Chapter 9 - Behaviorism: Antecedents Flashcards
1
Q
What’s the significance of John B. Watson?
A
- Brought about behaviourism
- Challenged the dominant psychological perspectives at the time
- Focus on actions that can be seen, heard, or touched
- Actions (or responses) are driven by stimuli rather than conscious thought
- Basic tenets were an amalgamation of ideas which had already been established (objectivism and mechanism, animal psychology, and functional psychology)
- Rejected terms such as image, sensation, mind, and consciousness
2
Q
Who were Watson’s philosophical influences?
A
- Rene Descartes (mechanistic explanations; reflex action theory)
- Auguste Comte (positivism, very influential)
3
Q
What’s the goal of animal psychology?
A
- Aimed to demonstrate the existence of the mind in animals
- Establish similarities to human mind
- Initially these were ‘anecdotal relationships’
- Then focused on experimental instead of anecdotal techniques, becoming more objective
- THE MOST IMPORTANT ANTECEDENT OF WATSON’S BEHAVIOURISM
4
Q
What were some of the difficulties of animal psychology?
A
- Not well respected in academia
- Always concerned with funding
- Poor career prospects
- Require a lot of equipment
5
Q
WHo was Jacques Loeb?
A
- Physiologist and zoologist born in Germany
- Worked at the University of Chicago
- Argued against introspection by analogy
6
Q
What was Loeb’s theory of tropism?
A
- Animal theory of behaviour based on an involuntary forced movement
- In other words, animals react to a stimulus directly and automatically
- Reactions are not tied to any sense of consciousness
- But didn’t reject consciousness outright (Watson and Skinner did reject it outright)
7
Q
Why did Loeb not completely reject the notion of consciousness?
A
- He thought animal consciousness was revealed by associative memory - animals had learned to react to certain stimuli in a desirable way (eg. calling your cat’s name and it comes)
- Watson wanted to study with Loeb. Dissuaded by others who disagreed with his viewpoints
8
Q
Who was Willard Small?
A
- First to use the rat maze to assess how rats learned of their surroundings
- Hungry rat was placed in the maze and was allowed to wander freely until it found food
- Interpreted the rat’s search behaviour using mentalistic
- Wrote about rat’s ideas and mental images
- Briefly influenced Watson (described the conscious experience of sensation in rats for his dissertation (he would later abandon this)
9
Q
Who was Charles H. Turner?
A
- An animal psychologist who studied insect behaviour, particularly of ants and honeybees
- Published an article titled “A preliminary note on ant behaviour” in 1906
- Worked as a high school teacher (he was black so he had a very hard time getting jobs)
- Watson reviewed and praised the paper and used the work behaviour for the first time in print
10
Q
Who was Margaret F. Washburn?
A
- Wrote “The Animal Mind”
- Most comprehensive overview of animal psychology, but the last to use the approach of inferring mental states from behaviour (inferred consciousness)
11
Q
Who was Wilhelm von Osten?
A
- A retired mathematics teacher who wanted to prove that animals were intelligent beings
- Tried to and unsuccessfully, tech a cat and a bear the fundamentals of human intelligence
- However, after several years, he was able to successfully(?) teach one animal
12
Q
Was Clever Hans really clever?
A
- Government investigation initially concluded that there was no trickery or deceit involved
- Oskar Pfungst was assigned to investigate further, and used an experimental approach
- Found that Hans was receiving unintentional signals from his owner
- Unknowingly conditioned to respond to subtle
- Correct responses were reinforced via carrots and sugar cubes
- This type of conditioning would soon be investigated by Skinner
13
Q
How did Clever Hans know how to respond?
A
- Pfungst set up an experiment to test this
- had questioners who knew the answers and those who didn’t. Hans could only respond correctly to questioners who knew the answer
14
Q
How did von Osten react to the news that Clever Hans wasn’t actually clever?
A
- He was devastated and angry at the news
- However did not blame Pfungst, but blamed and cursed Hans, who deceived him
- Fell sick and died of cancer two years later, blaming Hans deceit for the onset of his illness
- The new owner of Hans continued to showcase his “powers” as Pfungst findings were not widespread
15
Q
What did we learn from the Clever Hans experience?
A
- Animals are capable of learning, and we are capable of modifying their behaviour
- Applying the experimental approach to study animals is a worthwhile endeavor
- Pfungt’s report was reviewed by Watson, and further influenced him to promote a psychology dealing only with behaviour, not consciousness
16
Q
What’s the life story of Edward Lee Thorndike?
A
- American psychologist born in Williamsburg, Massachusetts
- Read WIlliam James’ Principles
- Studied under James at Harvard and researched learning
- Since he was unable to work with children, he instead trained chicks to run through mazes (wasn’t allowed to work with kids)
- Received Master’s degree from Harvard
- Moved to Columbia and continued animal psychology, received PhD in 1898
- The 1st psychology doctoral dissertation to use animal subjects
- Accepted appointment in Columbia
- To further his career in investigating learning, adapted his animal research techniques for children and adults
- Founded journal of educational psychology in 1910
- Became president of APA in 1912
- Retired in 1939, but worked until his death in 1949
- One of the first to get all hid education in the US
17
Q
What was Thorndike’s connectionism?
A
- Psychology must study observable behaviour, not mental elements
- Created a mechanistic, objective learning theory focusing on overt behaviour
- Connectionism was Thorndike’s experimental approach to learning, based on connections between situations and responses
- Behaviour must be reduced to its simplest elements: the stimulus and the response
- Was still using subjective terms (ex. satisfaction)
18
Q
What was Thorndike’s Puzzle box?
A
- Had cats observe other animals escaping from the box, compared escape times to cats who did not observe other animals
- Results were that there was no difference between the two groups
- However, noticed that after having escaped once, cats were able to escape much faster
19
Q
What type of learning did Thorndike discover with his puzzle box?
A
- Trial-and-error learning
- Learning based on the repetition of response tendencies that lead to success
- Unsuccessful response tendencies are eliminated
- Results in the s-shape of the learning curve
20
Q
What was Thorndike’s Law of Effect?
A
- Satisfactory acts in a specific situation become associated with that situation: when the situation recurs, the act is likely to recur
- Acts that produce unsatisfying results are less likely to recur in the same situation
21
Q
What was Thorndike’s law of Exercise?
A
- The more an act or response is used in a specific situation, the association between act and situation is strengthened
- The longer an association is unused, the weaker it becomes
- Also called the law of use and disuse
22
Q
What were Thorndike’s contributions to psychology?
A
- One of the most significant contributors to human and animal learning theory
- Objective, mechanistic methods used in research was an important contributor to the development and eventual founding of behaviourism
- Watson wrote that Thorndike’s research had laid the foundations for behaviourism
23
Q
What’s the life story of Ivan Pavlov?
A
- Born in Ryazan, a city in central Russia (eldest of 11 children)
- Hardships at a young age helped foster a sense of responsibility and drive hard work
- Read Darwin’s On the Origin of Species
- Attended St. Petersburg to study animal physiology, obtained degree in 1875
- Began assisting in research in St. Petersburg
- Appointed as professor of pharmacology at St. Petersburg’s Military Medical Academy at age 41
- Total dedication to research; spent his money on research rather than himself or his family
- Volatile, restless nature, tended to give into emotional outbursts
- Treated his students well, and they treated him like royalty in turn
- Allowed women and jews to study at his lab (had a good sense of humour)
- Openly opposed the soviet union (wrote protest letters)
24
Q
T/F: Pavlov was incredibly meticulous about his research methods.
A
- TRUE
- To avoid confounding variables and other sources of error, used funding to construct a lab dubbed as the Tower of Silence (a building designed to eliminate vibrations, noise, temperature extremes, odors, and drafts
- Continued to be devoted to research until his death in 1936, aged 86
25
Q
What did Pavlov initially call the conditioned reflex?
A
- Called it psychic reflex
- Credited Descartes ‘nervous reflex’
26
Q
Who was Edwin Burket Twimyer?
A
- Young American, former student of Witmer
- 1904, presented a paper at the APA conference on the knee-jerk reflex
- Had noticed a conditioned reflex to stimuli other than the knee hammer
- Created a device to deliver knee taps, paired delivery with a bell
- Study was ignored, didn’t fit the mould of the day
27
Q
What were Pavlov’s contributions to psychology?
A
- Higher mental processes could be explained without a discussion of consciousness
- Furthered a purely objective approach to psychology
- Promoted the growth of behaviourism
- Provided Watson with a method for studying behavioural modification
28
Q
What’s the life story of Vladimir M. Bekhterev?
A
- Born in Sorali, a village within the Russian Empire
- Received a degree from St. Petersburg’s Military medical academy in 1881
- Studied with Wundt at University of Leipzig
- Became a professor of mental diseases at the military medical academy
- Founded the psychoneurological institute in 1907, now called the Bekhterevpsychoneurological institute
- Research focus was on physiology, neurology, and psychiatry
- Applied Pavlov’s conditioning principles to the muscles
- Became enemies with Pavlov after the latter published a negative review on one of Bekhterev’s books
- Their enmity supposedly extended beyond research, and they were engaged in a constant struggle to expose one another’s faults
- Accepted women and Jews as students and colleagues
- Was a political radical, opposed the Russian monarchy and supported the fomration of the soviet union
- Years after fall of the Czar, he was called to examine Stalin due to his depressive symptoms, and provided a diagnosis of severe paranoia
- Bekhterev died that afternoon
29
Q
What was Bekhterev’s associated reflex?
A
- Investigated the motor conditioning response
- Research similar to Pavlov
- Reflexive movements such as withdrawing a finger from a source of electric shock could be elicited by stimuli associated with the original stimulus
30
Q
What were Bekhterev’s contributions to psychology?
A
- Supported an objective approach to psychological phenomena
- Was against the use of mentalistic concepts to explain his work
- Watson used his findings, as well as findings of other animal psychologists, as the foundation for behaviourism
31
Q
How did Watosn take advantage of the popularity of psychology of science as a behaviour?
A
- Used it to establish behaviourism.
