psychology from its
beginnings to thorndike's time along with an increasing use of the experimental method to study behavior
- his approach was indeed in the mechanistic tradition
- he argued that behavior must be reduced to its simplest elements: The stimulus-response units
- he shared with the structuralists and the british empiricists a mechanistic, analytical, and atomistic point of
view
- stimulus-response units : Are the elements of behavior which are not of consciousness and are the
building blocks from which more complex behaviors are compounded
- he designed and built crude puzzle boxes out of old crates and sticks, to be used for his research on
animal learning
- to escape from the box , animal had to learn to operate a latch
- he traced his idea for the puzzle box as an apparatus for studying learning to the anecdotal reports of
Romanes and Morgan that describe the way cats and dogs opened latches on gates
- he used quantitative church of learning to record his data
- response tendencies that led to success were stamped in after a number of trials, this kind of learning has
come to be known as trial and error learning - learning based on the repetition of response tendencies that
lead to success, although he preferred to call it trial and accidental success
- he formally presented his ideas stamping in and stamping out of a response tendency as the law of effect
- acts that produce satisfaction in a given situation become associated with the situation, when the situation
recurs, the act is likely to recur. Conversely, an act which in a given situation produces discomfort becomes
dissociated from that situation , so that when the situation recurs the act is less likely than before to recur
- a companion law which is the law of exercise of the law of use and disuse- it's that any response made in
a particular situation becomes associated with that situation. - the more an act or response is used in a
given situation, more strongly the act becomes associated with that situation. Conversely, prolonged disuse
of the response tends to weaken the association. In other words simply repeating a response in a given
situation tends to strengthen that response (a situation that produces satisfaction) are more effective than
mere repetition of the response
- he later reexamined the law of effect and the results revealed that rewarding a response did indeed
strengthen it, but punishing a response did not produce a comparable negative effect, he revised his views
greater emphasis on reward than on punishment
-He laid the foundation for behaviorism

Ivan Pavlov
- his work on learning helped to shift associationism from its traditional emphasis on subjective ideas to
objective and quantifiable physiological events such as glandular secretions and muscular movements.
-As a result, his work provided watson with a method for studying behavior and for attempting to control
and modify it
- he worked on three major problems:
1. The function of the nerves of the heart
2. The Primary digestive glands
3. The study of conditioned reflexes
Conditioned reflexes - reflexes that are conditional or dependent on the formation of an association or
connection between stimulus and response
Psychic reflexes (original term for conditioned reflexes)- the arousement by stimuli other than the original
stimuli
- he focused initially on the mentalist experiences of his laboratory animals like the dog and in time dropped
such mentalistic references in favor of a more objective descriptive approach
- in his book ,Conditioned Reflexes, he gave credit to rene descartes for developing the idea of the reflex(
nervous reflex)
Innate or unconditioned reflex - natural reflexive response in which no learning is necessary to occur - the
dog's response of salivating when food is placed in its mouth is a natural reflexive response of the
digestive system
Conditional reflex - salivating at the sight of food is not reflexive and must be learned because it was
conditional or dependent on the dog's forming an association or connection between the sight of food and
the subsequent eating of it- conditioned reflex remains the accepted term
Stimuli - buzzers
- he designed the tower of silence which was a three-storey research building
Reinforcement - necessary for learning to take place - something that increases the likelihood of a
response
-He demonstrated that higher mental processes in animal subjects could be described in physiological
terms without any mention of consciousness. - His conditioning methods have had broad practical
applications in areas such as behavior therapy.
- his research also influenced psychology's shift toward greater objectivity in subject matter and method
and reinforced the trend toward functional impractical applications
- he continued in the tradition of mechanism and atomism, views that shaped the new psychology from its
beginnings
- to him, all animals whether his laboratory dogs or human beings war machines
- his conditioning techniques provided psychology with a basic element of behavior, a workable concrete
unit to which complex human behavior could be reduced and experimented on under laboratory conditions.
Watson recognize this unit of behavior and made it the core of his program. Pavlov noted that he was
pleased with watson's work and that the growth of behaviorism in the united states represented a
confirmation of his ideas and methods

E. B. Twitmeyer - concerned with knee - jerk reflex

Alois Kreidl- an austrian physiologist who demonstrated the basic principles of conditioning in 1896
- experimented with goldfish which learn to anticipate feedings from the stimuli associated with the
laboratory attendant walking toward the tank
- but his main interests was process of sensation

- Joseph Wolfe - founder of behavior therapy

- he called pavlov's conditioning principles essential to the development of his methods

Vladimir M. Bekhterev
- important figure in the development of animal psychology in that he helped lead the field away from
subjective ideas toward objectively observed overt behavior.
- he founded the psychoneurological institute in 1907
- his interest was the motor conditioning response whereas pavlov's conditioning research focused almost
exclusively on glandular secretions
- he applied pavlov's conditioning principles to the muscles
- his basic discoveries were the associated reflexes - reflexes that can be elicited not only by unconditioned
stimuli but also by stimuli that have become associated with the unconditioned stimuli - revealed through
his study of motor responses- he found that reflexive movements, such as withdrawing one's finger from
the source of an electric shock- could be elicited not only by the unconditioned stimulus( the electric shock)
but also by the stimuli that had become associated with the original stimulus. For example, a buzzer
sounded at the same time of the shock soon brought about by itself the withdrawal of the finger
- the associationists explain such connections in terms of mental processes, but he considered the
reactions to be reflexive
- he believed that higher-level behaviors of greater complexity could be explained in the same way, that is,
as an accumulation or compounding of lower level motor reflexes. Thought processes were similar in that
today depended on interactions of the speech musculature, an idea later adopted by watson
- he argued for a completely objective approach to psychological phenomena and against the use of
mentalistic terms and concepts
- he described ideas in the book, Objective Psychology, published in 1907

- animal psychology soon was to become a model for behaviorism who's leader watson preferred animal to
human subjects for his psychological research watson made the findings and techniques of the animal
psychologist the foundation of a science of behavior applicable to animals and humans alike
- another direct antecedent of behaviorism was functionalism
- a preference for defining psychology as the science of behavior rather than as an attempt to describe
consciousness

Chapter 10 - behaviorism: The beginning

The psychologist, the baby, and the hammer

John B. Watson- founder of behaviorism

- after watson struck the bar initially, albert(baby) reacted fearfully. This gave watson an unconditioned
emotional response with which to work. He wanted to find out if he could produce he wanted to find out if
he could produce in albert a conditioned emotional response - such as fear of a white rat that he had not
previously been afraid of - by pairing the sight of the rat with the loud startling noise. In no more than 7
pairings of the white rat with the noise, the child showed fear everytime he spotted the rat, even when the
bar had not been struck behind his head
- watson concluded that are our adult fears must therefore be simple conditioned emotional responses that
were established in infancy and childhood and that stayed

The methods of behaviorism

1. Observation with and without the use of instruments
2. Testing methods
3. The verbal report method
4. The conditioned reflex method

The subject matter of behaviorism - the primary subject matter for watson's behavioral psychology was the
elements of behavior, that is, the body's muscular movements and glandular secretions

Watson treated three major topics: instincts, emotions, and thoughts

Instincts
- behaviors governed by factors such as instincts could not be modified, whereas behaviour dependent on
learning or training could

Emotions
- to watson, oceans were merely physiological responses to specific stimuli. Emotion-is a form of implicit
behavior in which internal reactions are evident in physical manifestations such as increased pulse rate
from a person suddenly threatening you
Thought processes
- the traditional view of thought processes was that they occurred in the brain so faintly that no neural
impulse passes out over the motor nerve to the muscle hence no response takes place in the muscles and
glands. According to this theory because thought processes occur in the absence of muscular movements ,
they are not accessible to observation and experimentation. - was regarded intangible
- watson's behaviorist system attempted to reduce thinking 2 implicit motor behavior
- he suggested that the focal points for much of this implicit behavior are the muscles of the tongue and the
larynx voice box

Karl Lashley- 2 principles:

Law of mass action- the efficiency of learning is a function of the total mass of cortical tissue
Principle of equipotentiality- the idea that one part of the cerebral cortex is essentially equal to another in its
contribution to learning

William McDougall- is known for his instinct theory of behavior and four the impetus his book on social
psychology gave to that area
- his instinct theory states that human behavior derives from innate tendencies to thought and action

Chapter 11: Behaviorism after the founding

Three stages of behaviorism

1. Watson's behaviorism
2. Neobehaviorism (includes the work of Tolman, Hull, and Skinner)
3. Neo-neobehaviorism or sociobehaviorism (includes the work of Bandura and Rotter and is distinguished
by a return to the consideration of cognitive processes while maintaining a focus on the observation of
overt behavior)

Operationism- doctrine that a physical concept can be defined in precise terms related to the set of
operations or procedures by which it is determined
- the purpose of operation ism, major characteristic of neobehaviorism, was to render the language and
terminology of science more objective and precise and to read science of psuedo problems
- holds that the validity of any scientific finding or theoretical construct depends on the validity of the
operations used in arriving at that finding
- promoted by Percy Bridgman

Edward Chace Tolman

- developed the term purposive behaviorism - which is his system combining the objective study of
behavior with the consideration of purposiveness or goal orientation in behavior
- he argued that purposiveness in behavior can be defined in objective behavioral terms without resorting
to introspection or reports about how one may feel about an experience
- he said behavior is oriented toward achieving a goal or learning the means to an end
- he listed five independent variables as causes of behavior: Environmental stimuli, physiological drives,
heredity, previous training, and age
Intervening variables - unobserved and inferred factors within the organism that are the actual
determinants of behavior- these factors are internal processes that connect the stimulus situation with the
observed response
- he called learned relationships ”sign Gesalts" and posited that they are built up by the continued
performance of a task
- he is recognized as a forerunner of contemporary cognitive psychology

Clark Leonard Hull

- he described his behaviorism and his image of human nature in mechanistic terms and regarded human
behavior as automatic and capable of being reduced to the language of physics
- he noted four methods he considered useful for scientific research: Simple Observation, systematic
controlled observation, experimental testing of hypothesis, and hypothetico - deductive method - his
method for establishing postulates from which experimental a testable conclusions can be deduced- which
uses deduction from a set of formulations that are determined priori
Drives-
-to hull, the basis of motivation was a state of bodily need that arose from a deviation from optimal
biological conditions. Drive- defined as a stimulus arising from a state of tissue need that arouses or
activates behavior
- two types of drive: Primary drives - includes basic needs
Learned or secondary drives - relate the situations or environmental stimuli associated with the reduction of
primary drives and so may become drives themselves
- a simple example involves touching a hot stove and getting burned. The painful burn, caused by actual
physical damage to the body's tissues produces a primary drive - the desire for relief from the pain. Other
environmental stimuli associated with this primary drive, such as the site of the stove, me in the future
quickly lead to withdrawing the hand when this visual stimulus is perceived. The site of the stove becomes
the stimulus for the learned drive of fear
- his learning theory focuses on the principle of reinforcement, which is essentially thorndike's law of effect.
Law of primary reinforcement - states that when a stimulus response relationship is followed by a reduction
in need, the probability increases that on subsequent occasions the same stimulus will evoke the same
response. - when a stimulus response relationship is followed by a reduction in a bodily need , the
probability increases that on subsequent occasions the same stimulus will evoke the same response
-Reward or reinforcement is defined not in terms of thorndike's notion of satisfaction but rather in terms of
reducing a primary need, primary reinforcement (the reduction of a primary drive) is fundamental to his
theory of learning
- stimulus response connections are strengthened by the number of reinforcements that have occurred. He
called the strength of the stimulus response connection habit strength - it is a function of reinforcement and
refers to the persistence of the conditioning - the strength of the stimulus response connection a function of
the number of reinforcements
- learning cannot take place in the absence of reinforcement, which is necessary to bring about a reduction
of the drive. This emphasis on reinforcement characterizes his system as a need reduction theory as
opposed to tolman's cognitive theory

B. F. Skinner
Operant conditioning- a learning situation that involves behavior admitted by an organism rather than
elicited by a detectable stimulus
Law of acquisition - the strength of an Operant behavior is increased when it is followed by the presentation
of a reinforcing stimulus
Reinforcement schedules - conditions involving various rates end times of reinforcement
Successive Approximation - an explanation for the acquisition of complex behavior. Behaviors such as
learning to speak will be reinforced only as they come to approximate or approach the final desired
behavior
Behavior modification - the use of positive reinforcement to control or modify the behavior of individuals or
groups

Sociobehaviorism: The cognitive challenge

Albert Bandura
- develop the social cognitive theory
- his research focus was to observe the behavior of human subjects in interaction. He did not use intro
section, and he emphasized the importance of rewards or reinforcement in acquiring and modifying
behavior
- his system is cognitive, he stressed the influence on external reinforcement schedules of such thought
processes as beliefs, expectations, and instructions
-in his view, behavioral responses are not automatically triggered in humans by external stimuli, as with a
machine or a robot
-Vicarious reinforcement - his notion that learning can occur by observing the behavior of other people, and
the consequences of their behavior, rather than by always experiencing reinforcement personally
-Self efficacy-one's sense of self esteem and competence in dealing with life's problems
-his purpose in developing a social cognitive approach to behaviorism was to change or modify those
behaviors society considers abnormal or undesirable
-he reasoned that if all behaviors are learned by observing other people and modeling our behavior on
theirs, then undesirable behaviors can be altered or relearned in the same way
-he focused on externals like skinner on the behavior itself and not on any presumed internal conscious or
unconscious conflict

Julian Rotter
-first psychologist to use the term "social learning theory"
-he developed a cognitive form of behaviorism, which like Bandura's, includes reference to internal
subjective experiences
-he emphasized cognitive processes to a greater extent than Bandura
-he believed that we perceive ourselves as conscious beings capable of influencing the experiences that
affect our lives. Our behavior is determined by external stimuli and by the reinforcement they provide, but
the relative influence of these two factors is mediated by our cognitive processes

4 principles that govern behaviorial outcomes

• We form subjective expectations of the outcomes or results of our behavior in terms of
the amount and kind of reinforcement likely to follow it.
• We estimate the likelihood that behaving in a certain way leads to a specific rein-
forcement and adjust our behavior accordingly.
• We place different values on different reinforcers and assess their relative worth for
different situations.
• Because each of us functions in a psychological environment that is unique to us as
individuals, the same reinforcement can have different values for different people.
Thus, to Rotter, our subjective expectations and values, which are internal cognitive
states, determine the effects that different external experiences (different external stimuli
and reinforcers) will have on us.
Locus of control: Rot-
ter’s idea about the
perceived source of
reinforcement. Internal
locus of control is the
belief that reinforce-
ment depends on one’s
own behavior; external
locus of control is the
belief that reinforce-
ment depends on out-
side forces.

Although the cognitive challenge to behaviorism from within succeeded in modifying the behaviorist
movement we have followed from Watson through Skinner, it is important to remember that Bandura,
Rotter, and the other neo-neobehaviorists who support thecognitive approach still consider themselves
behaviorists. We may call them methodological behaviorists because they invoke internal cognitive
processes as part of psychology’s
subject matter, whereas radical behaviorists believe psychology must study only overt behavior and
environmental stimuli, not any presumed internal states. Watson and Skinner were radical behaviorists.
Hull, Tolman, Bandura, and Rotter can be classified as methodological behaviorists.