Chapter 9: Behaviourism A History of Psychology (3rd Edition) John G. Benjafield

Ivan P. Pavlov (1849 – 1936) Set out to become a priest –Abandoned idea after reading a Russian translation of Darwin 1883: became a medical doctor 1904: awarded Nobel Prize –Work on the physiology of the digestive system

Pavlov’s Animals Early career: –Often took his animals home because of a lack of facilities at the university Later career: –Constructed an Institute of Experimental Medicine in St Petersburg (1891)

Conditioned Reflexes I.M. Sechenov (1829 – 1905): Cerebral Reflexes –Proposed that mental life should be understood entirely in physiological terms –Reflex is the appropriate unit of explanation Pavlov dissociated himself from the psychology of the time

Conditioned Reflexes Unconditioned reflexes –The same response always occurs in the presence of the same stimulus Unconditioned Stimulus Conditioned Stimulus Conditioned Response Unconditioned Response

Facts: Conditioning A conditioned response is usually smaller in magnitude than an unconditioned one Extinction: The CR will eventually cease if the CS is repeatedly presented alone Spontaneous recovery: A previously extinguished CR may return after a period of rest

Speech Higher-order conditioning: A second CS is paired with a CS that has already been established Primary signalling system: consists largely of sensory stimuli Secondary signalling system: consists largely of words –Words name primary signals

Temperaments and Psychopathology Fundamental cortical processes: –Excitation –Inhibition Temperaments arranged on a scale: –Choleric (extremely excitatory) –Sanguine –Phlegmatic –Melancholic (extremely inhibitory)

Vivisection and Anti-vivisectionism Vivisection: the dissection of live animals Anti-vivisectionism: the movement against the use of live animals in research

Vladimir M. Bekhterev (1857 – 1927) Reflexology: attempt to explain all behaviour, from the individual to the social, in terms of the reflex concept Developed a technique for studying associated motor reflexes in both dogs and humans

John B. Watson (1878 – 1958) 1899: graduated from Furman University Graduate student at University of Chicago –Impressed by Jacques Loeb (1859 – 1924) –1903: doctoral dissertation in animal psychology 1908: Faculty at Johns Hopkins University

‘Psychology as the Behaviourist Views It’ Published in 1913 Challenged psychologists to change virtually every aspect of their discipline: –Not a study of consciousness –Study human behaviour in same way as animal behaviour

Habits Behaviorism (1939): humans are unique because of the variety of habits they can form through conditioning 1. Visceral (emotional) habits 2. Manual habits 3. Laryngeal (verbal) habits

Emotional Habits Can only study emotion via very young children Innate emotional responses: fear, rage, love Little Albert study –Produced conditioned emotional reactions in an 11-month-old infant

Manual Habits = the entire range of muscular responses Manual habits form through repetition –Formation permits smooth transition from one situation to the next Watson advocated distributed practice to acquire skills (vs. massed practice)

Verbal Habits Thought same as internal speech Verbal habits constitute thinking Speech is a serially-ordered behaviour

Watson’s Second Career Following second marriage (to Rosalie Rayner), Watson worked for: –J. Walter Thompson advertising agency –William Esty & Co. Watson transferred principles of conditioning to advertising

Karl S. Lashley (1890 – 1958) Undergraduate at University of West Virginia PhD at Johns Hopkins –Under Herbert S. Jenings Postdoctoral studies with Watson

Cortical Localization of Function 1916: Lashley studied with Shepherd Ivory Franz –Ablation: technique by which parts of the cortex are destroyed and the results observed –Studied the effects of ablation on the frontal lobes in rats 1917: moved to University of Minnesota

Brain Mechanisms and Intelligence Law of mass action: learning and memory depend on the total mass of brain tissue remaining Law of equipotentiality: within limits, any part of an area can do the job of any other part of that area

The Problem of Serial Order in Behaviour Criticized Watson’s associative chain theory –Priming of responses –Spoonerisms

B.F. Skinner (1904 – 1990) ‘... behaviour which seemed to be the product of mental activiy could be explained in other ways.’ Consciousness = a form of behaviour

The Behavior of Organisms Published in 1938 Respondent behaviour: elicited by a known stimulus Operant behaviour: no known eliciting stimulus –Studied by means of a Skinner box

The Behavior of Organisms Behaviour regulated by Three-term Contingencies: –Environment provides a stimulus situation –Which elicits a response –Which is followed by a reinforcing stimulus Reward or punishment –Negative reinforcement ≠ punishment

A Case History in Scientific Method Published in 1956 Discussed the ways in which Skinner made discoveries –Applied the principles of his psychology to his own creativity Ex. ‘When you run into something interesting, drop everything else and study it’ Ex. ‘Apparatuses sometimes break down’

The ‘Baby Tender’ Air crib = ‘Baby tender’ Built for his second daughter Wrote about the innovation in the popular press –‘Baby in a box’

Teaching Machines Typical classroom: reinforcement only when the child does the work required to avoid punishment Skinner suggested: reinforce students for each response in a sequence that gradually builds up

Skinner’s Utopian and Dystopian Views Walden Two (1948) –Utopian novel of a community regulated by positive reinforcement –Received mixed reviews Skinner increasingly discussed the dystopian features of modern life in the West –Dystopia: a society that is the opposite of a Utopia