Behaviorism

Question 1

The paper that formally initiated the behaviorist movement:

Answer 1

“Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It” (Watson, 1913)

Question 2

The historical trend towards behaviorism:

Answer 2

The Ionian physicists and Hippocrates (human activity as mechanical reactions reducible to biological of physical causes); the French sensationalists Condillac (sensory reductionism) & La Mettrie (mechanical physiology); Lock’s mental passivity - a mind dependent on the environment.

Question 3

The Russian reflexologists:

Answer 3

Ivan Mikhailovich Sechenov (1829-1905) - the founder of modern Russian physiology; Vladimir Mikhailovich Bekhterev (1857-1927) - the term ‘reflexology’, Pavlov’s main rival; and Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (1849 - 1936)

Question 4

Who founded the St. Petersburg Psychoneurological Institute?

Answer 4

Vladimir Mikhailovich Bekhterev (1907)

Question 5

‘Objective Psychology’

Answer 5

Bekhterev’s 1910 book, bringing reflexology wider acceptance and a wider audience.

Question 6

What is the optimal relationship between the conditioned and unconditioned stimuli?

Answer 6

Making use of the anticipatory reflex response, ‘delayed conditioning’ involves the presentation of the CS just prior to the US.

Question 7

An important researcher; a precursor to Watsonian behaviorism:

Answer 7

Edward Lee Thorndike (1874-1949) - American Connectionism; animal intelligence, trial-and-error learning and accidental success.

Question 8

Thorndike’s two basic principles of learning:

Answer 8

The law of exercise - associations are strengthened by repetition and dissipated by disuse. The law of effect - reward strengthens associations, whereas punishment results in the subject’s moving to another response, rather than weakening the association.

Question 9

“The Battle of Behaviorism” was a debate between …

Answer 9

J.B. Watson and William McDougall

Question 10

List four early American behaviorists and their contributions:

Answer 10

Edwin B. Holt (1873-1946) - behavior with purpose, understood from patterns of behavior - behavioral act;
Albert P. Weiss (1870-1931) - psychology is best understood as a biosocial interaction.
Walter S. Hunter (1889-1954) - anthroponomy; problem-solving behavior in mammals.
Karl S. Lashley (1890-1958) - physiological psychologist; did not equate the physiological and the psychological.

Question 11

The Vienna Circle of Logical Positivists were followers of…

Answer 11

Ernst Mach

Question 12

Who first made the distinction between type I (Pavlovian) conditioning and type II (response-dependent reward or avoidance of punishment)?

Answer 12

Jerzy Konorski and Stefan Miller, two young medical students at the University of Warsaw.

Question 13

Konorski’s last systematic contribution.

Answer 13

“Integrative Activity of the Brain”(1967) - a complete synthesis of Sherrington’s neurology and Pavlov’s reflexology.

Question 14

Who extended Pavlovian reflexology to higher mental functions but insisted that the reductionism of the materialistic methodology must not obscure the complexity of human mental activity?

Answer 14

L.S. Vygotsky (1896-1934)

Question 15

Vygotsky’s most famous student.

Answer 15

A.L. Luria (1902-1977)

Question 16

Luria’s four stages in the developmental process of speech functions:

Answer 16

activity initiation, activity inhibition, external regulation, internal regulation. Internal speech was the foundation of the thought process.

Question 17

Four American behaviorists from the theory-building phase of behaviorism after the 1930s.

Answer 17

Edwin R. Guthrie (1886-1959) - Contiguity theory
Clark L. Hull (1884-1952) - Hipotheticodeductive Theory
Edward C. Tolman (1886-1959) - Cognitive Behaviorism
B.F. Skinner (1904-1990) - Radical Positivism

Question 18

Contiguity theory

Answer 18

Guthrie - an associationistic theory - contiguity is the foundation of learning. Behavior was viewed in terms of movement rather than response (behavioral acts)

Question 19

The Hypotheticodeductive Theory

Answer 19

Clark L. Hull (following Euclidian geometry, a behavior principle or formulation is first deduced from postulates and then rigorously tested)

• the notion of ‘intervening variables’ - unobtrusive entities employed by psychologists to account for observable behavior (a consideration for organismic factors)
• the basic procedure in which learning occurs is contiguity of stimulus and response under conditions of reinforcement (Thorndike’s law of effect + Pavlovian conditioning)

Question 20

sEr = sHr x D + V + K - I - sOr

Answer 20

Habit strength times Drive produces Reaction potential (sEr) - ‘the tendency to produce some reaction under the effect of the stimulus.’ The rest are intervening variables.

Question 21

Some of Hull’s important intervening variables.

Answer 21

I - inhibitory factors resulting from fatigue or boredom
V - stimulus magnitude
K - the magnitude of reinforcement
sOr - oscillating momentary threshold of reaction for an individual subject

Question 22

Tolman’s Cognitive Behaviorism

Answer 22

• ‘Purposive Behavior in Animals and Men’ (1932)
• molar as opposed to molecular behavior - a complete unified act
• used mental isomorhism (from Gestalt) to describe the central product of learning - the acquisition of field maps that exist in the brain as cognitive representations of the learned environment.

Question 23

Skinner’s Radical Positivism

Answer 23

• “Are Theories of Learning Really Necessary?” (1950)
• a return to the study of behavior defined in terms of peripheral events.
• variability arises from environmental differences, not from individual differences of the organism

Question 24

Which behaviorist wrote the novel ‘Walden II’, which sold more than 2 mln copies?

Answer 24

B.F. Skinner

Question 25

The historical antecedents of Skinner’s views.

Answer 25

Condillac, the German zoologist Jacques Loeb, who taught Watson and suggested a theory of animal tropism.

Question 26

The Markov Model of acquisition processes.

Answer 26

Acquisition in this model is viewed as a chain process, and each stage of the process may be modified by the effect of a previous trial or stage in the chain. Sampling probabilities associated with each element change from stage to stage.

Question 27

The three Neo-Hullians:

Answer 27

Kenneth W. Spence (1907-1967) - explained discrimination learning; the role and the assessment of anxiety in learning.
Neal Miller (1909-2002) - research with Dollard on frustration and conflict; relationship between reinforcement mechanisms and the control of autonomic behavior.
O. Hobart Mowrer (1907-1982) - helped prepare the emergence of behavior modification by applying the principles of incremental/decremental reinforcement

Question 28

Probabilistic functionalism

Answer 28

Egon Brunswik (1903-1955) - perceptual constancy despite distortions through a series of relative self-initiated adaptive compromises. He held that adaptations in perceptual and behavioral situations are relative and definable in terms of probabilities.

Question 29

Cognitive Dissonance

Answer 29

Leon Festinger (1919-1990) - contrasting objectives within a person’s value system result in discomfort that must be resolved by adapting behavioral strategies to reduce the dissonance.

Question 30

The book that unleashed contemporary behavior modification:

Answer 30

‘Psychotherapy by Reciprocal Inhibition’ (1958) - Joseph Wolpe