Transcript Ch09zz

Toward a Science of Behavior
• Background
– 2nd decade of 20th century: disagreement
within psychology
• On value of introspection
• On existence of mental elements
• On the need to remain a pure (unapplied)
science
– Functionalism movement was
evolutionary, not revolutionary
Attack of the Behaviorists
– Protest against both structuralism and
functionalism
– Deliberately abrupt
– Designed to shatter the two dominant
schools
John B. Watson (1878-1958)
• Watsonian Behaviorism
– Ultra-Scientific
– Dealt solely with observable
behavioral acts
– Objective descriptions of the data
– Rejection of mentalistic concepts
and terms
– Consciousness comparable to
soul, introspection irrelevant
John B. Watson (1878-1958)
• Watson organized and
promoted already existing ideas
– Philosophical tradition of
objectivism and mechanism
– Animal psychology
– Behaviorism was a Functional
psychology
Behaviorism
• Basic ideas were not new,
philosophically speaking
– Descartes (mechanistic description of
the body)
– Comte (positivism; Emphasis on
undebatable facts)
– Positivism became part of the
zeitgeist in science
• Resulting science of behavior viewed
human beings as machines
Animal Psychology
• Behaviorism’s Background
– Watson: “Behaviorism is a direct outgrowth of
studies in animal behavior....”
– Animal psychology was a product of
evolutionary theory
• Science was willing to accept the mental
life of nonhumans..
Plant Psychology
…perhaps a little too willing.
• Alfred Binet (1889)
– The Psychic Life of MicroOrganisms (1889)
• Francis Darwin (1908)
– Consciousness in plants
Jacques Loeb (1859-1924)
• Significant step toward objectivity in
animal psychology
• Tropism or “involuntary forced
movement” as basis for theory of animal
behavior: consciousness not necessary
• Did not totally reject consciousness for
more evolved species
• It’s all about reflexes - Consciousness
revealed by associative memory which is
just a very complex association
• Taught Watson at Chicago
Tools of the Behaviorist’s Trade
• Rats, Ants, and the Animal Mind
– Robert Yerkes (Yale): Inspired by Pavlov and
strengthened comparative psychology in the U.S.
• The Dancing Mouse (1905)
– Willard S. Small
• 1900: introduced the rat maze
• Used mentalistic terms
– Charles Henry Turner
• A Preliminary Note on Ant Behavior (1906)
• May have inspired Watson’s adoption of the term
“Behaviorism”
The Death of Comparative Psychology
• Lack of funding for comparative psychologists
– Harvard president: “no future in
Yerkes's...Comparative psychology”
– His students took up applied jobs when none
available in comparative
– Margaret Floy Washburn publishes The Animal
Mind (1908) which may have been the last book
of the time to attribute mental states to animals
…and the resurrection
You can study animals, but be objective.
– 1906: Pavlov lecture reprinted in Science
– 1909: description of Pavlov’s work published by
Yerkes and Morgulis in Psychological Bulletin
– 1911: Journal of Animal Behavior (later Journal
of Comparative Psychology) published
– Objective psychology and Watson’s research
supported by Pavlov’s work
– Conscious experience disappearing from animal
psychology
Hans (Again) 1904
• Wilhelm von Osten: Animal intelligence
• Oskar Pfungst (Stumpf’s student)
Hans (Again)
• Owned by Wilhelm von Osten
– Osten’s goal: prove humans and animals have similar
mental processes
– Animals simply lack education
• After exposure, von Osten accused Hans of deceit
• Watson used this case to demonstrate the dangers of
making assumptions about the conscious operations
of the animal mind
• Hans’ “intelligence” would have been understood
immediately if it was explored according to
Behaviorist models
American Connectionism
• Edward Lee Thorndike (1874-1949)
– Educated in the U.S.
– Wanted to study child development at
Harvard with James – settled for chicks
– Finished Ph.D. with Cattell at Columbia
– Animal Intelligence (1898): First
psychology dissertation based on
nonhumans
– Eventually got back to humans and
education
Edward Lee Thorndike (1874–1949)
• Connectionism
The mind is a device that
connects…situations, elements of
situations, and compounds of
situations with…responses,
readiness to respond, facilitations,
inhibitions, and directions of
responses.
• Learning is connecting!
• A revised version of Locke’s
Associationism
Edward Lee Thorndike (1874–1949)
• Edward Lee Thorndike (1874-1949)
– Laboratory work and learning theory of
connectionism were critical antecedents
for behaviorism.
– Thorndike's work with cats and puzzle
boxes drove his formulation of the law of
exercise and the law of effect.
– He later published the truncated law of
effect that cast doubt on the effectiveness
of punishment.
Edward Lee Thorndike (1874–1949)
• Cats and Puzzle Boxes
– Trap a cat…random behavior will evolve in to a
specific behavior aimed at generating results
– Consequences led to the “stamping in” or
“stamping out” of responses (Trial-andAccidental-Success-Learning)
Edward Lee Thorndike (1874–1949)
• Law of Effect: If a behavior generates a
desired result, it will be reinforced and vise
versa
• Law of Exercise: Repetition will reinforce
behavior ONLY of results are generated
– Practice is not enough
– Punishment may be ineffective!
– (This doesn’t mean learning isn’t happening!)
Edward Lee Thorndike (1874–1949)
• Moved from animals to education
• His work supported the identical
elements transfer theory over the
doctrine of formal discipline.
– DFD: “Latin will improve your
ability to study all subjects.”
– IETT: “Mental exercises are fine, but
if you want to understand algebra,
study math!”
Edward Lee Thorndike (1874–1949)
• After Thorndike
– Decreased role of consciousness
– Increased focus on experimental
method
– Mechanism: behavior reduced to
S-R elements
Talk is Cheap
• “…I must acknowledge that the honor of having
made the first steps along this path belongs to
E.L. Thorndike. By two or three years his
experiments preceded ours…”
– Pavlov, 1928
Ivan Petrovitch Pavlov (1849-1936)
• In general
– His work helped shift of
associationism from
subjective ideas to
objective physiological
responses
– Provided Watson with a
new method
Ivan Petrovitch Pavlov (1849-1936)
• Pavlov’s life
– Intended to study for the priesthood
– Read about Darwin, chose to study animal
physiology
– Member of Russian (and soviet)
intelligentsia
– Total dedication to research
– 1890: professor of pharmacology at St.
Petersburg, Russia
– 1904 nobel prize for work on digestion
Russian Physiologists
Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936)
• Shifted from physiology to psychology
with research into psychical reflex
(classical conditioning).
• Variations of classical conditioning:
- US, UR, CS, CR
• Evaluated the processes of extinction,
spontaneous recovery, disinhibition,
stimulus generalization, discrimination
etc.
Experimental Control
• The tower of silence
– Pavlov concerned about outside influences
affecting his results
– Controlled for such influences by designing
special cubicles for dog and for experimenter
– Dog could not see experimenter
• Painstaking research
– Standardized experimental conditions
– Rigorous controls
– Elimination of sources of error
Pavlov
• Later work focused on experimental neurosis.
• Assaulted the nervous system of dogs and studied
their responses.
• Ultramaximal inhibition, a state of protective shock
with three different aftereffects:
– Equivalent phase – same saliva, regardless of stimulus
– Paradoxical phase – less triggers more and vise versa
– Ultraparadoxical phase – attracted to negative stimuli
and repulsed by positive stimuli (human conversion
experiences?).
Pavlov
• Nobel prize in 1904
– The conditioned response is
the basic unit of Behaviorism
– Work still stands due to
meticulous experimental
technique
Tower of Silence
• Declared intellectual war on
Köhler and Gestalt psychology
Where’s my Prize?
• E.B. Twitmyer
– U. Penn
– 1902: dissertation on
reflexes
– 1904: presentation at APA
• Topic: knee-jerk reflex
• Findings: Conditioned
Knee-Jerk reflex
Twitmyer’s Experiment
Animal Rights
• Reflexology, Behaviorism and
Animals
– SPCA: England 1824
– ASPCA: U.S. 1866
• Pavlov, Darwin, and James all
advocated “humane” use of animals
Summary of Pavlov
– Demonstrated study of higher mental processes in
physiological terms
– Broad practical applicability
– Continued the tradition of mechanism and atomism
– Provided psychology with a basic element of
behavior
– Behavior could be reduced to elements and studied
in experimental laboratory