PS210 History of Psychology Unit 7 Nichola Cohen Ph.D.

What were the 3 stages in the evolution of behaviorism?

 Watson’s behaviorism  Psychology dealing with observable behavioral acts  Things should be described in terms of stimulus and response  Rejected consciousness  Neo-behaviorism ( )  Includes work of Tolman, Hull and Skinner  Neo-neobehaviorism/Sociobehaviorism ( )  Includes work of Bandura and Rotter

Neo-behaviorism  Tolman, Hull and Skinner agreed on 3 key points  (1) The core of Psychology should be to study learning  (2) Most behavior can be accounted for by the laws of conditioning  (3) Psychology must adopt the principle of operationalism  A physical concept can be defined by the operations or procedures by which it is determined  To rid Psychology of pseudo-problems  Problems that are not actually observable or that can’t be physically demonstrated

Skinner  Dealt only with observable behavior  Psychology should be about stimulus-response  Operant conditioning  Learning that occurs as a result of a behavior emitted by an organism  Skinner box  Law of acquisition  The strength of behavior increases when it is followed by the presentation of a reinforcer

Skinner  Reinforcement schedules  Conditions involving various rates and times of reinforcement  Fixed interval schedule

Skinner  Reinforcement schedules  Conditions involving various rates and times of reinforcement  Fixed interval schedule  Subjects are reinforced after a certain interval (e.g. once per minute).  The shorter the time interval between reinforcers, the more rapidly the animals responded  Behaviors are eliminated more quickly when they have been reinforced continuously and the reinforcement is stopped, compared to intermittent reinforcement  Fixed ratio schedule

Skinner  Reinforcement schedules  Conditions involving various rates and times of reinforcement  Fixed interval schedule  Subjects are reinforced after a certain interval (e.g. once per minute).  The shorter the time interval between reinforcers, the more rapidly the animals responded  Behaviors are eliminated more quickly when they have been reinforced continuously and the reinforcement is stopped, compared to intermittent reinforcement  Fixed ratio schedule  Reinforcer presented after a predetermined number of responses (e.g. every 3 responses)  Animals on a fixed ratio schedule respond quicker than animals on a fixed interval schedule

How did Skinner explain the acquisition of complex behavior?

 Successive approximation  Complex behavior (such as learning to talk) gets reinforced when the behavior starts to approach the final desired behavior

How did Skinner explain the acquisition of complex behavior?  Successive approximation  Complex behavior (such as learning to talk) gets reinforced when the behavior starts to approach the final desired behavior 

Where do we see Skinner’s principles used today?

 To change undesirable behaviors to desirable ones  Prisons – tokens to reward positive behavior  Classrooms – gold stars for good behavior  Workforce motivation

Albert Bandura  Social Cognitive theory

Albert Bandura  Social Cognitive theory  Focus on observing behavior of humans in interaction  Emphasized the importance of rewards in acquiring or modifying behavior  Stressed the influence of beliefs, expectations and instructions on reinforcement  Did not think behavioral responses were mechanistic, but reactions to stimuli are self-activated. When a reinforcer alters behavior, it is because the person is consciously aware of the response and anticipates receiving the same reinforcer the next time  He thought that some behaviors can be learned without direct reinforcement  Vicarious reinforcement  Observing how other people behave and seeing the consequences of their behavior.

How did Bandura approach b e h a v i o r a l m o d i f i c a t i o n ?

 Modelling techniques – have subjects observe a model in a behavior that usually causes them some anxiety  His approach is widely used and has been shown to be very effective in eliminating phobias and anxiety  His approach has also been adapted for radio and TV to address social problems (e.g. unwanted pregnancies)  Highly effective technique for increasing desirable behaviors such as safe sex practices. How did Bandura approach b e h a v i o r a l m o d i f i c a t i o n ?

What is Gestalt Psychology?

 The basic premise is the whole  Things should not be studied by breaking them down, rather, things should be studied by viewing them for what they are  “The whole is greater than the sum of it’s parts”

What is Gestalt Psychology?  The basic premise is the whole  Things should not be studied by breaking them down, rather, things should be studied by viewing them for what they are  “The whole is greater than the sum of it’s parts”  When individual elements are combined they take on new meaning

What is Gestalt Psychology?  The basic premise is the whole  Things should not be studied by breaking them down, rather, things should be studied by viewing them for what they are  “The whole is greater than the sum of it’s parts”  When individual elements are combined they take on new meaning  “There is more to perception than meets the eye”  People perceive things differently based on prior experience

Principles of perceptual organization  How we put things in our environment together to understand them  How does our mind work to take all the shapes and color we see in our environment and make sense of it all?

Principle of proximity  Things that are close together appear to belong together

Principle of continuity  We tend to follow things in a direction that makes them seem flowing

Principle of closure  We have a tendency to complete incomplete figures

Principle of Figure/Ground  We tend to separate things into the object and the background

Gestalt Psychology and Learning  cI&feature=related cI&feature=related

Gestalt Psychology and Learning  cI&feature=related cI&feature=related  Here we saw a chimp solve a complex problem through insight learning  The movement was planned and deliberate  Insight means the spontaneous understanding of relationships  The chimp had to view the environment as a whole to solve the problem