Early Influences on Behaviorism

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Early Influences on Behaviorism

• Towards a Science of Behavior

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The Early Years Behavorism Animal Psychology

• By the 1920s psychologists had rejected
  introspection as a scientific method, the
  existence of mental elements, and the need for
  psychology to be a pure science.
• Functionalism and applied psychology dominated
  American psychology
• In 1913 John B. Watson set out to deliberately
  challenge both structuralism and functionalism.
• Watson received his Ph.D. in 1903 from James
  Angell at the University of Chicago, also studied
  with John Dewey.
• the the study of scientific psychology should
  concern itself only with behavioral acts that
  could be described objectively

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The Early Years Behaviorism Animal Psychology

• consciousness mind could never be proved
  objectively, therefore studying consciousness has
  no value.
• rejected the study of all mentalistic concepts
  and terms like images, consciousness, and mind.
• Introspection is therefore useless for studying
  behavior.
• These basic ideas were not necessarily new.
• The times were also ripe for the development of a
  new psychology that focused only on observable
  behavior.
• The three major factors that contributed were the
  philosophies of Mechanism Positivism,
  Functional Psychology, and early Animal
  Psychology.

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Animal Intelligence

• Physiologists had long found it of interest to
  compare similarities in body function between
  animals and human beings.
• Two early psychologists George John Romanes
  (1848-1894), and C. Loyd Morgan (1852-1936)
  studied animal minds, using observational
  techniques as opposed to experimental techniques.
• The first true investigator of animal
  intelligence using experimental techniques was
  Jacques Loeb (1859-1924).
• Loeb developed a theory of animal behavior based
  on trophism, or involuntary movement.
• Loeb believed animal reactions to stimulus were
  direct and automatic, thus behavioral response
  was said to be forced by the stimulus and did not
  require any consciousness explanation.
• Animal memory was said to develop through
  associationism (e.g. associative memory)

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Margaret Floy Washburn (1871-1939)

• Titcheners first doctoral student.
• came to Cornell after being denied admission to
  Columbia Universities graduate program.
• first woman to receive a doctorate in psychology
  and the second woman president of the American
  Psychological Association.
• Washburn went on to a distinguished career at
  Vassar College where she became the second woman
  in any science ever elected to the National
  Academy of Sciences

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Margaret Floy Washburn (1871-1939)

• concerned with the inference of consciousness in
  animals.
• wrote the first important book on comparative
  psychology, Animal Mind, in 1908.
• She published hundreds of experiments on animals
  that included sensory discriminations, spatially
  determined reactions, and modification by
  experience.
• Washburn is considered by many scholars to be the
  first comparative psychologist

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Robert Yerkes (1876-1956)

• the most prominent of the early comparative
  psychologists.
• eventually referred to as the dean of
  comparative psychology
• He published his first paper on the effects of
  light on freshwater crustacean in 1899
• The first journal of research with animals the
  Journal of Animal Behavior was not published
  until 1911.
• The problems of paying for, keeping, and
  maintaining animals was an important an issue in
  the 1900s as it is today, and animal
  psychologists were often expendable because of
  the issue.

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Robert Yerkes (1876-1956)

• attended Harvard University where he took his
  degree with Hugo Munsterburg in 1899.
• at Harvard as an instructor and assistant
  professor of comparative Psychology then moved to
  the University of Minnesota.
• Yerkes would go on to an eminent career in
  psychology, eventually becoming president of the
  American Psychological Association in 1916.
• During the WW1 Years Yerkes was extremely
  important in involving psychologists in the war
  effort.

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Robert Yerkes (1876-1956)

• WW1 The Committee on the Psychological
  Examination of Recruits
• WW2 he also was the organizer of the emergency
  committee of psychologists

The Committee on the Psychological Examination of
Recruits- May, 1917
The Emergency Committee, 1940
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Edward Lee Thorndike (1874-1949)

• Thorndike was one of the most important early
  theorists in animal learning, educational
  psychology, and behavioral psychology.
• Thorndike developed the law of effect in 1898,
  several years earlier than Ivan Pavlov proposed
  his laws of reinforcement.
• Although the theories are almost identical the
  two individuals were not aware of each other for
  many years.

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Edward Lee Thorndike (1874-1949)

• Thorndike introduced to psychology at Wesleyan
  University in Connecticut, he attended Harvard
  university for his Masters degree where he
  studied with and was influenced by William James.
• He left Harvard for Columbia University in 1898,
  where he completed his doctorate under James
  Cattell in 1899.
• one of the first psychologists to complete his
  education entirely in America.
• major contributions to psychology were in the
  area of educational psychology.

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Edward Lee Thorndike (1874-1949)

• two main foci in education were 1) the
  improvement of classroom instruction and 2) the
  measurement of the learner and the products of
  learning.
• wrote three books for his own use that became
  classics in educational psychology 1) Educational
  Psychology (1903), 2) The Theory of Mental and
  Social Measurement (1904), and a three volume
  Educational Psychology (1913).
• wrote Thorndike Arithmetic's and the Teachers
  Word Book (1921) which had an enormous influence
  in American psychology and education.
• founded the Journal of Educational Psychology in
  1910.

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The Law of Effect

• referred to his approach to learning as
  connectionism, hypothesized that an organism
  learned about connections between situations and
  types of responses.
• one of the first to hypothesize that if all of
  these (responses situational variables) could
  be analyzed man could be told what would and
  would not satisfy him and annoy him in every
  conceivable situation.
• The law of effect refers to stamping in or
  stamping out a response tendency by attaching
  favorable or unfavorable consequences.
• the law of effect states any act which in a
  given situation produces satisfaction becomes
  associated with that situation, and when the
  situation reoccurs the act is more likely to
  reoccur than before.

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Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936)

• Ivan Petrovitch Pavlov born 1849 in Central
  Russia.
• son of a village priest and eldest of 11
  children.
• initially intended to enter a theological
  seminary but after reading about Darwinian
  evolution changed his mind and enrolled at the
  University of St. Petersburg to study animal
  physiology.
• He obtained his degree in 1875 and began to study
  medicine in the hopes of becoming a physiologist.
• In 1890 he received an appointment as professor
  of pharmacology at St. Petersburg Military Academy

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An early picture of Pavlov, His Staff, and
Research Apparatus
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Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936)

• worked in 3 major areas 1) The function of
  nerves on the heart, 2) the function of the
  primary digestive glands, and 3) the conditioned
  reflex.
• Although it is the last area for which he is best
  remembered, his work on the digestive glands won
  him worldwide recognition and the 1904 Nobel
  prize for medicine.
• His work on the conditioned reflex represents an
  excellent example of how significant accidents
  often play a major role in the history of
  science.

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Classical Conditioning 1
Will the dog learn to associate the arrival of
food with a neutral stimulus (e.g., a bell)?
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Classical Conditioning 2
Terms
Unconditioned Response Unconditioned
Stimulus Conditioned Response Conditioned Stimulus
UCR - drool in response to food (not learned) UCS
- food (triggers drool reflex) CR - drool in
response to sound of bell (learned) CS - sound of
bell (triggers drool reflex)
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Applications of Classical Conditioning
Is human behavior nothing more than a bunch of
conditioned behaviors?
Case of Little Albert
UCS Loud Noise CS White Rat
UCR Fear CR Fear
John Watson
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Rare Early Photos of John Watson Rosalie Rayner
Beginning Conditioning With Little Albert (1920).
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John Watson (1878-1958)
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B. F. Skinner (1904-1990)
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Skinners Experiments
Shaping Guiding current behavior toward some
desired behavior through successive approximations
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B. F. Skinner (1904-1990)
Skinner elaborated on Thorndikes Law of
Effect Rewarded behavior is likely to reoccur
External influences, not internal thoughts
feelings, govern behavior.
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Principles of Reinforcement
Reinforcer - any event that increases the
frequency of the preceding event
Positive Reinforcers Introduce ()
stimulus (e.g., food)
Negative Reinforcers Remove (-) stimulus (e.g.,
electric shock)
Reinforcers ALWAYS strengthen behavior!
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More Reinforcement
Primary Reinforcers Innately satisfying, Not
learned (e.g., getting food)
Secondary Reinforcers Associated with
primary reinforcers learned (e.g., praise)
Reinforcers ALWAYS strengthen behavior!
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Still More Reinforcement
Immediate Reinforcement Reinforce immediately
preceding behavior (e.g., nicotine)
Delayed Reinforcement Reinforcement at some
point after behavior occurs (e.g., paychecks)
Reinforcers ALWAYS strengthen behavior!
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Reinforcement Schedules
Continuous - every time behavior occurs (rare)
or Partial - not every time behavior
occurs (learning is slower but more resistant to
extinction)
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Partial Reinforcement
(a pidgeon will peck 150,000 times without reward)
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Punishment
Opposite of Reinforcement Attempts to
decrease behavior by introducing an unpleasant
punisher

• Problems With Punishment
• Behavior is not forgotten - merely suppressed
• (may reappear in other situations)
• P does not guide toward acceptable behavior
• (doesnt tell you what you should do)